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Climbers using xenon gas to climb Everest
- ada1981 2y agoHere is my response… The Dangerous Trend of Xenon-Accelerated Everest Climbs By Anthony David Adams, NOLS Wilderness First Responder A concerning trend is emerging in high-altitude mountaineering: the proposed use of xenon gas to dramatically shorten Mount Everest climbing expeditions from the traditional 6-8 weeks to just 7 days. As a wilderness first responder, I must emphasize the severe risks this approach poses to climbers. Understanding Traditional Acclimatization The standard two-month Everest expedition timeline isn't arbitrary - it's a carefully calculated protocol that allows climbers' bodies to make crucial physiological adaptations. During proper acclimatization, the body gradually develops more red blood cells, strengthens respiratory muscles, and creates new blood vessels to cope with extreme altitudes. These changes can't be safely accelerated. The Xenon Shortcut: A Recipe for Disaster Xenon gas, banned in sports since 2014, artificially stimulates erythropoietin (EPO) production, increasing red blood cell counts. While this might seem like a clever shortcut to altitude adaptation, it creates a perfect storm of potentially fatal complications: Critical Medical Risks: 1. Severe Altitude Illnesses: Rapid ascent drastically increases the risk of acute mountain sickness (AMS), high-altitude pulmonary edema (HAPE), and high-altitude cerebral edema (HACE) - all of which can be fatal within hours above 8,000 meters. 2. Blood Clotting Dangers: High altitude naturally increases blood viscosity. Adding xenon-induced EPO production creates an unprecedented risk of lethal blood clots, strokes, and heart attacks in an environment where medical evacuation is often impossible. 3. Unpredictable Responses: Individual reactions to xenon-induced EPO can vary dramatically, making it impossible to predict or control blood thickness at extreme altitudes. Beyond Biology: The Human Factor Technical climbing skills, extreme weather awareness, and high-altitude decision-making abilities cannot be compressed into a week-long timeline. The mountain demands respect and patience - there are no shortcuts to developing the judgment needed for survival in the Death Zone. A Call to Action As wilderness medical professionals, we have a responsibility to strongly advise against this dangerous trend. Artificial EPO stimulation through xenon use cannot replace the complex physiological adaptations required for safe high-altitude climbing. The promise of a quick summit isn't worth the extreme risks to human life. The time-tested approach to Everest remains the only responsible path: proper acclimatization, thorough training, and respect for the mountain's demands. No breakthrough in EPO manipulation can safely replace these fundamental requirements for survival at extreme altitude.
- KTibow 2y agoWhat's the HN etiquette around claiming that a reply is AI generated?
- ada1981 2y agoTotally AI generated. I gave it my notes and pasted output. Just want to warn people that xenon is dangerous for this type of thing.
- ruthmarx 2y ago> I gave it my notes and pasted output. Yeah, don't do that, please. If you think it's something people will find useful, you can share the prompt. If the prompt isn't anything special, then you probably shouldn't bother.
- 0_____0 2y agoIt's basically summarizing your own writing? That's less offensive IMO. Although having taken the WFR doesn't really count as a qualification that matters for any of the info you commented w/.
- ada1981 2y agoI just don’t want people taking Xenon and having their blood thicken and all the associated problems.
- buildsjets 2y agoAre they joining the Mile High club? https://tripsitter.substack.com/p/xenon https://tripsitter.substack.com/p/xenon Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40804827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40804827
- Trasmatta 2y agoWow, that really does sound like a much more potent nitrous oxide trip. Back in my less responsible days I definitely dabbled in "hippie crack", and you could sort of hit that state if you took enough and / or combined it with other drugs. (fwiw, I don't take any drugs anymore, except for the occasional night drinking. I had some horrifically bad trips that felt like my consciousness was smeared across the entire universe, suffering for eternity. Took me a long time to recover, and the message I took away was "anything you can learn on drugs you can learn in other, safer ways".)
- epoxia 2y agoIf it gets them to the top of Everest, it would probably be the 5.5 mile high club.
- sk5t 2y agoVisiting just one page on this wacky website absolutely trashed my browser's (Firefox) back-history.
