Reaching the summit of Mount Everest was once considered mountaineering’s most daring feat.
But now, a group of climbers plan to completely conquer the world’s tallest mountain in less time than you might spend on a trip to the seaside.
Using controversial xenon gas therapy, these busy mountaineers should be able to get from Heathrow to the summit and back in just one week.
If the technique proves successful, time-poor workaholics could pay £124,000 ($150,000) to achieve their climbing dreams without needing to miss Monday’s meetings.
At almost 8,850 metres, altitude sickness can lead to fatal consequences for climbers who don’t take proper precautions.
These usually involve weeks or even months of rest and short climbs up and down stretches of the mountain called rotations.
However, Austrian mountain guide Lukas Furtenbach believes that xenon therapy – a controversial treatment banned in professional sport – could let expeditions skip that process entirely.
Just 30 minutes spent breathing a low dose of the noble gas can boost the body’s red blood cell production enough to cut a 10-week expedition to a seven-day trip.
Austrian mountain guide Lukas Furtenbach (pictured) has developed a controversial strategy which could allow climbers to conquer Mount Everest in just one week
Reaching the summit of Mount Everest was once considered mountaineering’s most daring feat. But now, a group of climbers plan to completely conquer the world’s tallest mountain in less time than you might spend on a trip to the seaside
One of the biggest obstacles mountaineers face when climbing mountains like Everest is the extreme effects of altitude sickness.
As the atmosphere gets thinner, the climber’s body is starved of oxygen, leading to altitude sickness which causes symptoms including headaches and nausea, and even death in some cases.
Of the 335 people who have died on the slopes of Everest, around 15 per cent were killed by altitude sickness.
But Mr Furtenbach believes that inhaling small amounts of xenon gas could dodge these complications by letting climbers ‘pre-acclimatise’.
Xenon is an extremely expensive gas normally used as a rocket propellant or an anaesthetic.
But, in addition to its more common applications, lower doses of the gas have a potentially critical side effect.
Breathing the gas triggers the body’s response to ‘hypoxia’, low levels of oxygen, which is to secrete a protein called erythropoietin, or EPO.
EPO is what tells your bone marrow to make more red blood cells which, in turn, increase the body’s oxygen capacity and help to mitigate the effects of altitude.
The extreme altitude of Everest (pictured) requires mountaineers to allow their bodies to acclimatise to the low oxygen levels. But by breathing a low dose of xenon gas, climbers might be able to radically reduce the time needed
Typically, a climber might spend up to 10 weeks climbing Everest including a lengthy stay at base camp (pictured) to give their bodies time to adapt. By breathing xenon for 30 minutes, mountaineers might be able to start their assent immediately upon arrival
Traditionally, climbers spend up to 10 weeks slowly introducing their bodies to altitude in order to build up their EPO levels.
But xenon gas therapy could replicate the entire process in just 30 minutes.
On the advice of Michael Fries, an anaesthetist at a hospital in Limburg an der Lahn in western Germany, Mr Furtenbach has already put this bold theory to the test.
In 2020, Mr Furtenbach summited the 6,961-metre peak of Aconcagua in Argentina after pre-acclimatising with a dose of xenon.
‘I climbed a difficult route eight days from leaving Innsbruck, and had no problems on the summit,’ Mr Furtenbach told the Financial Times.
‘I was standing there, thinking, ‘OK, this really works.’ I was totally convinced.’
For the ultimate test, Mr Furtenbach has now organised a four-person expedition that will use xenon therapy to ‘flash’ Everest in a week.
In total, the team will spend just three days climbing from base camp to the summit before descending on the fourth day.
Later this year, a team led by British pilot Garth Miller will attempt to climb Mount Everest in a seven-day round trip. The team will ascend from base camp to the summit in just three days and return on the fourth
The team includes pilot Garth Miller, 51, businessmen Kevin Godlington, 49, and Anthony Stazicker, as well as the UK veterans minister Alistair Carns, 44.
Mr Miller says: ‘I’m super-excited to see if we can leave home on a Monday morning, be on the summit of Everest on Thursday night, and make it home for Sunday lunch.’
The crew are all experienced climbers in robust health, but this trip will be like nothing ever before attempted on the world’s tallest mountain.
Since it was first summited by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953, the time taken to reach Everest’s summit has been getting progressively shorter.
According to data collected by the Himalayan Database, the average time from arrival at base camp to the summit has fallen from 60 days in the 1980s to just 25 in 2024.
Some guides, like Mr Furtenbach, already require their customers to pre-acclimatise for weeks prior to the actual trip.
Would-be climbers sleep in hypoxic tents – sealed chambers which suck out the oxygen to simulate oxygen or work out in air-restricting masks.
Mr Furtenbach’s company, Furtenbach Adventures, already offers ‘flash’ trips for £168,000 (€199,000) to summit the mountain in three weeks.
Likewise, Roxanne Vogel used these techniques to break the record for the fastest ascent by climbing Everest in only 14 days.
Xenon gas could reduce those times even further – but the technique is not without controversy.
In 2014, the World Anti-Doping Agency added xenon to the list of banned substances after reports that the gas had been used during the Sochi Winter Olympics.
Yet this would hardly be the first time in the history of mountaineering that climbers have turned to chemical enhancements to gain an edge on the highest peaks.
For example, when Herman Buhl made the first ascent Nanga Parabat in 1953, he did so while taking large quantities of methamphetamine.
Mr Furtenbach maintains that mountaineering is not an organised sport so doping is not an issue.
However, there are serious concerns over the safety of using a relatively untested medical treatment in one of the world’s most extreme environments.
Excessive doses of xenon can lead to dizziness, nausea, vomiting, loss of consciousness, and death.
While the use of xenon gas will be controversial since it is listed as a banned substance by the World Anti-Doping Agency, almost all climbers use pure oxygen for sections of the assent (pictured). Mr Furtenbach maintains that the use of xenon in mountaineering is not doping
Critically, xenon poisoning also leads to confusion and errors of judgement which could be fatal during the ascent.
At low oxygen levels, unconsciousness and death can occur within seconds and without warning.
But xenon is regularly used in medicine as an anaesthetic due to its sedative properties and rarely leads to dangerous side effects when applied carefully.
Likewise, the doses taken by the climbers will be very low compared to those used in medicine.
However, Dr Fries, who recommended the treatment, does admit that any untested medical procedure is risky when used in such a dangerous situation.
Additionally, xenon gas has become prohibitively expensive in recent years.
Prices have risen especially high since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which was the world’s largest producer of noble gases.
Mr Furtenbach predicts that it will cost £4,000 ($5,000) to provide xenon for a single climber to pre-acclimatise.
With many already complaining that Mount Everest has become a playground for the rich, Mr Furtenbach says he is prepared for pushback over the use of this controversial gas.
However, whatever other climbers may think, the real test for xenon gas therapy will come when the four climbers embark on their record-breaking expedition later this year.
Mr Miller concludes: ‘You don’t have to suffer to show respect for the mountain, and doing it faster doesn’t make it easier.
‘I would argue that the endeavour is greater. You can’t go higher, so going faster brings new and exciting challenges.’
