alt.hn

1/14/2025 at 11:08:54 PM

Climbers using xenon gas to climb Everest

 https://gripped.com/profiles/climbers-using-xenon-gas-which-is-banned-in-sports-to-climb-everest/

by vasco

1/15/2025 at 12:26:10 AM

Inhaling 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://boingboing.net/2021/11/25/hamilton-morris-experience...

by bluedevil2k

1/15/2025 at 10:39:30 AM

Like 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.

by adrian_b

1/15/2025 at 3:49:21 AM

So 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..

by ggm

1/15/2025 at 5:26:21 AM

This is essentially the plot of “The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch”.

by ipnon

1/15/2025 at 5:31:09 AM

Love that book. Must re-read. PKD endless value.

by ggm

1/15/2025 at 2:49:24 AM

Love 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.

by teaearlgraycold

1/15/2025 at 12:02:07 AM

Isn'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.

by Etheryte

1/15/2025 at 12:06:19 AM

> 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

by vasco

1/15/2025 at 12:32:38 AM

Pretty sure your source is wrong. And that helium is 10_$_ a liter not 10¢. As helium is much, much more expensive than argon.

by dugditches

1/15/2025 at 10:50:49 AM

Perhaps the helium price is right, but argon is certainly much cheaper.

That price of argon might be per cubic meter, not per liter.

The price of argon is essentially zero for the argon itself, which forms one percent of the air. What you pay is only the energy required to separate it from dioxygen and dinitrogen, e.g. by liquefaction and distillation.

EDIT: Googling now, I see prices for argon around half of dollar per kilogram.

A cubic meter of argon has slightly less than 1.8 kg, so the price of argon is at most 1 $ per cubic meter.

A liter is one thousand times less than a cubic meter, so the price per liter is one tenth of a cent.

by adrian_b

1/15/2025 at 6:19:39 AM

You likely meant to write 'xenon' there, not 'helium'. FWIW, 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,

by eesmith

1/15/2025 at 11:52:42 AM

I buy a big tank of argon periodically for TIG welding. I don't remember what I last paid but it was cheap. Decades ago I used helium but it's much too expensive for hobby welding now.

by dreamcompiler

1/15/2025 at 12:15:42 AM

ah, rich people sports...

by killjoywashere

1/15/2025 at 12:12:04 AM

The prices in the article are what the company is charging for their services, not the gas itself.

The gas itself is under $100 per liter depending on purity.

by Aurornis

1/15/2025 at 12:25:13 AM

The depending on purity is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, to the point where I would say it's misleading. I don't know the price for xenon off the top of my head, but for a comparison with nitrous oxide, food grade is generally between 99% and 99.9% pure. If you want medical grade, the threshold is 99.99% pure or better, depending on what you're doing. Those additional nines are what drive the price up, plus the fact that someone signed off on it with their name. Food grade is cheap, medical is expensive. No one is going to go up Everest with anything below medical.

by Etheryte

1/15/2025 at 12:41:16 AM

> The depending on purity is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, to the point where I would say it's misleading.

Not really. The range of prices doesn't change by multiple orders of magnitude. At small quantities the cost of the ancillary equipment might be as much as the gas. I guarantee you they're not buying $5000 of pristine gas per client.

One of the hardest parts of dealing with Xenon is getting the last little bits of Krypton gas out. Very small doses of Krypton gas are inert and not really a health issue. The research grade Xenon has to be higher purity because many experiments rely on it being the only gas present.

> No one is going to go up Everest with anything below medical.

