They used Xenon to climb Everest in days – is it the future of mountaineering?
196 comments
·May 27, 2025Aurornis
mattmaroon
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
> Unless he has found some other clever way that he is for some reason pretending is Xenon.
Meth. It's meth.
Hilift
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/Epinephrine_autoinjector
https://www.outsideonline.com/health/training-performance/co...
Aurornis
> I would say that it’s strong evidence that Xenon actually works
The only evidence is the claims from the person selling the expensive five-figure Everest packages. It’s the very definition of a conflict of interest.
They also use multiple treatments, not just Xenon. The hikers sleep in hypobaric chambers. Another comment said they used supplemental oxygen but were hiding details about how much.
There is no evidence or even head-to-head testing here. It’s all claims that come from one person, who is also trying to sell the treatment.
mattmaroon
But are people repeatedly getting up the mountain in much less time? If so, it really doesn’t matter if it’s because of one particular substance or another, and if not, it would be pretty easy to determine it is fake, right?
If something normally takes two weeks and some guy claims his novel method gets you up there in one, it’s at least easy to verify whether his novel method actually does do it.
null
toss1
He is primarily selling the Placebo Effect.
All kinds of fancy "research" and "reasons" it will work, and the marks\\\\customers put in a financial and emotional investment in it working, so expect it to work.
Seems just about how placebos work best
mattmaroon
This is more of a Dumbo’s feather than a placebo effect, but in either case, it’s hard to imagine he is getting people up the mountain in significantly the last time with it.
null
severusdd
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-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.
Aurornis
> 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
> 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.
legacynl
All the quotes you posted basically say the same thing; There is no evidence for the efficacy of xenon. That's scientist speak for: "Xenon doesn't work".
Aurornis
> They do, if you read them.
I did read the article, which is how I knew Lukas Furtenbach was involved. Please don’t accuse people of not reading the article when they’re specifically talking about content of the article.
Anyway, my point was that if these articles wanted to be serious about the science, they’d lead with the studies and science.
Instead, they tack on weasel words (literally “some experts say” and “some research” as in your quotes ) in an attempt to make it feel like a both-sides style journalism while leaving Furtenbach’s claims as the headline and the main story.
patentatt
What's the issue with carbon-plated shoes?
germinalphrase
They return energy (like a spring) providing mechanical assistance to the runner.
cratermoon
Elite runners can knock about 2 minutes off their marathon time. Studies show about a 2% improvement in times, the downside is increased injury.
A_D_E_P_T
Boss Lowe wrote about doping with xenon gas more than a decade ago: 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/
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.
mdorazio
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.
cenamus
Isn't that also mainly to avoid nitrogen toxicity?
devilbunny
Rebreathers may feature slightly elevated oxygen levels vis-a-vis standard air (you need a lot of knowledge to use one safely, so presumably anyone diving a rebreather has done the far simpler courses for nitrox or trimix, both of which are used for limiting nitrogen narcosis), but for military divers it's much more about the lack of bubbles and noise.
gadders
I always wondered if the allied forces were giving their elite troops EPO or similar when tracking the Taliban up and down mountains in Afghanistan. If they weren't, I think they should have been.
nradov
I don't know about EPO, it probably wouldn't have been that useful. But it was an open secret that a lot of the elite ground troops used illegally purchased performance enhancing steroids to build muscle and accelerate recovery. Long patrols through rough terrain while carrying a heavy load are extremely grueling and a little enhancement was tremendously helpful. Use of those drugs was technically a violation of military regulations. But officers often looked the other way because they didn't want to endanger the mission, and regular urine tests didn't check for steroids.
Now that the GWOT is over, the peacetime military has been cracking down on steroid use.
gadders
You'd think they'd have a proper programme for it for the elite troops.
Unless you're doing completely stupid doses it can be managed safely, and it's not like the soldiers are not already doing something inherently risky.
formerly_proven
It’s kinda curious that xenon can be used both for performance enhancement _and_ as a general anaesthetic.
Scaevolus
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_anaestheti...
comrade1234
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...
Aurornis
> 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
I met a startup founder in my local community who would always bring up his ambitions to climb Everest. He made sure everyone knew and made it part of his personality.
Except, he was very out of shape and undeniably overweight. He was not doing any type of training or fitness activity. Everyone could see with their own eyes that this man was not on any path toward climbing Everest in any way.
Yet people around him always brought up his Everest ambitions like it was an amazing fact about him. I always wondered if it was some sort of litmus test to see who could be convinced to deny reality and follow what he said.
nradov
I met a climbing guide who had summitted Mt. Everest multiple times (and had the pictures to prove it). His normal cardio workout was to put on a heavy backpack, then get on a StairMaster machine and go at maximum speed for a couple hours. He looked amazing — although I don't think he ever founded a tech startup.
vjvjvjvjghv
I have a coworker who talked to me about wanting to climb Everest. I asked him if he does any climbing or even liked to climb. The answer was "No". It's a really weird thing. Everest seems to be a symbol for achievement.
