8 ms·

They used Xenon to climb Everest in days – is it the future of mountaineering?

97 points by nikcub 1y ago

yapyap 1y ago
What even is the point anymore of doing something like this if you cheat your whole way up. It’s like bragging about sailing around the world when in reality you did a cruise
- freetime2 1y ago
  Where do you draw the line at cheating, though? Is using supplemental oxygen cheating?
- normie3000 1y ago
  A cruise around the world? What's the differentiator?
  - genewitch 1y ago
    A cruise ship doesn't have sails and a sailboat does. That's the reason I got from the context.
    - normie3000 1y ago
      Thank you, that makes more sense than my reading. I thought the OP might have been comparing a single-legged trip vs a multi-stop "cruise", both in a similar sailing boat. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruising_(maritime) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruising_(maritime)
nikcub 1y ago
https://archive.is/WWrtP https://archive.is/WWrtP
- frozenwind 1y ago
  thank you
- randomtoast 1y ago
  This should be the most top voted comment or dang should automatically add these links.
gnabgib 1y ago
Related: They want to climb Everest in a week using an anesthetic gas (3 points, 13 days ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43988039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43988039 Use Xenon gas to climb Everest in a week? (12 points, 27 days ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43837865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43837865 Climbers using xenon gas to climb Everest (107 points, 4 months ago, 145 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42705180 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42705180
Calwestjobs 1y ago
LESS people have Tesla car than amount of people who were on top of Mount Everest, why bother ?
- herbst 1y ago
  You could be the _first coder who wears blue shoes from country X_ who ever climbed the Everest! I doubt your Tesla example is true, but the summit news sound like stupid jokes at this point
- rkangel 1y ago
  It doesn't have to be an achievement for humanity - it can just be a personal achievement. Thousands upon thousands of people have done the Three Peaks (a famous walking route in the UK), but I'd still like to do it, and would feel a sense of satisfaction at succeeding.
- grues-dinner 1y ago
  "Only" about 6000 people have succeeded in climbing Everest as of mid-2022. Interestingly one third of all successful attempts ever have been since 2016, and nearly half of all summits are people doing it not for the first time.
- admissionsguy 1y ago
  fewer*
- hermitcrab 1y ago
  >LESS people have Tesla car than amount of people who were on top of Mount Everest That isn't true now. But it might be in a few years, if Tesla's genius CEO continues to alienate his customers.
lm28469 1y ago
[flagged]
- herbst 1y ago
  There is a whole YouTube subgenre for weird mountainniering stories. The whole scene already was crazy before mass tourism entered the game.
- GenshoTikamura 1y ago
  This is the Taoist notion of overdevelopment in full effect, which modern humandkind is mostly oblivious/ignorant of.
- padjo 1y ago
  The film “The Bucket List” has a lot to answer for…
- tonyhart7 1y ago
  "just to climb a overcrowded rock and tick a checkbox on your pathetic life's" why the HATE so much lol
  - sschueller 1y ago
    Because others are exploited and risk their lives to get these people up that peak. If it was only them going up on their own without expectations to be rescued if something goes wrong no one would have a problem with it.
    - cbg0 1y ago
      Are they really being exploited? Or is it just something they do for money of their own volition?
    - umbra07 1y ago
      Have you asked the Sherpas how they feel before you started calling them "exploited" and advocating for the destruction of their lifestyle?
Etheryte 1y ago
Important to note that they didn't use xenon for the climb, only for the prepwork, which makes this outcome all the more remarkable. Still, I would feel uneasy if this were to become a trend, as incorrectly administering xenon can lead to death, as seen on Hamilton's Pharmacopeia[0]. > In an interview, Mr. Carns said that his expedition had been in touch with the ministry, and clarified with the department that it had not taken the gas on the mountain. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVahys8MWLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVahys8MWLo
- Euphorbium 1y ago
  The guys in the phrmacopeia were very obviously addicts.
  - Etheryte 1y ago
    That seems completely orthogonal to the point. Much like elsewhere in drug addiction, the deaths were due to the suppliers' negligence, not the fact that the deceased were addicts.
- 542354234235 1y ago
  I think the larger risk is lowering the bar even further for who could climb Everest. Anything that makes climbing “easier” could put more people on the mountain that aren’t fit enough or trained enough to handle problems with the climb. In the death zone, any issue, mistake, or problem is potentially fatal. Since just moving up and down the summit puts people at the absolute limit of exertion, attempting to help someone having an issue could domino into multiple fatalities. The book “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer is an amazing firsthand account of the 1996 Everest disaster. The book does a great job helping you really understand how far your body is pushed in the death zone, and how you truly have nothing left to do anything other than get one foot in front of the other in a race against time. Just sitting down to “rest” was a likely death sentence and how people had to walk past because stopping to try and help would have likely meant sitting down next to them to die.
comrade1234 1y ago
So they slept in hypoxia tents which activates the hypoxia-inducible factor molecule, but they also took xenon which also activates the molecule. So, it's not clear if the xenon actually did anything? Back during the 2000 dot-com boom crash I met a guy who got into a top business school in part by writing about the challenges of climbing Everest. He confessed drunkenly at a party to me that he'd never even left the USA...
- acquisitionsilk 1y ago
  If the business school is silly enough to accept people based partially on the idea that they climbed Everest, perhaps he was right to treat the task of getting in to the place as essentially theatre.
  - FirmwareBurner 1y ago
    Isn't most business success about convincing people to buy expensive tulips while you (legally) walk away with the money and leave them holding the bags, then rinse and repeat? Seems like he'd be the right person for the job. And then you wonder why so many young people flirt with communism or want to see the capitalist system burn to the ground. What's the point of ethics and hard work if those who just lie their way into much better opportunities will out-earn you by orders of magnitude? Granted, it's a bit more complicated than that, often those people also have connections, but the feeling still stands. Not sure if meritocracy has been on a decline, or that we're now just more aware of it due to the internet.
    - kamaal 1y ago
      >>Not sure if meritocracy has been on a decline, or that we're now just more aware of it due to the internet. As an Indian, let me tell you, to accept something is wrong, and then just being fine about it, and just adjust your life to bad situations is how the fall of societies starts. Eventually everything becomes fine and acceptable, and you learn over time to adjust yourself to everything, like every bad thing ever.