- ray_v 2y agoI was just about to comment on that ... I wonder if that's on purpose or if it's just poor coding on the site
- maxwellg 2y agoHypoxic altitude tents have always interested me as a runner living in sea-level San Francisco. You're supposed to sleep in them for a few weeks in order to simulate being at higher elevation. However, they're apparently pretty terrible to use - the vacuum is loud enough to disrupt sleep, the inside of the tent is supposed to get hot and sticky, and you need to spend 12+ hours a day to get real benefits. If you're mountaineering, the suffering might be worth it, but if you're a hobby jogger the sleep disruptions alone negate the performance impact of the EPO boost. Supposedly. But Xenon? > Furtenbach, whose training rides and runs have been 10 percent faster for days after xenon-fuelled climbs... Something to muse about.
- SpicyUme 2y agoI listened to a podcast recently about a hypoxic training that was interesting. The company makes masks and different levels of equipment for different uses. For me it a simple curiosity, I need to work on recovering from ~1.5 years taking care of an ill family member. Maybe then it is worth a thought but for me it seems unlikely to really appeal. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/95-brian-oestrike-ceo-of-hypoxico-on-simulated/id1652132598?i=1000680935451 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/95-brian-oestrike-ceo-...
- Aurornis 2y ago> For me it a simple curiosity, I need to work on recovering from ~1.5 years taking care of an ill family member. Maybe then it is worth a thought but for me Hypoxic training would be detrimental to an untrained athlete. Restricting your oxygen intake would reduce the volume and duration of exercise you could tolerate, which would slow your progress. So please don't use a hypoxic training mask. It would do the opposite of what you want to achieve. Even within athletes the benefits of hypoxic training for general performance are questionable once you get away from people with a vested interest in pushing it (like the person interviewed in your podcast).
- SpicyUme 2y agoOh I'm very much a dabbler, before I consider hypoxic training there is so much room for athletic optimization in my life. Including focusing on a few activities instead of rowing, skiing, biking, occasional bouldering, etc. I was listening out of curiosity, not for my own use. I'm back at sea level, but when I was living between sea level and the mountains I could feel the lag in my runs when I switched and gained elevation.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kerkeslager 2y agoBeginner mountaineers paying a bunch of sherpas to drag them to the top of Everest already wasn't much of an achievement. This just lowers the bar even more.
- AlotOfReading 2y agoClimbing Everest assisted is still a monumental personal achievement. I'm proud of my even more modest adventures in the Himalayas.
- kerkeslager 2y agoAs I said elsewhere, climbing Everest and claiming you're a mountaineer is like being dragged through a marathon course on a rickshaw and claiming you're a long-distance runner. And yes, the colonialist metaphor is intentional. You can be proud of whatever you want and have fun doing whatever you want, but that doesn't entitle you to anyone else's respect.
- AlotOfReading 2y agoThat's exactly what a personal achievement is.
- kerkeslager 2y agoNo, a "achievement" implies you actually did something difficult. I mean, if you want to argue that this is "personal" and you're just proud of it without needing anyone else's respect, then why are you here defending it on Hacker News?
- Petersipoi 2y agoOnly 7,269 have ever summited Everest. I suspect if it was as easy as you make it out to be, that number would be way, way higher.
- rgmerk 2y ago
- Etheryte 2y agoIsn't Xenon infamous for being ridiculously expensive? It's the best general anesthetic by a mile since it's a noble gas, but we don't use it because the cost would be absurd. While the amounts used here must be small, and you're going to be stacked if this is how you're approaching Everest, it must still cost a small fortune — and turns out it does: > One session of xenon gas costs $5,000 per person for a 30-minute session.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- readthenotes1 2y agoAccording to the article, 154,000 USD. That may be considered ridiculously expensive, noble, absurd, and or a small fortune to some, but to others it's relatively irrelevant, on the order of supersizing your fast food order.
- vasco 2y ago> The cost of xenon is roughly $10 per liter. For comparison, helium, another noble gas, costs around 10 cents per liter. Argon and neon cost about $2 per liter each. From another link in the comments: https://tripsitter.substack.com/p/xenon https://tripsitter.substack.com/p/xenon
- killjoywashere 2y agoah, rich people sports...
- dugditches 2y agoPretty sure your source is wrong. And that helium is 10_$_ a liter not 10¢. As helium is much, much more expensive than argon.
- eesmith 2y agoYou likely meant to write 'xenon' there, not 'helium'. FWIW, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon has > Because of its scarcity, xenon is much more expensive than the lighter noble gases—approximate prices for the purchase of small quantities in Europe in 1999 were 10 €/L (=~€1.7/g) for xenon, 1 €/L (=~€0.27/g) for krypton, and 0.20 €/L (=~€0.22/g) for neon,
- fabiensanglard 2y ago"You did not climb Everest. You brought it down to your level." - Yvon Chouinard
- javawizard 2y agoI can't find a source for this quote or one that fits this pattern. Do you have one?