Companies who do Everest expeditions vary greatly. There's a lot of history of bad behavior among companies around Everest. Just because it's expensive and their clientele is wealthy, you shouldn't assume they're operating according to the highest standards. There's a long history of badly behaving companies around Everest.

by Aurornis

1/15/2025 at 2:58:50 AM

But why would it even be bad behavior to use "food grade" Xenon? They extract it from air, and they're going to mix it with air again.

by andrewflnr

1/15/2025 at 3:47:30 AM

Because the contaminants in that 0.01% can be byproducts of the refining process and not necessarily what was in the air originally.

by mlindner

1/15/2025 at 4:37:58 AM

Like what, lubrication from the air liquification equipment? I guess I don't know much about the details of the process, but I really don't know what the contaminants would be.

by andrewflnr

1/15/2025 at 5:10:07 AM

Yes, or random things like minor amounts of carbon monoxide or nitrous oxide or what have you.

One reason why it’s not a good idea to use a normal air compressor to breath from (or compress air for cylinders), is precisely because of issues like this.

by lazide

1/15/2025 at 7:50:44 PM

No one here is claiming they're charging that purely for the gas. Of course you have equipment, personnel costs, maintenance, profit margin etc on top. The point is that the cost of the gas is not trivial.

by Etheryte

1/15/2025 at 1:05:24 AM

What does the additional .09% of purity get you - if the xenon or nitrous is mixed with air at inhalation time anyway? For example, divers and pilots use ABO oxygen which is only 99.5% pure.

https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2023/december/p...

by maxwellg

1/15/2025 at 1:50:11 AM

It's often what the 0.9% is that makes the difference between grades, other than purity.

Generally and as an illustration, a chemical may have a 99% "reagent" grade that includes industrial solvents or some other chemicals that are toxic to ingest. So its equivalent "food" grade may have the same 99% purity but the other 1% is something that isn't poisonous.

by foobar1962

1/15/2025 at 3:29:27 AM

My chemistry teacher pointed out to our class that "99%" ethanol was distilled in benzene, and therefore had poisonous residue, whereas "95%" was water distilled, and thus safe to spike your OJ.

by adonovan

1/15/2025 at 3:49:06 AM

In the US they generally add toxic chemicals back in for that kind of thing to prevent people doing that.

by mlindner

1/15/2025 at 8:15:35 AM

Such toxins are added to make the alcohol unsuitable for human consumption, and thus avoid paying government alcohol tax or duty.

Where I am it's called "methylated spirits" and IIRC the boing point of the additive is very close to that of the alcohol so it's not possible to distill it out.

by foobar1962

1/15/2025 at 9:10:01 AM

20 years ago I read about a Dutch company that sold pure alcohol for consumption to Russia, where people would drink one sip of pure alcohol followed by two sips of orange juice.

Hopefully the only country with a market for that.

by mcv

1/15/2025 at 4:34:41 AM

They might generally add toxins (or bitterants) to the 95% if regulations instruct them to.

With the 99% stuff, the laws of physics compells them to use the benzene.

Financial considerations also exert an influence on the process.

by LeifCarrotson

1/15/2025 at 1:52:52 AM

> The gas itself is under $100 per liter depending on purity.

At what temperature and pressure?

by foobar1962

1/15/2025 at 3:25:58 AM

STP, standard temperature and pressure, most likely. Commerce may vary the temperature slightly, but I doubt by much.

by oasisbob

1/15/2025 at 12:09:40 AM

How does Xenon act as an anaesthetic if it's a noble gas and chemically inert?

by everyone

1/15/2025 at 5:35:31 AM

Pretty much anything that dissolves in lipids will work as an anesthetic, with effectiveness depending on how well it dissolves. This is why nitrogen under high pressure can cause nitrogen narcosis while diving. This is also why spot removers like ether and chloroform work as anesthetics. Also why nitrous oxide is used for whipped cream; it dissolves in the cream and makes it foam up. Since xenon is somewhat soluble in lipids, it somewhat works as an anesthetic even though it is chemically inert. The big question is why being lipid-soluble makes something an anesthetic. That's not known, but probably it messes up ion channels in the lipid membrane or something.