    - 1y ago
meindnoch 1y ago
Xenon is used by athletes to increase their endogenous erythropoietin production. As it's a noble gas, it leaves no trace in their body, so post-hoc detection of this doping method is impossible. But as a recreational climber, why bother with xenon? Just inject EPO.
- _joel 1y ago
  Breathing in an inert gas is easier and much safer than injecting something into your body.
  - timschmidt 1y ago
    Xenon acts like an anesthetic so it's possible to OD on.
    - robertlagrant 1y ago
      True, but they did it ahead of time in a controlled way.
      - nssnsjsjsjs 1y ago
        In a hospital with an anaesthesiologist?
        pixl97 1y ago
        Anesthetic gasses are applied in a lot of environments outside of hospitals.
        robertlagrant 1y ago
        > In a hospital with an anaesthesiologist? Well, from the article: > The men wore masks hooked up to ventilators as an anesthesiologist slowly introduced higher levels of xenon into their systems. The doctor named in the article seems to be[0] the head of the Department of Anesthesiology at Limburg hospital. [0] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael-Fries-3 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael-Fries-3
tonyhart7 1y ago
"former special force", "flew to expert across Europe for testing and trial" Yeah this is not your average mountain climber group, "normal" people could not do this just by xenon gas alone
- Havoc 1y ago
  Yeah was about to say that must have been really good baseline fitness. I know people that made it to Kilimanjaro as pretty average middle class urbanites with no substantial climbing background, but that's probably at the edge of what's possible.
  - normie3000 1y ago
    > I know people that made it to Kilimanjaro ... with no substantial climbing background Kilimanjaro is an arduous hike. No technical knowledge or equipment is required. The main challenge on the mountain is altitude, which is countered by time spent acclimatising.
    - devilbunny 1y ago
      Yeah, I knew some middle-aged marathoners who freely confessed that Kilimanjaro kicked their butts. As you say, it's not a technically challenging climb; it's just a long, long hike uphill in steadily thinning air.
nokeya 1y ago
“Days instead of weeks on the mountain foot” - that’s the crucial point. Less time -> less money spent on accommodation, supplies, personnel there. Obviously they don’t want to lose income.
- elif 1y ago
  Nah the logic is less time on the mountain > more climbers per climbing season. They will do this math eventually and then they will require xenon prep.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
Euphorbium 1y ago
Would nitrous work as well?
- voidUpdate 1y ago
  I'm not sure, but you'd have a fantastic time trying
- smartbit 1y ago
  Nitrous gas inactivates the cobalamin form of vitamin B₁₂ by oxidation. [0] Vitamin B₁₂ deficiency …… at levels moderately lower than normal, a range of symptoms such as feeling tired, weak, lightheadedness, headaches, dizziness, rapid breathing, rapid heartbeat, cold hands and feet, low-grade fevers, tremor, cold intolerance, easy bruising and bleeding, pale skin, low blood pressure, sore tongue, upset stomach, loss of appetite, weight loss, constipation, diarrhea, severe joint pain, feeling abnormal sensations including numbness or tingling (pins and needles) to the fingers and toes, and tinnitus, may be experienced. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide#Safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide#Safety [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12_deficiency#Signs,_symptoms_and_complications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12_deficiency#Signs,_...
Klaus_ 1y ago
Climbing Everest in just a few days with xenon gas does sound pretty wild. But it also makes me wonder if we’re turning what used to be a deeply human and challenging journey into just another experiment in efficiency. Not sure if that counts as progress. Curious how others see it.
- freetime2 1y ago
  > But it also makes me wonder if we’re turning what used to be a deeply human and challenging journey into just another experiment in efficiency. I think that ship has sailed already. Now the focus should probably be on safety, economic benefit, and sustainability/minimizing environmental impact.
- normie3000 1y ago
  > what used to be a deeply human and challenging journey into just another experiment in efficiency Maybe it's always been an experiment in efficiency? Early Everest expeditions consisted of large support teams, setting records for sleeping at altitude, and inventing new breathing apparatus. Or maybe the challenge and the journey are over now?
A_D_E_P_T 1y ago
Boss Lowe wrote about doping with xenon gas more than a decade ago: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/another-use-xenon https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/another-use-xenon Also, and quite interestingly, xenon isn't the only element that does this. Cobalt does something very similar: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6157393/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6157393/ Athletic use is probably more common than people think. And I'd be absolutely shocked if Xe gas weren't already being used in racehorses. (You wouldn't believe the state of chemical warfare in that sport.) There's also potential military use -- especially in combat divers. They're very limited by the amount of breathing gas they can carry. Anything to meaningfully cut oxygen use could be a game changer.
- formerly_proven 1y ago
  It’s kinda curious that xenon can be used both for performance enhancement _and_ as a general anaesthetic.
  - dmd 1y ago
    And as a dessert topping!
    - zehaeva 1y ago
      No, It's a FLOOR WAX!
  - Scaevolus 1y ago
    Anesthetics are very weird. One of the leading theories is that they basically get wedged in lipid bilayers and interfere with neural signaling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_general_anaesthetic_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_general_anaestheti...
- mdorazio 1y ago
  Military divers who need to be underwater for long periods are almost certainly using rebreathers, both for the longevity and for the lack of visible & audible bubbles.
sQL_inject 1y ago
Sherpa (local) climbs Everest in eleven hours: national pride Foreigner climbs Everest in three days: "against climbing ethics" Got it.
- jaoane 1y ago
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- yapyap 1y ago
  [flagged]
- deleted 1y ago
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- cratermoon 1y ago
  That Sherpa was born and lived on the mountain his whole life. Everything he is was molded by his life. His ability to make the climb came from years of experience and knowledge. The foreigner huffed some gas and slept in a high-tech tube a week before the climb. I'll leave to the reader to decide which one deserves respect and admiration.
adwn 1y ago
> Himal Gautam, the director of Nepal’s tourism department, which is responsible for regulating expeditions on the nation’s mountains, said in an interview that using the gas was “against climbing ethics,” […] Okay, but then be consistent and also ban bottled oxygen and the services of Sherpas. > […] and that it would hurt the country’s tourism industry and the Sherpas who help climbers by reducing their time on the mountain. Ah, okay, there's the real reason. "Climbing ethics" my ass.