- mikeryan 2y agoThe guides practically carry them up the mountain, make their beds, maybe put a little mint on their pillow. It's an absolute joke. They try to bring the mountain down to their level. From: https://www.tpl.org/resource/conversation-yvon-chouinard-landpeople https://www.tpl.org/resource/conversation-yvon-chouinard-lan...
- javawizard 2y agoAh, I hadn't broadened my search terms enough to find that. Thanks!
- ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 2y agoReferenced article (How to climb Everest in a week, Financial Times, January 11 2025) https://archive.ph/1qEGQ https://archive.ph/1qEGQ
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- kylehotchkiss 2y agoYou did not climb Everest on Xenon gas and you are shameful for risking the lives of Sherpa people if you try.
- Aurornis 2y agoThis is an article about an article that is basically a marketing puff piece for the company selling the service. As always, it's hard to tell if this is really a trend or if the company is just hoping to FOMO their way into paying customers by planting news articles about it being a trend. I'm 99% sure it's the latter. The source for this article is a .PDF file of an FT.com article that is hosted on the website of the company selling the Xenon-assisted tours : https://www.furtenbachadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/How-to-climb-Everest-in-a-week_Financial-Times_2025.pdf https://www.furtenbachadventures.com/wp-content/uploads/How-... So color me skeptical.
- zombiwoof 2y ago[flagged]
- db48x 2y agoWho cares? If a helicopter could reach the summit, I would take a helicopter. More people should drive to the north pole, too.
- nemomarx 2y agoThe north pole is interesting, because everyone who raced to reach it the first time was using the most cutting edge stuff they had, right? I wonder how you'd do that experience now?
- db48x 2y agoSubmarines are a popular choice but expensive. It's been done once in trucks (the Top Gear episode that I linked to earlier). People fly to the South Pole every year.
- xarope 2y agoThe north pole is just a bunch of ice floes. So you can't drive there (unless you mean drive a boat (most likely an icebreaker!). It was very interesting to learn how they setup camp barneo each year, which only lasts for a few weeks, until it melts/drifts away, and they have to rebuild it each year Full reveal; they fly around searching for a big enough floe, parachute engineers and equipment in to build an airfield, or rather 2 or more, since invariably the ice cracks. I saw a major crack less than 2-3 yards away from my tent, when I woke up and walked out... erk.
- db48x 2y agoYou can drive there. You might have to dig your way through an ice ridge or two, but it’s not impossible: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNkvASxfEWQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNkvASxfEWQ
- xarope 2y agoUnless I'm missing something, the wiki says "They did not, however, reach the actual position of the North Magnetic Pole at the time which in 2007 was 150 miles away. They were also 1200 miles away from the geographical North Pole"?
- bluedevil2k 2y agoInhaling Xenon gas is known to be a psychoactive experience, which I only learned about on the show Hamilton’s Pharmacopoeia. He claims the atomic structure of Xenon, by pure chance, fits nicely into one of the psychoactive receptors in the brain. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt14099126/?ref_=ttep_ep_3 https://m.imdb.com/title/tt14099126/?ref_=ttep_ep_3 https://boingboing.net/2021/11/25/hamilton-morris-experiences-the-psychoactive-effects-of-xenon-gas.html/amp https://boingboing.net/2021/11/25/hamilton-morris-experience...
- teaearlgraycold 2y agoLove that show. One of the better things to come out. Picked me up some San Pedro powder because of it. Still waiting to try it out.
- ggm 2y agoSo they could fly you to some hypoxic region hill, do the thing, greenscreen the entire everest experience with dinosaurs and robo-taxis and you'd be totally convinced it happened..
- adrian_b 2y agoLike for all inert gases, the psychoactive effects of xenon begin only above a certain pressure threshold (i.e. concentration threshold). The heavier an inert gas is, the lower the pressure threshold. So for nitrogen the pressure threshold is well above atmospheric pressure and it affects only the divers who must breathe air at a pressure equal to their ambient pressure. Lighter inert gases, like helium, can be used up to higher pressures, corresponding to greater depths. For xenon, the heaviest non-radioactive inert gas, the pressure threshold is much lower, so it can work as a general anesthetic at atmospheric pressure. However, at the low pressures corresponding to the high altitudes around Everest, perhaps xenon does not have any psychoactive effects, which is actually claimed by the company providing the climbers with it.