0_____0
I love this anecdote, it honestly feels like satire.
acquisitionsilk
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
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.
dec0dedab0de
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?
Unethical people tend to get themselves better opportunities regardless of how society is organized.
wat10000
Most business is about providing value by delivering goods or services that people want and are willing to pay for. Visit your local shops, how many of them are convincing people to buy proverbial tulips and leaving their customers holding the bag? Look at the most valuable companies in the world; they all do or make stuff people happily pay for because they actually find value in it.
Certainly there are people who succeed in business by doing what you say, but it’s not how most success happens.
EGreg
I have to say, this really resonates with me.
I walked away from a full time job making $180K a year for 2 hours a day because the consulting company renting out my time wanted me to put 8 hours. I felt like I was helping them somehow fleece the client, even though the client probably had over a trillion dollars under management. In retrospect I was very foolish.
In the free market you have to learn sales, to do well. And most sales techniques are about making people realize they may need something (called “building the gap”) and then offering your solution. But your solution usually isn’t any good unless you raise money first.
In my case, I was too honest to overpromise to investors, or create fake volume for tokens, etc. So most investors walked, and it took years for me to build the products. Now I have them. But I am far behind those who overpromise and raise money fast, or create appearances of momentum, and act as if — they fake it til they make it. (Doesn’t need to be all the way as bad as Elizabeth Holmes.)
I have discovered a lot of ethical hacks over the years involving group dynamics, but in the meantime I had taken on hundreds of thousands in debt and repaid it. All for what… because I was too honest to stretch the truth too much.
If I was willing to do it, though, people downstream of me would have been much happier. And people diwnstream of you include your employees and your family and friends. It is a dog eat dog world out there… I have learned that total honesty has a price — you cannot overpromise to people downstream of you, either, otherwise they’ll be left holding the bag. It is better to overpromise to people upstream of you if you have people relying on you. It’s just not a perfect system.
I would have much rather been in a society which has UBI, free association and everyone has some discretionary income and isn’t always just trying to survive. Much more honest. And they wouldn’t even have to fake stuff to stay on disability or qualify for means tested stuff.
philipallstar
> And then you wonder why so many young people flirt with communism or want to see the capitalist system burn to the ground
That's not why, particularly. They do so for various reasons:
- they compare the reality of capitalism with a nonexistent nirvana, rather than the reality of the alternatives. They haven't run the real counterfactual
- they gravitate to any philosophy that they're familiar with instinctively: most students are young, and they conceptualise "fairness" in terms of a loving parental figure with resources meting things out to them, and they think of the government in a similar way
- they believe countries they have heard are nice to live in, normally Scandinavian countries, aren't capitalist
- they don't know the realities of real non-capitalist countries such as the USSR or pre-capitalist China, or present-day Venezuela (not truly non-capitalist, but the central planning around their oil is their main problem), or East Germany, or Cuba
- they have gone to university, the only place where bad ideas can survive and be propogated out into the world
msie
I look at Tesla stock in wonderment of how it can keep on rising.
FpUser
Example here in Canada and Toronto in particular. There were plenty of independent pet clinics and they used to charge somewhat reasonable prices. Now nearly all of those were bought by big companies / investors. Prices went through the roof, competition is down, and the only thing they want to discuss with the customer is how to squeeze the most money disregarding of results.
Yes I do want those assholes burned at the stake.
Similar story happens in many other areas. People are being squeezed from their money on all fronts. North American IT persons are rare exception of an ordinary person who can still make the ends meet and still have some healthy chunk left to enjoy life.
kamaal
>>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.
dmckeon
> hypoxic tents, which lower oxygen levels in the air
I wonder if the shorter time at altitude also reduced the chances of slower-to-develop high-altitude cerebral edema and pulmonary edema (HACE, HAPE). Some climbers have been sleeping in camp in small tubular pressurized tents to reduce daily apparent density altitude.
vjvjvjvjghv
"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..."
It kind of makes sense. A lot of business success is about being able to bullshit convincingly.
djtango
Meta but the discussion from this anecdote drove so much societal commentary, I totally forgot I was here to talk about Xenon-assisted mountaineering and experienced whiplash when people started talking about xenon again...
Etheryte
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.
542354234235
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.
Euphorbium
The guys in the phrmacopeia were very obviously addicts.
Etheryte
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.
meindnoch
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.
jppittma
Why not both? Also detection?!? That’s crazy. Everybody should be doing this. The raison d’etre for these sorts of bans is their perceived negative health consequences.
You almost certainly safer using whatever PED you can get your hands on if you’re trying to climb Everest.
lm28469
> why bother with xenon? Just inject EPO.
As a recreational anything I'd say avoid wrecking your body to make some arbitrary numbers nobody will ever care about go up (or down)
hermitcrab
Given that the odds of dying on Everest are so high, a bit of ill-advised drug use seems like a minor concern.
lesuorac
Are they?
I thought nowadays the sherpas practically carry you up there so it's of low risk to you.
Both wikipedia [1] and an expedition company [2] seem to put the deaths per year as <10 with it being dominated by people from Nepal who are presumably the sherpas doing all the work.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_who_died_climbi...