quotemstr 1y ago
Amazing and hilarious. Genuine technological innovation in adaptation to low oxygen. Nay-sayers say it does nothing. Guys climb Everest in a week using said innovation. You can't argue with results, so they switch to: "Himal Gautam, the director of Nepal’s tourism department, which is responsible for regulating expeditions on the nation’s mountains, said in an interview that using the gas was “against climbing ethics,” and that it would hurt the country’s tourism industry and the Sherpas who help climbers by reducing their time on the mountain." and "From a medical point of view, off-label use without a scientific basis and with unknown health risks must be rejected" So it simultaneously does nothing and is unethical, and it doesn't matter whether it works anyway, because even if it did, it'd be against made-up "medical" rules. I've never seen a stronger case for telling very serious people to go fuck themselves.
- rndmio 1y ago
  I don't know, maybe the 10 prior weeks of sleeping in hypoxic tents might have had some effect too. If they walked off the street, huffed some Xenon then blasted up Everest that'd be amazing, but it sounds like people are overfocusing on the Xenon bit.
donatj 1y ago
Why does mountaineering need a future? Mountaineering should just be done. Stop. The mountains have been scaled. All of them. We've been there, website seen what's to be seen. It's done, it's over. Just leave these grandiose wonders alone rather than destroying the natural beauty in the name of an ego boost.
- avalys 1y ago
  Why do anything? Better to just sit on the couch.
  - donatj 1y ago
    There are plenty of things worthy of doing, spaces left to explore and discoveries to be made. Destroying a natural wonder in the name of impressing your buddies doesn't fall under that.
    - tekla 1y ago
      I'm sure you are the arbiter of whats worth doing.
      - donatj 1y ago
        Sure. Here's my full criteria: Is it a net positive for the world at large? It's worth doing. That's it. Go out unto the world and do with that as you will
        k4rli 1y ago
        Wouldn't the most beneficial thing then just be to kill myself? Overpopulation and such Going skydiving, auto racing, sailing, working out... All pointless if I'm understanding this logic.
        potato3732842 1y ago
        >Is it a net positive for the world at large? The idea that such a subjective criteria should be used is more offensive than the hubris.
jmyeet 1y ago
I've long held that climbing Everest has become a gross display of wealth and vanity and basically nobody should do it. There's no glory in being the 4000th person to do so. It's not glamorous. You're basically climbing over trash and dead bodies to do it. Often inexperienced people with too much money are putting themselves, their sherpas and other climbers are risk by doing so. Using bottled oxygen already made this substantially easier. But this Xenon is on a whole new level. I went looking for the cost and found [1]: > After a week, the Brits could be back at their desks at home. They still pay an introductory price of an undisclosed amount. In future, such a short trip to Everest will cost around 150,000 euros. From my understanding, that's 50-100,000 more than usual. The whole thing just reeks of Oceangate. And for what? To take a selfie at the top and to brag to you're equally vacous and wealthy friends? It would be more ethical to stay home and just Photoshop yourself into a photo. ChatGPT can probably do it for you. Nepal is a very poor country. Being a sherpa is one of the few (locally) high paying jobs there are. Sherpas risk their lives for this. At least on K2 or Annapurna you're more likely to find experiernced and technically capable mountaineers who won't endanger your life for a selfie. Everest is not a technically difficult climb, as far as I understand it. The death zone and general conditions make it a challenge. Negate those with Xenon and it's just a really expensive walk. [1]: https://abenteuer-berg.de/en/with-xenon-to-mount-everest-and-back-in-just-one-week/ https://abenteuer-berg.de/en/with-xenon-to-mount-everest-and...
- username223 1y ago
  100% I've climbed some mountains, and while I don't know if I would be capable of doing Everest, I do know that I wouldn't want to (unless I could do it like Goran Kropp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Göran_Kropp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Göran_Kropp). I guess I could brag if I doped myself, took a helicopter past the Khumbu Icefall, and had servants carrying my stuff the whole way to the summit, but I could never be proud of myself for doing that.
throwawayffffas 1y ago
Why not just climb with oxygen and skip the hypoxia all together?
zeristor 1y ago
Isn't Xenon very expensive? I used it in my Laser MSc has part of the mix for a CO2 laser (marks how long ago that was). CO2 for the optic properties, and Xe to reduce the electron temperature. So the Xe in this case triggers a response in the human body, but people aren't quite sure why. Quite strange considering Xe is an inert gas.
- helsinkiandrew 1y ago
  > Isn't Xenon very expensive? Climbing Everest costs $50-100K though. If you can reduce the time each 'climber' spends on the mountain, its probably cost effective.
- pfdietz 1y ago
  Xenon is so expensive it's reasonable to think about recovering it from spent nuclear reactor fuel (it's a major fission product with no long lived isotopes, although you have to very rigorously separate it from krypton, which does have some.) Xenon isn't inert; it can form chemical compounds like xenon difluoride. In the body it's probably dissolving into cell membranes or other fatty components.
  - weinzierl 1y ago
    What do you mean by "no long-lived isotopes"? That fission only produces short lived Xenon isotopes? Then, what use would it be to harvest it from fuel? For applications like in the article you want very long-lived or ideally stable Xe isotopes, which do exist.
    - NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
      The short-lived stuff decays away, leaving the safe stuff. When the isotopes decay away, they become other elements that are easily chemically separated. Or so I'd guess.
      - pfdietz 1y ago
        That's right. The xenon isotopes that are left are stable. Another fission product that might be worth recovering is rhodium, although not being a gas the process would be more involved.
jebarker 1y ago
Climbing Everest these days just seems to be the quintessential activity for people that have lost site of what really matters in life. It's where you end up if you never grow out of the idea that life is a competition you can win.
- osigurdson 1y ago
  Some people like climbing mountains, including Everest. It makes sense to follow your interests in my opinion.
  - croes 1y ago
    It makes sense to think about consequences. https://nepalmonitor.com/2025/03/19/nepal-overtourism-everest-crisis/ https://nepalmonitor.com/2025/03/19/nepal-overtourism-everes...
    - osigurdson 1y ago
      Search your feelings, you just think mountain climbing is dumb / invalid and whatever activities that you like are valid. Let people do what they want. If Nepal wants to further restrict quotas, they can do so.
      - croes 1y ago
        I have no feelings about climbing but feelings against environmental pollution. Climb as much as you like but clean up the waste you create.