See the Meyer-Overton correlation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theories_of_general_anaestheti...

by kens

1/15/2025 at 12:18:04 AM

It's not completely chemically inert, but the actual mechanism that makes it work as an anesthetic is unknown (as, unnervingly, are most general anesthetics).

by rcxdude

1/15/2025 at 12:20:25 AM

> unnervingly

Pun intended?

by davidw

1/15/2025 at 12:26:38 AM

We don’t know!

by ok_dad

1/15/2025 at 12:11:51 AM

It's not chemically inert (1), but even if it were it could still disrupt cell membrane function by physical effects, like dissolving into the lipids.

(1) For example, a mixture of xenon and fluorine, when exposed to sunlight, makes crystals of xenon difluoride.

by pfdietz

1/15/2025 at 1:34:14 AM

I feel like fluorine isn't allowed in a "chemical inert" statement ;) You can, after all, even make Argon react with it - HArF. Only Neon and Helium are so far in the "only reacts theoretically with fluorine"

by groby_b

1/15/2025 at 12:56:54 AM

Nitrous Oxide is inert in the body as well.

by ada1981

1/15/2025 at 1:30:45 AM

So topping Everest is now becoming a pay-to-win title.

by karmakaze

1/15/2025 at 2:29:04 AM

It's been like that for a while. It costs 30+k for a cut rate attempt, probably closer to 50-60k to do it with a reputable company. Travel expenses and equipment is probably a bunch more on top of that. If you really want to get to the top, you can pay a bunch more to have sherpas and guides hold your hand and drag you to the summit and hopefully back down.

by scheme271

1/15/2025 at 3:29:09 AM

It has always been pay-to-win. Expensive “expedition style” ascents—where hired Sherpas shuttle oxygen bottles and other essential gear up to high elevation camps, setting fixed ropes and ladders along the way—vastly outnumber “alpine style” ascents where climbers attempt to summit with no support using only gear they can carry themselves.

The mountain has been flooded with rich people paying guides to get them to the top for decades. It’s obviously still a major challenge, but very much a well-monetized one.

by macNchz

1/15/2025 at 1:32:32 AM

It has been for a while now.

by vishnugupta

1/15/2025 at 2:21:08 AM

It's actually to the point where even though I have to assume it's still quite challenging and arduous compared to like a day hike in the cascades or something, it's for me to not just mentally discount it, like buying high fashion stuff or a fancy car with a normal income. As in, a friend tells me they went and bought a Porsche, and I'd be like "sweet dude", because it's still probably neat, just not something I'd be terribly enthusiastic to explore; just a vibe of buying clout or something because it's the highest point and requires quite a lot of extra money. The base camp trek would be kinda neat though.

by brailsafe

1/15/2025 at 6:03:00 AM

I have similar thoughts. The base camp trek was high on my list but then I've heard that it has become a rich people's village and I lost interest.

While on this topic, one book I really enjoyed is Into Thin Air [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Into_Thin_Air

by vishnugupta

1/15/2025 at 4:43:29 PM

> I have to assume it's still quite challenging and arduous compared to like a day hike in the cascades or something

That's an understatement.

It's trendy to downplay climbing Everest now that it's associated with rich people, but it's still an incredibly difficult feat. There isn't any comparison to a day hike in the cascades.

I have several friends who I consider very athletic and trained. Even they had difficulty with smaller, less challenging peaks. You can't climb Everest without a lot of training, motivation, and dedication, even if you have all the money in the world to spend on it.

by Aurornis

1/16/2025 at 12:08:18 AM

Ya it was intended to be. I guess I'd probably just prefer to allocate that time and those resources to some other mountaineering expedition or a series of them. There are a few in the cascades (not day hikes), and then maybe the tallest in Canada + the U.S (Logan/Denali), but I'm not actively pursuing any atm, would still be a lot of training and gear etc.. Probably starting even smaller with some 2-4 day summits. Everest wasn't something that was ever in the cards or dreams anyway, but it does now seem to have an image problem.

by brailsafe

1/15/2025 at 7:05:06 AM

Many people had your though so everest base camp trek is also full of people and queues at choke points.

by vasco

1/16/2025 at 12:15:58 AM

I mean, for me that alone would be enough to just pass on it. I'm sure there are more interesting, more secluded trails that are just are intrinsically novel if I wanted to visit that range.

