Why these climbers' plan to scale Everest in a week is getting blowback

Yahoo

16-05-2025

Climbing Mount Everest typically takes weeks if not months including acclimation to the altitude and the final push to the summit.
But four British military veterans plan to scale the world's tallest mountain in a week using xenon gas, which some scientists believe could boost red blood cell production and help speed altitude acclimatization, as part of their preparation.
Inhaling what's known as a noble gas has stirred controversy in the climbing community.
'The clock starts when we leave Heathrow,' Al Carns, a British lawmaker and minister for Veterans and People at the Ministry of Defense who is making his first Everest trip, told the Washington Post from London. 'And it stops when we arrive back. We think probably a day of travel, then three days to go up, two days down and the last travel day.'
Since the first of the year, Carns, Garth Miller, Kevin Godlington and Anthony Stazicker have slept in home hypoxic tents that gradually lower their oxygen levels to simulate high altitudes.
On May 5, under light sedation and medical supervision the four inhaled xenon gas mixed with oxygen in a single administration that lasted less than an hour, per the Post. The strongest effect is likely to start 10 to 14 days afterward, putting their ideal departure date on Friday.
The men hatched the plan at a pub while talking about taking an adventure trip to raise money for a veterans' charity. One of them brought up the prospect of summiting Everest.
'We're all busy people. My response was, 'No way I can spend four to six, maybe even eight weeks out climbing Everest — it's just almost impossible,'' Carns told CNN.
One of them, though, had read about using xenon.
An experienced Austrian mountaineer named Lukas Furtenbach has shortened Everest trips to weeks with 'flash' expeditions that used hypoxic tents. He approached the four men with the idea of cutting the Everest time frame with the use of xenon, a strategy that the Post notes 'has both roiled and fascinated the climbing community.'
Furtenbach, who runs Furtenbach Expeditions, and some of his guides have tested the gas with good results on previous climbs, such as on Aconcagua, according to Explorersweb.com. He said it's just another method to guarantee a safe, fast climb, no different from specific gear or oxygen.
'The gas treatment is neither illegal, nor doping, nor dangerous. It does the same thing that a hypoxic tent does, just quicker,' he said, while pointing out his company has had no accidents in 20 years. He said the loudest backlash has come from his competitors.
Furtenbach, though, acknowledged the plan for the four men is 'a provocation.'
Adrian Ballinger, a climber who has led expeditions on Everest and other peaks since 2004 through his Alpenglow Expeditions company and created a rapid ascent program of his own, told the Post that he sees it as a stunt more than anything else.
'It is a banned substance by all professional sporting organizations and even though (mountain climbing) is not managed by a sporting organization, it's always been a goal of climbers to follow best practices of not doping. All that combined makes it feel, I guess, pretty icky. People should be able to climb how they want to, but it isn't mountain climbing, it's mountain tourism,' he said.
Discovered in England in 1898, xenon was used as a general anesthetic for decades but rarely now. Per the Post, 'It has been shown to increase production of the protein erythropoietin (EPO), which is produced by the kidneys in response to low oxygen levels. EPO fights hypoxia by increasing the number of red blood cells and hemoglobin, which carries oxygen throughout the body.'
The World Anti-Doping Agency has banned xenon since 2014 when Russian endurance athletes used it to boost EPO during the Sochi Olympics.
Experts have raised serious health concerns about using xenon gas for high-altitude climbs.
The International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation issued a statement in January saying that 'according to current literature, there is no evidence that breathing in xenon improves performance in the mountains, and inappropriate use can be dangerous. Although a single inhalation of xenon can measurably increase the release of erythropoietin, this increase is not sustained over four weeks use, nor is it associated with any changes in red blood cells. According to the literature, the effects on performance are unclear and probably non-existent.'
A 2019 study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology found xenon inhalation did not increase fitness or improve athletic performance.
'Does xenon increase red blood cells? Well, that's never really been shown conclusively,' Peter Hackett, a mountaineering expert and physician, told the Post, adding that research into the effect of xenon has been insufficient.
Furtenbach told the Post he is more interested in whether xenon can protect tissue than enhance performance, adding he faced the same criticism when he started the flash expeditions.
As for the four climbers, they know seven days is an aggressive goal and the unpredictable weather on Everest and other unforeseen physical problems could stretch their time frame.
'The reality is we've got 21 days to do this. The record is at 21 from London back to London in 21 days, so I'm really confident. I reckon there's a 70 to 80 percent chance we'll do it in 21 days, a 30 percent chance we can do it in seven,' Carns told the Post. 'If it means we need to go up to Camp 4 and then back to Camp 2 and then back up to the summit, then that's what we'll do. I'm pretty confident unless the weather gods properly come against us.'