        osigurdson 1y ago
        I don't climb at all but I do care a lot about people getting to do what they want with their lives.
        croes 1y ago
severusdd 1y ago
Xenon isn’t a new magic. Russian athletes were rumored to use it in the 2014 Sochi Olympic, and WADA banned it shortly thereafter: https://www.aip.org/inside-science/catching-some-xes-has-strange-effects-on-the-body https://www.aip.org/inside-science/catching-some-xes-has-str... It spikes HIF-1α → EPO for a day or two, but meta-analyses still doesn't show a real performance bump, let alone safety at 8 km. Feels less like innovation and more like mountaineering’s own carbon-plate shoes, except the failure mode here is cerebral edema, not a slow marathon time.
- patentatt 1y ago
  What's the issue with carbon-plated shoes?
  - germinalphrase 1y ago
    They return energy (like a spring) providing mechanical assistance to the runner.
  - cratermoon 1y ago
    Elite runners can knock about 2 minutes off their marathon time. Studies show about a 2% improvement in times, the downside is increased injury.
- Aurornis 1y ago
  > but meta-analyses still doesn't show a real performance bump I wish all of these news articles would discuss the actual studies instead of lazily parroting the claims of the one guy who is trying to sell expensive Xenon-assisted Everest hikes. These articles are always PR pieces for Lukas Furtenbach’s expensive Everest tours. Every single time I see the words “Xenon” and “Everest” in a headline, his name is in the article as the source.
  - rtkwe 1y ago
    > I wish all of these news articles would discuss the actual studies They do, if you read them. > While some doctors have used the gas in the past to “precondition” patients to low oxygen levels — for example, before major heart surgery — the practice hasn’t really caught on because “it hasn’t been as protective as one would hope,” he said. > Mike Shattock, a professor of cellular cardiology at King’s College London, said “xenon probably does very little and there is virtually no reputable scientific evidence that it makes any difference.” > Some research has shown that xenon can quickly acclimatize people to high altitudes, even as some experts say the benefits, if any, are negligible and the side effects of its use remain unclear.
aaron695 1y ago
[dead]
mg794613 1y ago
Unfair? I thought that mountain was mainly climbed by CEO's that let sherpa's carry their stuff?
thecrumb 1y ago
I'm waiting until the trash pile on Everest is higher than the mountain itself. Everest isn't supposed to be easy to climb. If someone wants to do it faster/quicker - why would I care how. I'd still look at them and say you cheated.
- pixl97 1y ago
  > I'd still look at them and say you cheated. That's why naked cavemen are the only ones to climb the mountain without being called cheaters!
Aurornis 1y ago
Note that these all of these Xenon-Everest stories come back to the same person: Lukas Furtenbach Why? Because he’s launching a business that sells Xenon-assisted Everest tours: https://www.furtenbachadventures.com/ https://www.furtenbachadventures.com/ These stories are never about uncovering an underground world of Xenon performance enhancement or discussing the science (which is much less optimistic about Xenon’s benefits). They’re always lazily relaying the PR information that Lukas Furtenbach gives them. So while it’s true that Xenon appears to have some possible performance enhancing properties, all of these news pieces about how climbers are using Xenon always come back to this one same guy who is, coincidentally, trying really hard to sell people on expensive Xenon-assisted Everest tours.
- mattmaroon 1y ago
  That’s some really solid PR work on his part if true, but if he is scaling (pun intended) tours that actually do manage to summit Everest in significantly decreased time, I would say that it’s strong evidence that Xenon actually works and the science just hasn’t caught up to it yet. Unless he has found some other clever way that he is for some reason pretending is Xenon.
  - RajT88 1y ago
    > Unless he has found some other clever way that he is for some reason pretending is Xenon. Meth. It's meth.
    - Hilift 1y ago
      In the 1991 film K2, Michael Biehn's character used an epinephrine (adrenaline) auto-injector (in his neck), which had recently been marketed and was seen by some wealthy as a booster. This actually increases risk for arrhythmia and makes pulmonary edema worse, so ironically meth would be a preferred booster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K2_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K2_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epinephrine_autoinjector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epinephrine_autoinjector https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/could-i-use-epipen-boost-my-performance/ https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/co...
goric 1y ago
IMO this climb doesn't really do much to prove of xenon's effectiveness (altitude researcher Dr. Peter Hackett says as much [0]). The team used supplemental oxygen on the climb, with the starting altitude and flow rate not being reported [1]. This is speculative, but if they were using more oxygen than typical and starting at a lower altitude, that's a massive advantage. Further, Andrew Ushakov traveled from NYC to the summit in just under 4 days this year without the use of xenon (but also with supplemental oxygen with unknown starting altitude and flow rate). He used a hypoxic tent to prepare as well, and depending on the accuracy of the reporting may have even spent less time doing that than the xenon team did [1]. [0] https://www.npr.org/2025/05/18/nx-s1-5398553/a-new-company-is-changing-how-people-summit-everest-by-making-climbers-inhale-xenon https://www.npr.org/2025/05/18/nx-s1-5398553/a-new-company-i... [1] https://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2025/05/21/everest-2025-fast-everest-summits-3-or-5-days/ https://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2025/05/21/everest-2025-fas...
- djtango 1y ago
  I believe the Xenon team also did hypoxic tents
vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago
Next step is probably exoskeletons.
- _fs 1y ago
  https://www.cnn.com/travel/robotic-exoskeleton-hiking-china-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/travel/robotic-exoskeleton-hiking-china-...
firesteelrain 1y ago
How safe is Xenon to breathe?
fortran77 1y ago
Will it also crash Rasperry Pis?
nine_k 1y ago
> Should scaling Mount Everest, one of sporting’s greatest accomplishments, be made easier But it has been, for a long time. Base camps, oxygen masks, advanced gear, etc all make climbing easier. Similarly, should lifting 200 kg be made easier? It has been made easy, you can use a forklift and barely move your finger to do so. But this is not seen as an accomplishment; if you want to be considered a strong weightlifter, you have to lift an old-school barbell. The biggest problem, as I can imagine, is not the dilution of the achievement, but the intensity of the stream if the climbers. Mt Everest is already full of climbers who follow each other at a short distance. Doubling this stream might ruin the experience altogether, or there would be large lines and inevitably large fees to jump them.
- EasyMark 1y ago
  They can easily limit the number of climbers with quotas, which they already do.

