75 Quotes About Summit

Mauna Kea summit workers are kept in a state of mal-acclimatization, as they are never fully acclimatized to near sea level or to the very high altitude mountain summit.

Astronomers rarely visit the summit of Mauna Kea. They sit in near sea level offices and obtain their astronomical data remotely using very high altitude workers on the summit of the mountain to control the telescope and computers.

La Palma or Hawaii for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT)? Hawaii is far more hazardous for the health and safety of sea level adapted summit workers.

If I were asked ‘Is it safe?’ by a person considering working atop the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, my response would be ‘It is a biologically unsafe workplace for sea level adapted humans.

The ‪incorrect ‪acclimatization guide for the 13,796 feet high summit of ‪Mauna‬ ‪Kea‬: ‘It's important to acclimatize at least a 1/2 hour (1 to 1 ½ hours for first timers) at the Hale Pohaku facility or the Visitor Information Station (9,200 foot/2,800 m level) before going to the summit.

My job was called “Summit Lead” when on the very high altitude summit of Mauna Kea. A few of us would rotate through this position during the weekdays, as we only worked part time on the summit. One of the other “Summit Lead’s” died from fatal gastrointestinal disease. He had spent far more time on the summit than I ever did and had accumulated much larger biologically toxic exposures.

At the W.M. Keck Observatory on the very high altitude summit of Mauna Kea, there was no routine monitoring of mental functioning, blood oxygen levels, blood pressure or heart rate of summit workers.

For some workers in very high altitude astronomy, their daily round trip commute from home to the mountain summit was approximately six hours.

When it comes to Steven Magee versus the 1.4 billion dollar Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) atop Mauna Kea, the established biological science on the toxicity of very high altitudes to summit workers is on Magee’s side.