I'm chill with a bit of traffic on popular trails, but that also kill the vibe I'd imagine. Hope it was still fun though.

by brailsafe

1/15/2025 at 2:49:41 AM

And apparently visiting the Titanic.

Rich people are weird.

by JKCalhoun

1/15/2025 at 3:21:18 AM

What, you never thought it would be cool to see the Titanic yourself? The only weird thing is actually being able to do it.

by andrewflnr

1/16/2025 at 12:47:15 PM

Like climbing Mount Everest though, it seems like one of those bragging-rights things that rich people feel they need to do in order to show they are rich.

by JKCalhoun

1/15/2025 at 4:41:23 PM

Climbing Everest is an incredible feat no matter many aids you have.

There are a lot of delusional people who wish they could pay their way to the top, but they get filtered out by the realities of how hard it is to climb at altitude before they can even get to the point of making an attempt.

It's definitely easier to make a climb today than it was decades ago, but it's not something the average person can pull off. You have to be very fit and motivated to do it even with the aids.

by Aurornis

1/15/2025 at 3:31:21 AM

Always has been. Time or money.

by mensetmanusman

1/15/2025 at 12:04:14 AM

According 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.

by readthenotes1

1/14/2025 at 11:45:25 PM

Are they joining the Mile High club? https://tripsitter.substack.com/p/xenon

Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40804827

by buildsjets

1/14/2025 at 11:51:49 PM

Wow, 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".)

by Trasmatta

1/15/2025 at 12:43:09 AM

If it gets them to the top of Everest, it would probably be the 5.5 mile high club.

by epoxia

1/14/2025 at 11:54:44 PM

Hypoxic 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.

by maxwellg

1/15/2025 at 12:18:06 AM

> > Furtenbach, whose training rides and runs have been 10 percent faster for days after xenon-fuelled climbs...

Furtenbach is the person selling the $5,000 Xenon sessions.

Keep that in mind when considering the claims.

by Aurornis

1/15/2025 at 3:13:20 PM

Xenon and Argon doping are officially banned by WADA. So while obviously you will get away with it if you aren't one of the top athletes on the planet, you will technically be cheating if you breathe Xenon then run in the San Francisco Marathon.

by zardo

1/15/2025 at 12:17:02 AM

I 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-...

by SpicyUme

1/15/2025 at 12:30:47 AM

> 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).

by Aurornis

1/15/2025 at 1:59:06 AM

Oh 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.

by SpicyUme

1/15/2025 at 12:03:46 AM

"You did not climb Everest. You brought it down to your level."

- Yvon Chouinard

by fabiensanglard

1/15/2025 at 12:11:18 AM

I can't find a source for this quote or one that fits this pattern. Do you have one?

by javawizard

1/15/2025 at 12:20:53 AM

The 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-lan...

by mikeryan

1/15/2025 at 12:24:54 AM

Ah, I hadn't broadened my search terms enough to find that. Thanks!

by javawizard

1/15/2025 at 12:05:16 AM

Referenced article (How to climb Everest in a week, Financial Times, January 11 2025)

https://archive.ph/1qEGQ

by ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7

1/15/2025 at 10:41:48 AM

There 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.

by jamiedumont

1/15/2025 at 9:17:04 PM

I'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.