97 points by nikcub 1y ago

What even is the point anymore of doing something like this if you cheat your whole way up. It’s like bragging about sailing around the world when in reality you did a cruise

freetime2 1y ago
Where do you draw the line at cheating, though? Is using supplemental oxygen cheating?
normie3000 1y ago
A cruise around the world? What's the differentiator?
- genewitch 1y ago
  A cruise ship doesn't have sails and a sailboat does. That's the reason I got from the context.
  - normie3000 1y ago
    Thank you, that makes more sense than my reading. I thought the OP might have been comparing a single-legged trip vs a multi-stop "cruise", both in a similar sailing boat. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruising_(maritime) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruising_(maritime)

nikcub 1y ago

https://archive.is/WWrtP https://archive.is/WWrtP

frozenwind 1y ago
thank you
randomtoast 1y ago
This should be the most top voted comment or dang should automatically add these links.

gnabgib 1y ago

Related: They want to climb Everest in a week using an anesthetic gas (3 points, 13 days ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43988039 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43988039 Use Xenon gas to climb Everest in a week? (12 points, 27 days ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43837865 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43837865 Climbers using xenon gas to climb Everest (107 points, 4 months ago, 145 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42705180 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42705180

Calwestjobs 1y ago

LESS people have Tesla car than amount of people who were on top of Mount Everest, why bother ?

herbst 1y ago
You could be the _first coder who wears blue shoes from country X_ who ever climbed the Everest! I doubt your Tesla example is true, but the summit news sound like stupid jokes at this point
rkangel 1y ago
It doesn't have to be an achievement for humanity - it can just be a personal achievement. Thousands upon thousands of people have done the Three Peaks (a famous walking route in the UK), but I'd still like to do it, and would feel a sense of satisfaction at succeeding.
grues-dinner 1y ago
"Only" about 6000 people have succeeded in climbing Everest as of mid-2022. Interestingly one third of all successful attempts ever have been since 2016, and nearly half of all summits are people doing it not for the first time.
admissionsguy 1y ago
fewer*
hermitcrab 1y ago
>LESS people have Tesla car than amount of people who were on top of Mount Everest That isn't true now. But it might be in a few years, if Tesla's genius CEO continues to alienate his customers.

lm28469 1y ago

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herbst 1y ago
There is a whole YouTube subgenre for weird mountainniering stories. The whole scene already was crazy before mass tourism entered the game.
GenshoTikamura 1y ago
This is the Taoist notion of overdevelopment in full effect, which modern humandkind is mostly oblivious/ignorant of.
padjo 1y ago
The film “The Bucket List” has a lot to answer for…
tonyhart7 1y ago
"just to climb a overcrowded rock and tick a checkbox on your pathetic life's" why the HATE so much lol
- sschueller 1y ago
  Because others are exploited and risk their lives to get these people up that peak. If it was only them going up on their own without expectations to be rescued if something goes wrong no one would have a problem with it.
  - cbg0 1y ago
    Are they really being exploited? Or is it just something they do for money of their own volition?
  - umbra07 1y ago
    Have you asked the Sherpas how they feel before you started calling them "exploited" and advocating for the destruction of their lifestyle?

Etheryte 1y ago

Important to note that they didn't use xenon for the climb, only for the prepwork, which makes this outcome all the more remarkable. Still, I would feel uneasy if this were to become a trend, as incorrectly administering xenon can lead to death, as seen on Hamilton's Pharmacopeia[0]. > In an interview, Mr. Carns said that his expedition had been in touch with the ministry, and clarified with the department that it had not taken the gas on the mountain. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVahys8MWLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVahys8MWLo

Euphorbium 1y ago
The guys in the phrmacopeia were very obviously addicts.
- Etheryte 1y ago
  That seems completely orthogonal to the point. Much like elsewhere in drug addiction, the deaths were due to the suppliers' negligence, not the fact that the deceased were addicts.
542354234235 1y ago
I think the larger risk is lowering the bar even further for who could climb Everest. Anything that makes climbing “easier” could put more people on the mountain that aren’t fit enough or trained enough to handle problems with the climb. In the death zone, any issue, mistake, or problem is potentially fatal. Since just moving up and down the summit puts people at the absolute limit of exertion, attempting to help someone having an issue could domino into multiple fatalities. The book “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer is an amazing firsthand account of the 1996 Everest disaster. The book does a great job helping you really understand how far your body is pushed in the death zone, and how you truly have nothing left to do anything other than get one foot in front of the other in a race against time. Just sitting down to “rest” was a likely death sentence and how people had to walk past because stopping to try and help would have likely meant sitting down next to them to die.

comrade1234 1y ago

So they slept in hypoxia tents which activates the hypoxia-inducible factor molecule, but they also took xenon which also activates the molecule. So, it's not clear if the xenon actually did anything? Back during the 2000 dot-com boom crash I met a guy who got into a top business school in part by writing about the challenges of climbing Everest. He confessed drunkenly at a party to me that he'd never even left the USA...

acquisitionsilk 1y ago
If the business school is silly enough to accept people based partially on the idea that they climbed Everest, perhaps he was right to treat the task of getting in to the place as essentially theatre.
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago
  Isn't most business success about convincing people to buy expensive tulips while you (legally) walk away with the money and leave them holding the bags, then rinse and repeat? Seems like he'd be the right person for the job. And then you wonder why so many young people flirt with communism or want to see the capitalist system burn to the ground. What's the point of ethics and hard work if those who just lie their way into much better opportunities will out-earn you by orders of magnitude? Granted, it's a bit more complicated than that, often those people also have connections, but the feeling still stands. Not sure if meritocracy has been on a decline, or that we're now just more aware of it due to the internet.
  - kamaal 1y ago
    >>Not sure if meritocracy has been on a decline, or that we're now just more aware of it due to the internet. As an Indian, let me tell you, to accept something is wrong, and then just being fine about it, and just adjust your life to bad situations is how the fall of societies starts. Eventually everything becomes fine and acceptable, and you learn over time to adjust yourself to everything, like every bad thing ever.
  - 1y ago

meindnoch 1y ago

Xenon is used by athletes to increase their endogenous erythropoietin production. As it's a noble gas, it leaves no trace in their body, so post-hoc detection of this doping method is impossible. But as a recreational climber, why bother with xenon? Just inject EPO.

