Altitude Sickness

Ronan Pike is the face of modern mountaineering—viral documentaries, sold-out tours, and a reputation for saying the safe thing on camera while chasing the risky thing off it. His PR team calls it a quiet month in Leadville, Colorado. The mountains call it too fast, too high. Keira Holt, PA-C, has two rules: no NDAs for care and the mountain doesn't care about your brand. By day she runs patients through altitude protocols at the local clinic; by night she leads medical for volunteer Search and Rescue. When Ronan staggers in with a headache he won't admit to and a handler waving paperwork, Keira says the one word no one tells him: no. A whiteout, a cabin, and a portable hyperbaric bag turn refusal into forced proximity. Ronan learns to pump the bag, carry the litter, and love the boring work that keeps strangers alive. Keira learns that a man who can redirect the camera might also redirect his life. But when a kiss gets caught by a long lens, policy and gossip threaten the clinic, the team—and the quiet they've earned. Then lightning hits high on the ridge, and a narrow hoist window forces choices they can't rehearse on camera. Service over spectacle, every time. Set in North America's highest city, Altitude Sickness is a grounded, slow-burn romance about competence, consent, and building something ordinary—and unbreakable—at thin air.