by tim333

1/16/2025 at 6:46:51 AM

I’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

by jamiedumont

1/16/2025 at 11:43:50 AM

The "local guides" work kind of splits into two parts. The vast majority of the work the Sherpas and Tibetans do is logistics, lugging tents, ropes, food and the like up to the various camps, and no one uses oxygen for that. Oxygen is pretty expensive, like $400 for a cylinder that lasts a few hours. The last bit guiding up to the summit, the guides are often westerners but even when they are locals they usually use oxygen for the summit. I had a go climbing and when you turn off the oxygen you don't collapse or anything but you can climb like 3x faster with it on, and you get a gradual body deterioration with it off, at the high altitudes - I got to 7900m.

by tim333

1/16/2025 at 7:00:51 AM

The sherpas probably have a bit of genetic advantage having lived in the mountains for generations. And they probably also have some acclimatization and training benefits from spending all season at altitude and working really hard there. But I think past a certain altitude, it simply doesn't help enough. Your body just starts tearing itself apart and shutting down due to a lack of sufficient oxygen.

Genetics and training might help for a while but it won't help for long.

by scheme271

1/15/2025 at 12:15:41 AM

This 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-...

So color me skeptical.

by Aurornis

1/15/2025 at 3:27:54 AM

At what point due they just strap you into an exosuite with its own atmosphere and have it walk you up the mountain?

by siliconc0w

1/15/2025 at 6:00:18 AM

I would do this. Back mounted drone that carries me down.

by wegfawefgawefg

1/15/2025 at 6:01:07 AM

Hard 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.

by jonstewart

1/15/2025 at 3:02:34 AM

Wow, only the 2nd story from Gripped to get posted to HN! And the first was more than a decade ago.

by snowwrestler

1/15/2025 at 3:12:36 AM

Was 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.

by i_am_jl

1/15/2025 at 10:56:14 AM

I 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

by VeejayRampay

1/15/2025 at 12:29:39 AM

Well, 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.

by username223

1/14/2025 at 11:57:35 PM

Beginner 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.

by kerkeslager

1/15/2025 at 12:09:46 AM

Climbing Everest assisted is still a monumental personal achievement. I'm proud of my even more modest adventures in the Himalayas.

by AlotOfReading

1/16/2025 at 4:46:32 PM

As 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.

by kerkeslager

1/17/2025 at 3:41:51 AM

That's exactly what a personal achievement is.

by AlotOfReading

1/15/2025 at 2:28:26 AM

Only 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.

by Petersipoi

1/15/2025 at 2:34:19 AM

Aside from the difficulty of the actual expedition, the cost and time requirements are prohibitive for many people. The Nepalese government has also limited the number of permits issued to climb Everest.

by rgmerk

1/15/2025 at 2:47:02 AM

341 deaths... Fewer than 5% of climbers have died on Everest.

by mc3301

1/15/2025 at 3:27:10 AM

>Fewer than 5% of climbers have died on Everest

Those two figures show how the number of deaths is less than 5% of the count of those who actually made it to the summit. The death rate would be less than that due to the large number of people that end their attempt partway through.

by TeaBrain

1/15/2025 at 4:12:32 AM

Yeah, and it's not linear either as more and more people attempt to climb it every year, and as equipment gets better. With those two figures alone, it's a barely useful statistic, I guess.

by mc3301

1/16/2025 at 4:39:56 PM

Look up how much it costs.

Few people have enough money to do it. That doesn't mean it's difficult.

by kerkeslager

1/15/2025 at 9:27:19 PM

>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

by tim333

1/15/2025 at 12:13:13 AM

You did not climb Everest on Xenon gas and you are shameful for risking the lives of Sherpa people if you try.

by kylehotchkiss

1/15/2025 at 2:02:51 AM

How does one “use” xenon gas to climb a mountain?

by koolba

1/15/2025 at 2:07:47 AM

I suspect, they're huffing it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd5j8mG24H4

by Over2Chars

1/15/2025 at 2:54:52 AM

Does it give you super powers? Can it be used as a performance enhancing drug more generally?

by koolba

1/15/2025 at 3:16:26 AM

From what I've read it jacks up your bloods ability to store oxygen. So, kinda yes and yes.