_joel 1y ago
Breathing in an inert gas is easier and much safer than injecting something into your body.
- timschmidt 1y ago
  Xenon acts like an anesthetic so it's possible to OD on.
  - robertlagrant 1y ago
    True, but they did it ahead of time in a controlled way.
    - nssnsjsjsjs 1y ago
      In a hospital with an anaesthesiologist?
      - pixl97 1y ago
        Anesthetic gasses are applied in a lot of environments outside of hospitals.
      - robertlagrant 1y ago
        > In a hospital with an anaesthesiologist? Well, from the article: > The men wore masks hooked up to ventilators as an anesthesiologist slowly introduced higher levels of xenon into their systems. The doctor named in the article seems to be[0] the head of the Department of Anesthesiology at Limburg hospital. [0] https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael-Fries-3 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael-Fries-3

tonyhart7 1y ago

"former special force", "flew to expert across Europe for testing and trial" Yeah this is not your average mountain climber group, "normal" people could not do this just by xenon gas alone

Havoc 1y ago
Yeah was about to say that must have been really good baseline fitness. I know people that made it to Kilimanjaro as pretty average middle class urbanites with no substantial climbing background, but that's probably at the edge of what's possible.
- normie3000 1y ago
  > I know people that made it to Kilimanjaro ... with no substantial climbing background Kilimanjaro is an arduous hike. No technical knowledge or equipment is required. The main challenge on the mountain is altitude, which is countered by time spent acclimatising.
  - devilbunny 1y ago
    Yeah, I knew some middle-aged marathoners who freely confessed that Kilimanjaro kicked their butts. As you say, it's not a technically challenging climb; it's just a long, long hike uphill in steadily thinning air.

nokeya 1y ago

“Days instead of weeks on the mountain foot” - that’s the crucial point. Less time -> less money spent on accommodation, supplies, personnel there. Obviously they don’t want to lose income.

elif 1y ago
Nah the logic is less time on the mountain > more climbers per climbing season. They will do this math eventually and then they will require xenon prep.
- deleted 1y ago
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Euphorbium 1y ago

Would nitrous work as well?

voidUpdate 1y ago
I'm not sure, but you'd have a fantastic time trying
smartbit 1y ago
Nitrous gas inactivates the cobalamin form of vitamin B₁₂ by oxidation. [0] Vitamin B₁₂ deficiency …… at levels moderately lower than normal, a range of symptoms such as feeling tired, weak, lightheadedness, headaches, dizziness, rapid breathing, rapid heartbeat, cold hands and feet, low-grade fevers, tremor, cold intolerance, easy bruising and bleeding, pale skin, low blood pressure, sore tongue, upset stomach, loss of appetite, weight loss, constipation, diarrhea, severe joint pain, feeling abnormal sensations including numbness or tingling (pins and needles) to the fingers and toes, and tinnitus, may be experienced. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide#Safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide#Safety [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12_deficiency#Signs,_symptoms_and_complications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12_deficiency#Signs,_...

Klaus_ 1y ago

Climbing Everest in just a few days with xenon gas does sound pretty wild. But it also makes me wonder if we’re turning what used to be a deeply human and challenging journey into just another experiment in efficiency. Not sure if that counts as progress. Curious how others see it.

freetime2 1y ago
> But it also makes me wonder if we’re turning what used to be a deeply human and challenging journey into just another experiment in efficiency. I think that ship has sailed already. Now the focus should probably be on safety, economic benefit, and sustainability/minimizing environmental impact.
normie3000 1y ago
> what used to be a deeply human and challenging journey into just another experiment in efficiency Maybe it's always been an experiment in efficiency? Early Everest expeditions consisted of large support teams, setting records for sleeping at altitude, and inventing new breathing apparatus. Or maybe the challenge and the journey are over now?

A_D_E_P_T 1y ago

Boss Lowe wrote about doping with xenon gas more than a decade ago: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/another-use-xenon https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/another-use-xenon Also, and quite interestingly, xenon isn't the only element that does this. Cobalt does something very similar: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6157393/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6157393/ Athletic use is probably more common than people think. And I'd be absolutely shocked if Xe gas weren't already being used in racehorses. (You wouldn't believe the state of chemical warfare in that sport.) There's also potential military use -- especially in combat divers. They're very limited by the amount of breathing gas they can carry. Anything to meaningfully cut oxygen use could be a game changer.

formerly_proven 1y ago
It’s kinda curious that xenon can be used both for performance enhancement _and_ as a general anaesthetic.
- dmd 1y ago
  And as a dessert topping!
  - zehaeva 1y ago
    No, It's a FLOOR WAX!
- Scaevolus 1y ago
  Anesthetics are very weird. One of the leading theories is that they basically get wedged in lipid bilayers and interfere with neural signaling: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_general_anaesthetic_action https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_general_anaestheti...
mdorazio 1y ago
Military divers who need to be underwater for long periods are almost certainly using rebreathers, both for the longevity and for the lack of visible & audible bubbles.

sQL_inject 1y ago

Sherpa (local) climbs Everest in eleven hours: national pride Foreigner climbs Everest in three days: "against climbing ethics" Got it.

jaoane 1y ago
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yapyap 1y ago
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cratermoon 1y ago
That Sherpa was born and lived on the mountain his whole life. Everything he is was molded by his life. His ability to make the climb came from years of experience and knowledge. The foreigner huffed some gas and slept in a high-tech tube a week before the climb. I'll leave to the reader to decide which one deserves respect and admiration.

adwn 1y ago

> Himal Gautam, the director of Nepal’s tourism department, which is responsible for regulating expeditions on the nation’s mountains, said in an interview that using the gas was “against climbing ethics,” […] Okay, but then be consistent and also ban bottled oxygen and the services of Sherpas. > […] and that it would hurt the country’s tourism industry and the Sherpas who help climbers by reducing their time on the mountain. Ah, okay, there's the real reason. "Climbing ethics" my ass.

