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[Guy Alcala]

Guy you basically rock

Well, I know it's only rock and roll . . . but I like it! Please note that the NOAA group designators are the same as the USN, SSI and NAUI groups, but are not the same as the PADI groups so can't be used with the RDP without conversion. Also, note that the chart represents the CHANGE in elevation rather than the absolute altitude, so if you're coming back from say Tahoe to the Bay Area you're only looking at an altitude change of 2,000 feet on the chart (you round your start elevation down and your max. elevation up) from Lake Tahoe (6,230) over Donner Pass (7,085) or Echo Summit (7,377). Unless you were in a fairly high group you can start back as soon as you pack up, with minimal risk.

Coming back from the East side over one of the higher passes down south can be more complicated. At an extreme level, back at the end of August Fofo Gonzalez and I did a combined hiking/diving/sightseeing trip out of Tuolumne Meadows, camping there Friday night at 8,600 feet, then the next morning hiked up to the top of Lembert dome (9,450 ft.) and back, then drove over Tioga Pass (9,941 ft.), dropped about 500 ft. then drove up to Saddlebag Lake at 10,087 and back before descending down to Lee Vining (6,700?); then up over Deadman Summit at 8,041 ft., down to Mammoth Junction at 7,300 or so, up and back to Minaret Vista at ca. 9,300, then to Convict Lake at 7,560 where we did an hour's dive down to 100'; then drove rapidly down to ca. 4,000 feet at Bishop and Big Pine before rapidly re-ascending to about 8,000 up Big Pine Creek, back down to Big Pine and Bishop, up over Sherwin (ca. 7,000) and Deadman summits before descending back down to Lee Vining via the June Lake loop, where we stopped for dinner and more off-gassing before the rapid ascent of almost 3,300 feet up to Tioga pass, and then down to Tuolumne meadows to camp again. The next morning we hiked to the top of Mt. Dana (13,050?).

I have no idea how you'd plan such a sawtooth profile using this or any other chart, so we gave ourselves as much time margin as possible after the dive, used Nitrox, and didn't have any problems other than imagined ones ("my leg itches, is it just an itch or?" "Oh, my elbow's sore, better watch that").

Guy