by Over2Chars

1/14/2025 at 11:52:52 PM

Visiting just one page on this wacky website absolutely trashed my browser's (Firefox) back-history.

by sk5t

1/15/2025 at 12:17:58 AM

I was just about to comment on that ... I wonder if that's on purpose or if it's just poor coding on the site

by ray_v

1/15/2025 at 4:25:07 AM

[dead]

by aaron695

1/15/2025 at 12:18:42 AM

[flagged]

by zombiwoof

1/14/2025 at 11:34:32 PM

Here 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.

by ada1981

1/15/2025 at 12:07:36 AM

What's the HN etiquette around claiming that a reply is AI generated?

by KTibow

1/15/2025 at 12:54:39 AM

Totally AI generated. I gave it my notes and pasted output. Just want to warn people that xenon is dangerous for this type of thing.

by ada1981

1/15/2025 at 3:41:55 AM

It'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/.

by 0_____0

1/16/2025 at 3:22:38 AM

I just don’t want people taking Xenon and having their blood thicken and all the associated problems.

by ada1981

1/15/2025 at 1:51:15 AM

> 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.

by ruthmarx

1/16/2025 at 11:58:52 AM

Can you say why that is an issue for you?

Is it the length?

My notes are often only legible to me personally and fragmented and not well formed. Or they are voice notes.

by ada1981

1/16/2025 at 4:07:40 PM

Sharing AI output is pretty much the same thing as copying and pasting search results.

by ruthmarx

1/15/2025 at 12:05:58 AM

You write a lot like LLMs do. Would be interested to know where you developed your style.

by creddit

1/15/2025 at 12:16:43 AM

When I wrote formally (IE not on the internet), I used write similarly. I can't speak for OP but I learned the style when I was an IB student in theory of knowledge class (a long, long time ago).

It's a little depressing now because writing formally used to be an incentive to read the details, but now it is a signal that someone had an AI write something out of bullet points.

by jbm

1/15/2025 at 12:58:44 AM

Did they also teach you to give snappy little titles to little different sections of writing? I find it a very odd but specific style of writing that has only recently risen in prominence.

by creddit

1/15/2025 at 1:30:03 AM

No - although that was something I picked up when writing for the executive class who didn't want to read my 10 page long technical memos.

by jbm

1/15/2025 at 12:57:59 AM

Claude.ai :) I just wanted to put my notes in and get a suitable warning.

by ada1981

1/15/2025 at 3:09:30 AM

Better just putting your notes. I find the long response annoying, with unnecessary fluff. It makes you look like someone who can't summarise your ideas very well :)

by cpncrunch

1/14/2025 at 11:55:04 PM

Thanks for the writeup! And I'd add, from a philosophical prospective, if you're doing this Xenon protocol, if Sherpas are carrying everything, etc., at what point is it like not that big a deal anymore? Don't people climb Mt. Everest in the first place because it's an ultimate challenge?

by hn_throwaway_99

1/15/2025 at 12:32:15 AM

For the same reason that people visit North Korea or Pripyat, they encountered it in popular or social media and added it to their bucket list.

There will always be dedicated mountaineers who view it (or K2) as the ultimate personal achievement but that number is joined more and more by the "wealthy instagram crowd".

https://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2024/12/16/everest-by-the-n...

by vunderba

1/15/2025 at 12:07:44 AM

Climbing Everest hasn't been a big deal or the ultimate challenge for decades. Climbing it with your own skills, it would take years of training, and you'd likely want to work up to it by summitting numerous smaller mountains. But every year, hundreds of "mountaineers" who have never climbed a single mountain before, i.e. complete beginners, get to the top of Everest because the sherpas do all the work.