quotemstr 1y ago

Amazing and hilarious. Genuine technological innovation in adaptation to low oxygen. Nay-sayers say it does nothing. Guys climb Everest in a week using said innovation. You can't argue with results, so they switch to: "Himal Gautam, the director of Nepal’s tourism department, which is responsible for regulating expeditions on the nation’s mountains, said in an interview that using the gas was “against climbing ethics,” and that it would hurt the country’s tourism industry and the Sherpas who help climbers by reducing their time on the mountain." and "From a medical point of view, off-label use without a scientific basis and with unknown health risks must be rejected" So it simultaneously does nothing and is unethical, and it doesn't matter whether it works anyway, because even if it did, it'd be against made-up "medical" rules. I've never seen a stronger case for telling very serious people to go fuck themselves.

rndmio 1y ago
I don't know, maybe the 10 prior weeks of sleeping in hypoxic tents might have had some effect too. If they walked off the street, huffed some Xenon then blasted up Everest that'd be amazing, but it sounds like people are overfocusing on the Xenon bit.

donatj 1y ago

Why does mountaineering need a future? Mountaineering should just be done. Stop. The mountains have been scaled. All of them. We've been there, website seen what's to be seen. It's done, it's over. Just leave these grandiose wonders alone rather than destroying the natural beauty in the name of an ego boost.

avalys 1y ago
Why do anything? Better to just sit on the couch.
- donatj 1y ago
  There are plenty of things worthy of doing, spaces left to explore and discoveries to be made. Destroying a natural wonder in the name of impressing your buddies doesn't fall under that.
  - tekla 1y ago
    I'm sure you are the arbiter of whats worth doing.
    - donatj 1y ago
      Sure. Here's my full criteria: Is it a net positive for the world at large? It's worth doing. That's it. Go out unto the world and do with that as you will
      - k4rli 1y ago
        Wouldn't the most beneficial thing then just be to kill myself? Overpopulation and such Going skydiving, auto racing, sailing, working out... All pointless if I'm understanding this logic.
      - potato3732842 1y ago
        >Is it a net positive for the world at large? The idea that such a subjective criteria should be used is more offensive than the hubris.

jmyeet 1y ago

I've long held that climbing Everest has become a gross display of wealth and vanity and basically nobody should do it. There's no glory in being the 4000th person to do so. It's not glamorous. You're basically climbing over trash and dead bodies to do it. Often inexperienced people with too much money are putting themselves, their sherpas and other climbers are risk by doing so. Using bottled oxygen already made this substantially easier. But this Xenon is on a whole new level. I went looking for the cost and found [1]: > After a week, the Brits could be back at their desks at home. They still pay an introductory price of an undisclosed amount. In future, such a short trip to Everest will cost around 150,000 euros. From my understanding, that's 50-100,000 more than usual. The whole thing just reeks of Oceangate. And for what? To take a selfie at the top and to brag to you're equally vacous and wealthy friends? It would be more ethical to stay home and just Photoshop yourself into a photo. ChatGPT can probably do it for you. Nepal is a very poor country. Being a sherpa is one of the few (locally) high paying jobs there are. Sherpas risk their lives for this. At least on K2 or Annapurna you're more likely to find experiernced and technically capable mountaineers who won't endanger your life for a selfie. Everest is not a technically difficult climb, as far as I understand it. The death zone and general conditions make it a challenge. Negate those with Xenon and it's just a really expensive walk. [1]: https://abenteuer-berg.de/en/with-xenon-to-mount-everest-and-back-in-just-one-week/ https://abenteuer-berg.de/en/with-xenon-to-mount-everest-and...

username223 1y ago
100% I've climbed some mountains, and while I don't know if I would be capable of doing Everest, I do know that I wouldn't want to (unless I could do it like Goran Kropp: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Göran_Kropp https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Göran_Kropp). I guess I could brag if I doped myself, took a helicopter past the Khumbu Icefall, and had servants carrying my stuff the whole way to the summit, but I could never be proud of myself for doing that.

throwawayffffas 1y ago

Why not just climb with oxygen and skip the hypoxia all together?

zeristor 1y ago

Isn't Xenon very expensive? I used it in my Laser MSc has part of the mix for a CO2 laser (marks how long ago that was). CO2 for the optic properties, and Xe to reduce the electron temperature. So the Xe in this case triggers a response in the human body, but people aren't quite sure why. Quite strange considering Xe is an inert gas.

helsinkiandrew 1y ago
> Isn't Xenon very expensive? Climbing Everest costs $50-100K though. If you can reduce the time each 'climber' spends on the mountain, its probably cost effective.
pfdietz 1y ago
Xenon is so expensive it's reasonable to think about recovering it from spent nuclear reactor fuel (it's a major fission product with no long lived isotopes, although you have to very rigorously separate it from krypton, which does have some.) Xenon isn't inert; it can form chemical compounds like xenon difluoride. In the body it's probably dissolving into cell membranes or other fatty components.
- weinzierl 1y ago
  What do you mean by "no long-lived isotopes"? That fission only produces short lived Xenon isotopes? Then, what use would it be to harvest it from fuel? For applications like in the article you want very long-lived or ideally stable Xe isotopes, which do exist.
  - NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
    The short-lived stuff decays away, leaving the safe stuff. When the isotopes decay away, they become other elements that are easily chemically separated. Or so I'd guess.
    - pfdietz 1y ago
      That's right. The xenon isotopes that are left are stable. Another fission product that might be worth recovering is rhodium, although not being a gas the process would be more involved.

jebarker 1y ago

Climbing Everest these days just seems to be the quintessential activity for people that have lost site of what really matters in life. It's where you end up if you never grow out of the idea that life is a competition you can win.

osigurdson 1y ago
Some people like climbing mountains, including Everest. It makes sense to follow your interests in my opinion.
- croes 1y ago
  It makes sense to think about consequences. https://nepalmonitor.com/2025/03/19/nepal-overtourism-everest-crisis/ https://nepalmonitor.com/2025/03/19/nepal-overtourism-everes...
  - osigurdson 1y ago
    Search your feelings, you just think mountain climbing is dumb / invalid and whatever activities that you like are valid. Let people do what they want. If Nepal wants to further restrict quotas, they can do so.
    - croes 1y ago
      I have no feelings about climbing but feelings against environmental pollution. Climb as much as you like but clean up the waste you create.
      - osigurdson 1y ago
        I don't climb at all but I do care a lot about people getting to do what they want with their lives.
        croes 1y ago

severusdd 1y ago

Xenon isn’t a new magic. Russian athletes were rumored to use it in the 2014 Sochi Olympic, and WADA banned it shortly thereafter: https://www.aip.org/inside-science/catching-some-xes-has-strange-effects-on-the-body https://www.aip.org/inside-science/catching-some-xes-has-str... It spikes HIF-1α → EPO for a day or two, but meta-analyses still doesn't show a real performance bump, let alone safety at 8 km. Feels less like innovation and more like mountaineering’s own carbon-plate shoes, except the failure mode here is cerebral edema, not a slow marathon time.

