4 ms·

It’s possible for climbers (though a climber doesn’t experience the rapid decompression that a jumper would). Mount Everest at 29,028 feet is significantly hig

It’s possible for climbers (though a climber doesn’t experience the rapid decompression that a jumper would). Mount Everest at 29,028 feet is significantly higher than the 23,000 foot fall that Ivan Chisov survived, yet a few rare people have climbed Everest without oxygen: “Reinhold Messner championed the cause for ascending Mount Everest without supplementary oxygen. In 1978, he reached the summit of Everest with Habeler. This was the first time anyone had been that high without supplemental oxygen and Messner and Habeler achieved what certain doctors, specialists, and mountaineers thought impossible.”[1] Messner went on to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders (the 14 mountains that are more than 8,000 metres or 26,247 feet) without supplemental oxygen. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Messner https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhold_Messner

duxup 7y ago
I wonder how they felt / were they really struggling / miserable or largely unaffected?
- dogma1138 7y ago
  They acclimate for a fairly long period of time and still most people who try fail. It’s quite likely that those who succeed were genetically predisposed to do so rather than just making it on sheer will. There is a good reason why athletes do high altitude training camps it can boost your oxygen carrying capacity, improve fat oxidation and improve your anaerobic capability.
- tlear 7y ago
  They were miserable, mountaineers however are used to misery and suffering it is part of the activity. The hard part is that you become much slower, weaker and you judgement is impaired. Also different people have different ability to adopt. Except for Sherpa who have evolutionary adaptation, in normal population there are not that many people who can do it even if they trained their whole life. No oxygen climbing if you can do it is in some way safer. You go faster, you do not depend on heavy canisters. You do not need to stock upper camps with oxygen. All of this minimizes objective danger(avalanche, serac falls etc) the shorter you are up the safer you are.
  - JoeAltmaier 7y ago
    I read that Everest climbers start with as many as 70 tents. Most are to hold supplies (and other tents) at progressively higher/smaller camps, eventually resulting in the last tent at the highest camp before the attempt on the peak. So dozens of trips are taken to ferry tents/supplies up to the next camp. Which add risk for every hour on the mountain.

duxup 7y ago

I wonder how they felt / were they really struggling / miserable or largely unaffected?

dogma1138 7y ago
They acclimate for a fairly long period of time and still most people who try fail. It’s quite likely that those who succeed were genetically predisposed to do so rather than just making it on sheer will. There is a good reason why athletes do high altitude training camps it can boost your oxygen carrying capacity, improve fat oxidation and improve your anaerobic capability.
tlear 7y ago
They were miserable, mountaineers however are used to misery and suffering it is part of the activity. The hard part is that you become much slower, weaker and you judgement is impaired. Also different people have different ability to adopt. Except for Sherpa who have evolutionary adaptation, in normal population there are not that many people who can do it even if they trained their whole life. No oxygen climbing if you can do it is in some way safer. You go faster, you do not depend on heavy canisters. You do not need to stock upper camps with oxygen. All of this minimizes objective danger(avalanche, serac falls etc) the shorter you are up the safer you are.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
  I read that Everest climbers start with as many as 70 tents. Most are to hold supplies (and other tents) at progressively higher/smaller camps, eventually resulting in the last tent at the highest camp before the attempt on the peak. So dozens of trips are taken to ferry tents/supplies up to the next camp. Which add risk for every hour on the mountain.