If you've never climbed a mountain before, you're a beginner mountaineer. If a mountain is climbed by hundreds of beginner mountaineers each year, it's a beginner mountain. These people don't have fitness or skills, they just have money.

by kerkeslager

1/14/2025 at 11:58:18 PM

Maybe they just want to go on top of Everest, that once was just for the professional mountaineer. People looking for challenges still have the K2 and others

by manoweb

1/15/2025 at 12:38:17 AM

Sure, I get that, I guess my point is more that there are things like helicopter tours to the top of Mt. Everest if you really just want to go to the top and see it. I get the "bragging rights" to be able to say I "climbed" Mt. Everest, but again I think it's pretty suspect if you didn't even bother to acclimate your body before the climb.

by hn_throwaway_99

1/17/2025 at 10:10:46 AM

> there are things like helicopter tours to the top of Mt. Everest if you really just want to go to the top and see it

There are not, getting a helicopter to the top of everest is a major achievement in its own right, to the point that airbus brag about the models of their helicopters that have achieved it.

There are regular helicopter tours to the base camp, but to the summit? no, that's still a rare special event, and usually only done by a solo pilot since you're way out of the helicopter's maximum ceiling with load.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Didier_Delsalle

by NikkiA

1/14/2025 at 11:56:55 PM

I think we need this approach. Like many protocols, if there is enough research and medical support we can develop ways to go beyond current limits. Not everybody can stay for 8 weeks in a foreign country just waiting. Faster expeditions will also mean less waste and crowding for the same number of people reaching the summit.

by manoweb

1/15/2025 at 12:03:59 AM

I mean, do we need people to summit Everest?

by kerkeslager

1/15/2025 at 12:26:12 AM

Industrialists gonna industrialize I guess. There’s an innate human demand to conquer nature, and an innate desire for others to make the things people want more achievable. We’d need a massive change in society to do anything else.

by gabruoy

1/15/2025 at 12:26:36 AM

Who is "we"? What is your role in this issue?

by fallingknife

1/15/2025 at 4:44:44 PM

I'm a climber, who has summitted a few of the world's tallest mountains in South America. That may sound like a brag but it isn't--just as with the people who climb Everest, I had a guide, who did most of the work. Later on I got a lot more skills and fitness, and did some smaller mountains on my own skills (with partners, not with a guide). But really, I'm more invested in sport/trad climbing, and I am, at best, a novice mountaineer. I just know enough to know that the achievement Everest climbers are claiming is basically nothing.

The people I've talked to who have summitted Everest, with one exception (a retired sherpa), know literally nothing about how to mountaineer. They don't know how to fix a rope--literally one of the most basic, easy skills. They can't climb 5.6, and in fact don't even know what 5.6 is. They don't know how to analyze snowpack. If these people attempted, for example, a winter ascent of Long's Peak, which is many people's first summit, they would likely die, because they are even less prepared than beginner mountaineers who usually attempt this mountain.

My investment in this is that beginners showing up with money and claiming reputation because they summitted the world's tallest mountain detracts from the reputation of every other practitioner of the sport. It would be like someone claiming to have run a marathon when they actually were pulled by someone else in a rickshaw--and yes, the colonialist metaphor there is intentional. It's an insult to anyone who actually puts in the work to learn and get fit for mountaineering, and their buying their way to the top makes the mountain inaccessible to real mountaineers.

by kerkeslager

1/14/2025 at 11:53:22 PM

Out of curiosity, what happens after you do an Everest climb? Does the increased production in red blood cells stay? Is it similar to how high altitude training works on cardio sports today?

by darkwizard42

1/15/2025 at 6:23:21 AM

depends on where you live. if you're living closer to sea level, then your body won't get the high-altitude stimulus, so when your body replaces the high-altitude amount of red blood cells (RBC), you'll get an appropriate number of RBCs for your current environment.

A web search says RBCs get replaced approximately every 120 days, so you'd have about 4 months of higher aerobic fitness unless you did something to keep up the need for more RBCs.

Sleeping in a high-altitude tent while at sea level or some equivalent hypoxic stimulus will fool your body into thinking it's at high altitude and pump out more RBCs.