patentatt 1y ago
What's the issue with carbon-plated shoes?
- germinalphrase 1y ago
  They return energy (like a spring) providing mechanical assistance to the runner.
- cratermoon 1y ago
  Elite runners can knock about 2 minutes off their marathon time. Studies show about a 2% improvement in times, the downside is increased injury.
Aurornis 1y ago
> but meta-analyses still doesn't show a real performance bump I wish all of these news articles would discuss the actual studies instead of lazily parroting the claims of the one guy who is trying to sell expensive Xenon-assisted Everest hikes. These articles are always PR pieces for Lukas Furtenbach’s expensive Everest tours. Every single time I see the words “Xenon” and “Everest” in a headline, his name is in the article as the source.
- rtkwe 1y ago
  > I wish all of these news articles would discuss the actual studies They do, if you read them. > While some doctors have used the gas in the past to “precondition” patients to low oxygen levels — for example, before major heart surgery — the practice hasn’t really caught on because “it hasn’t been as protective as one would hope,” he said. > Mike Shattock, a professor of cellular cardiology at King’s College London, said “xenon probably does very little and there is virtually no reputable scientific evidence that it makes any difference.” > Some research has shown that xenon can quickly acclimatize people to high altitudes, even as some experts say the benefits, if any, are negligible and the side effects of its use remain unclear.

aaron695 1y ago

[dead]

mg794613 1y ago

Unfair? I thought that mountain was mainly climbed by CEO's that let sherpa's carry their stuff?

thecrumb 1y ago

I'm waiting until the trash pile on Everest is higher than the mountain itself. Everest isn't supposed to be easy to climb. If someone wants to do it faster/quicker - why would I care how. I'd still look at them and say you cheated.

pixl97 1y ago
> I'd still look at them and say you cheated. That's why naked cavemen are the only ones to climb the mountain without being called cheaters!

Aurornis 1y ago

Note that these all of these Xenon-Everest stories come back to the same person: Lukas Furtenbach Why? Because he’s launching a business that sells Xenon-assisted Everest tours: https://www.furtenbachadventures.com/ https://www.furtenbachadventures.com/ These stories are never about uncovering an underground world of Xenon performance enhancement or discussing the science (which is much less optimistic about Xenon’s benefits). They’re always lazily relaying the PR information that Lukas Furtenbach gives them. So while it’s true that Xenon appears to have some possible performance enhancing properties, all of these news pieces about how climbers are using Xenon always come back to this one same guy who is, coincidentally, trying really hard to sell people on expensive Xenon-assisted Everest tours.

mattmaroon 1y ago
That’s some really solid PR work on his part if true, but if he is scaling (pun intended) tours that actually do manage to summit Everest in significantly decreased time, I would say that it’s strong evidence that Xenon actually works and the science just hasn’t caught up to it yet. Unless he has found some other clever way that he is for some reason pretending is Xenon.
- RajT88 1y ago
  > Unless he has found some other clever way that he is for some reason pretending is Xenon. Meth. It's meth.
  - Hilift 1y ago
    In the 1991 film K2, Michael Biehn's character used an epinephrine (adrenaline) auto-injector (in his neck), which had recently been marketed and was seen by some wealthy as a booster. This actually increases risk for arrhythmia and makes pulmonary edema worse, so ironically meth would be a preferred booster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K2_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K2_(film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epinephrine_autoinjector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epinephrine_autoinjector https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/could-i-use-epipen-boost-my-performance/ https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/co...

goric 1y ago

IMO this climb doesn't really do much to prove of xenon's effectiveness (altitude researcher Dr. Peter Hackett says as much [0]). The team used supplemental oxygen on the climb, with the starting altitude and flow rate not being reported [1]. This is speculative, but if they were using more oxygen than typical and starting at a lower altitude, that's a massive advantage. Further, Andrew Ushakov traveled from NYC to the summit in just under 4 days this year without the use of xenon (but also with supplemental oxygen with unknown starting altitude and flow rate). He used a hypoxic tent to prepare as well, and depending on the accuracy of the reporting may have even spent less time doing that than the xenon team did [1]. [0] https://www.npr.org/2025/05/18/nx-s1-5398553/a-new-company-is-changing-how-people-summit-everest-by-making-climbers-inhale-xenon https://www.npr.org/2025/05/18/nx-s1-5398553/a-new-company-i... [1] https://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2025/05/21/everest-2025-fast-everest-summits-3-or-5-days/ https://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2025/05/21/everest-2025-fas...

djtango 1y ago
I believe the Xenon team also did hypoxic tents

vjvjvjvjghv 1y ago

Next step is probably exoskeletons.

_fs 1y ago
https://www.cnn.com/travel/robotic-exoskeleton-hiking-china-intl-hnk/index.html https://www.cnn.com/travel/robotic-exoskeleton-hiking-china-...

firesteelrain 1y ago

How safe is Xenon to breathe?

fortran77 1y ago

Will it also crash Rasperry Pis?

nine_k 1y ago

> Should scaling Mount Everest, one of sporting’s greatest accomplishments, be made easier But it has been, for a long time. Base camps, oxygen masks, advanced gear, etc all make climbing easier. Similarly, should lifting 200 kg be made easier? It has been made easy, you can use a forklift and barely move your finger to do so. But this is not seen as an accomplishment; if you want to be considered a strong weightlifter, you have to lift an old-school barbell. The biggest problem, as I can imagine, is not the dilution of the achievement, but the intensity of the stream if the climbers. Mt Everest is already full of climbers who follow each other at a short distance. Doubling this stream might ruin the experience altogether, or there would be large lines and inevitably large fees to jump them.

EasyMark 1y ago
They can easily limit the number of climbers with quotas, which they already do.