- username223 2y agoWell, I guess it depends upon what you're trying to prove. Are you as tough as Reinhold Messner? Do it without O2. Are you rich enough to get your body to 29,032'? Do this.
- jamal-kumar 2y agoThere's a theory that the mechanism of action of xenon and perhaps other anesthetics is on the microtubules rather than the receptors, having implications for the neural correlates of consciousness itself https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09992-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-09992-7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXElfzVgg6M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXElfzVgg6M https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1571064522000197 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S15710... https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpcb.3c07936 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpcb.3c07936
- koolba 2y agoHow does one “use” xenon gas to climb a mountain?
- Over2Chars 2y agoI suspect, they're huffing it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd5j8mG24H4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd5j8mG24H4
- koolba 2y agoDoes it give you super powers? Can it be used as a performance enhancing drug more generally?
- Over2Chars 2y agoFrom what I've read it jacks up your bloods ability to store oxygen. So, kinda yes and yes.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- snowwrestler 2y agoWow, only the 2nd story from Gripped to get posted to HN! And the first was more than a decade ago.
- i_am_jl 2y agoWas trying to think about major climbing achievements from a decade ago. Had decided it was probably Alex and Hans' speed record on The Nose, was not expecting that.
- siliconc0w 2y agoAt what point due they just strap you into an exosuite with its own atmosphere and have it walk you up the mountain?
- wegfawefgawefg 2y agoI would do this. Back mounted drone that carries me down.
- aaron695 2y ago[dead]
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- jonstewart 2y agoHard to believe that Jon Krakauer’s _Into Thin Air_ is over 25 years old. If you want a first hand account of how bad luck snowballs on Everest, it’s a good read.
- jamiedumont 2y agoThere was a time about ten years ago I worked with a few people who had climbed Everest (one multiple times) and a handful more that were due to in the next couple of years. We worked in a climbing shop, and the regulars were all experienced climbers, working only to save enough for the next expedition. The topic of oxygen had come up and almost everyone was all in favour of it until one guy explained he wouldn't be alive had he decided to use oxygen. He got cut off between two camps in bad weather, and were he relying on oxygen he would have likely run out; and subsequently passed out and died in the cold. As he was instead properly acclimated, he could ride out the storm as long as he stayed warm, which was relatively easy because he didn't need to worry about oxygen consumption. Whether his story was true or not, it highlighted that it might be better to "be more" than "have more". The idea has stuck with me since, and whenever I'm faced with the choice between a shortcut past problem using some external resource or taking the longer, slower route of learning it/training properly I always go for the latter. It's not sexy, but has served me pretty well. It's been an interesting thought-experiment these past few months as the talk around AI has become deafening. I know I'll be on the wrong side of history eventually, but I still prefer to "earn my turns" to borrow a metaphor from backcountry skiing.
- tim333 2y agoI'm not sure it works quite like that - you have to acclimatize to the altitude whether you are using bottled oxygen or not. Going without oxygen can be considered a bit antisocial as you're more likely to collapse high up and need others to rescue you, unless you are happy for them to walk by while you die.
- jamiedumont 2y agoI’ll confess to being ignorant on the science. For instance I know that many of the local guides don’t use oxygen, but attributing that capability to time at altitude (“training” for lack of a better word) or genetics (on the back of generations of “training”?). Either way, I like the thought experiment! :D
- scheme271 2y ago
- VeejayRampay 2y agoI can run a marathon in under an hour using a bike too this all really doesn't make any sense, the whole point of the pride you get from topping mountains is the actual risks and effort you put in
- tim333 2y ago>The tour operator said they will have four clients inhale a xenon gas blend upon arrival in Kathmandu, then fly to base camp, then climb to the summit within two hours. I don't see much saying they actually tried it first. It seems rather a dangerous experiment otherwise. The normal trouble with going up without acclimatizing is getting altitude sickness. One time when I was there a film crew at Nepal base camp sent a local guy to Kathmandu to get some film gear which due to delays involved him staying there three weeks, then he returned to base camp in a day and died because the three weeks had been long enough to lose acclimatization even thought the guy was from the area and used to being at altitude. I mean maybe xenon stops that but I wonder how well they have checked. Flying to base camp is especially iffy. The norm is to fly to Lukla which is at a safe altitude and then walk up. At least that way if you feel bad you can turn around and walk back down, at least in theory. EDIT - It seems from the FT article that Furtenbach has tried it. - https://archive.ph/1qEGQ https://archive.ph/1qEGQ