Other supposed methods to increase EPO naturally - https://www.menshealth.com/uk/fitness/a754917/sweat-like-a-v...

by canucker2016

1/15/2025 at 12:45:13 AM

How is this different from simulation EPO production through other means or blood doping through transfusion?

Edit: my original question conflated EPO with blood doping

by cout

1/14/2025 at 11:56:25 PM

I guess time will tell? Is this speculation or is there evidence of increased mortality from using xenon this way currently?

by ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7

1/15/2025 at 12:23:33 AM

Who cares? If a helicopter could reach the summit, I would take a helicopter. More people should drive to the north pole, too.

by db48x

1/15/2025 at 2:28:59 AM

The problem is that while climbing Everest no longer requires elite-level mountaineering skill, it remains extremely dangerous, both for the people paying and the (mostly Nepalese) guides who take climbers up there.

It seems that roughly 1% of people who attempt the summit die in the process; there are hundreds of bodies simply left on the mountain as it's too risky to retrieve them.

There's every chance that this approach will lead to more fatalities as it will increase the proportion of inexperienced, unskilled climbers attempting the summit, with less opportunity for those unsuited for very high altitudes to pull out before dying.

by rgmerk

1/15/2025 at 4:46:27 AM

It is one of the better paying jobs and Nepal makes a mint from the permits. They pimp themselves out for a buck defiling the mountain with their trash and corpses. And I don't blame them, it is what it is, a weird symbiosis of mountain exploiters all the way down. If the locals care about that they'd at least require sherpas for hire to haul out the corpses who signed their checks.

by ty6853

1/15/2025 at 6:02:47 AM

You're worried about people who have already decided to take the risk. (sherpa safety is seperate point)

Its not like theyre being forced to go climb mount everest.

They could go do bungie jumping or cliff diving, driving fast, etc.

by wegfawefgawefg

1/15/2025 at 2:47:54 AM

I'm curious where things tend to go wrong with the inexperienced people? Are we talking a general lack of fitness or just little/no real mountaineering skills?

I feel like I've heard of some guys that did a 12 week program to prepare them, but don't recall the outcome. You certainly can't fake a lifetime of strong cardio fitness.

by mp05

1/15/2025 at 2:58:10 AM

Both of the above, but also your body's ability to adapt to high altitude, which isn't just a question of general cardiovascular fitness.

If you build up to climbing Everest more gradually you find this out in places and at altitudes where you can be saved.

That said, Everest is an extremely dangerous place even for experienced mountaineers, though it's not the most dangerous . The second highest peak, K2, is so dangerous that roughly one person dies for every eight or so who reach the summit.

by rgmerk

1/15/2025 at 3:58:53 AM

I would imagine a lack of experience with gear and not knowing how to react to sudden weather changes might be 2 big reasons why things go wrong. These environments are not forgiving when panic sets in or you make a long series of minor mistakes, many stories like these when it comes to scuba diving as well (especially cave diving).

by ghxst

1/15/2025 at 3:44:08 AM

So what? People take risks all the time. The guides are paid, so they must be getting enough to make the risks worthwhile.

by db48x

1/15/2025 at 1:45:30 AM

The 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.

by xarope

1/15/2025 at 3:47:40 AM

Some people have come close to driving to the geographic north pole, such as when Top Gear drove to the 1996 magnetic north pole.[1] Unless the ice gets thinner as one gets closer to the pole, the main limitation would be logistics, not falling through the ice.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Top_Gear:_Polar_Special

by ggreer

1/15/2025 at 3:26:06 AM

You 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

by db48x

1/15/2025 at 8:51:36 AM

Unless 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"?

by xarope

1/15/2025 at 9:20:55 AM

True. You could still be the first to drive to where the magnetic pole was in 2007!

by db48x

1/15/2025 at 12:25:44 AM

The 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?

by nemomarx

1/15/2025 at 9:23:45 AM

Submarines 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.

by db48x