[2]: https://www.climbing-kilimanjaro.com/mount-everest-deaths/
15155
> As a recreational anything
Most recreational activities don't come with an existing risk of death: PEDs likely reduce this relative risk in many riskier physical endeavors.
dtech
I guess it feels different to people to stimulate their bodies production of a hormone rather than injecting it.
fiftyacorn
More recently it was CO use to simulate altitude training
pixl97
Hmm, that sounds like it could go bad easily.
_joel
Breathing in an inert gas is easier and much safer than injecting something into your body.
meindnoch
Casually breathing in an anaesthetic gas for prolonged periods is easier and much safer than injecting a widely used medicine? Are you out of your mind?
elif
When you put it that way it sounds like something you'd hear from a hippie crack user
_joel
yea, thinking about it I've been inhaling too much Xenon myself...
CGMthrowaway
Epo injections are safe and effective, and side effects are very rare and usually mild
timschmidt
Xenon acts like an anesthetic so it's possible to OD on.
robertlagrant
True, but they did it ahead of time in a controlled way.
alariccole
It’s inert, how bad could it be? /s
gnabgib
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
Use Xenon gas to climb Everest in a week? (12 points, 27 days ago) 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
nikcub
randomtoast
This should be the most top voted comment or dang should automatically add these links.
frozenwind
thank you
goric
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-i...
[1] https://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2025/05/21/everest-2025-fas...
djtango
I believe the Xenon team also did hypoxic tents
nokeya
“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.
tonyhart7
"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
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
> 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
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.
jebarker
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
Some people like climbing mountains, including Everest. It makes sense to follow your interests in my opinion.
jebarker
My phrasing was weird but I'm actually speaking from personal experience here. I haven't climbed Everest but I've pursued other activities to extreme limits, e.g. running 100 mile high mountain races. These activities are all fun and have intrinsic rewards, but a large number of people doing them (my prior self included) were really in it for the external recognition of having done it. Everest seems to be the epitomy of that. I'm sure there's lots of people quietly climbing Everest just because it's there, but there's certainly very many doing it because of the name Everest and because it's the highest.
null
croes
It makes sense to think about consequences.
https://nepalmonitor.com/2025/03/19/nepal-overtourism-everes...
osigurdson
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.
TheCondor
There are both kinds. There are passionate mountaineers that want to reach the tallest summit, with varying degrees of “rules” about it that matter to them. There are also a group of “tourists” that want it for, what appears to be, other reasons.
Some special forces guys, record summit Everest time… let me guess, one is an SAS sniper with numerous recorded kills in Iraq or Afghanistan… but clearly he can’t talk much about it, he just needs you to know it… maybe some mi5 action in there… this is tailor made for a “bro-tube” channel.
TechDebtDevin
I think theres more to it than just ego. I find myself watching Everest videos on Youtube (shout out Michael Tracy's channel).
Ive never done mountaineering but I become fascinated by these stories of people on the mountain and sometimes wonder if I could do it. I definately never will, theres lots of other things id rather invest my time in but I can definately see the allure and why people become obsessed with doing it.
exhilaration
If you're interested in Everest, I loved Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer - it's absolutely fantastic and available on Audible. Then last week I discovered Everest on Netflix, which isn't great but it's based on the book and they do a good job showing you the route and distances between the camps with CGI.
Anyways, after all that I have zero desire to ever go near Everest or any other risky mountain climb.
TechDebtDevin
The yt channel I mentioned (link below), is half dedicated to speculating ifMallory and Irvine first summiited everest in the 24' expedition and the other half is dedicated to proving that Krakauer is lying in his book. Michael Tracy is some lawyer that really doesn't like Krakauer's account of 1996 and has some interesting points, I recommend you check it out.
cheeze
IMO this is a reductionist take that is often peddled around Reddit. "Anybody can climb Everest, it's not that difficult", etc.
Personally? I think it's a pretty cool achievement and is _the_ mountain to climb for a reason. I'm with the other commenter here. Chase your passions.
15155
> is _the_ mountain to climb for a reason.
Is this the case in mountaineering circles, or are K2 and Annapurna the peaks to be respected?
croes
Maybe it’s time to stop being so egocentric
https://nepalmonitor.com/2025/03/19/nepal-overtourism-everes...
jebarker
I never said it's not difficult. Please see my response to the other commenter.
llm_nerd
It's similar to how many people clutch their pearls about abandoned gear on Everest.
Many of the neighbouring countries -- including Nepal, India, Tibet, Bangladesh -- are effectively open-air garbage dumps, where rivers and fields and cities are just awash with discards and garbage. In environmentally critical places where it massively impedes with the life of millions.
In a relative sense I just do not care about some infinitesimal amount of discarded air canisters on a lifeless rock at 10,000 feet. It seems like misdirected envy when people suddenly super care about that. In an ideal world they would leave only footprints, but in the grand scheme of things it just does not matter. Cue another "OMG look at these air canisters some rich guys left at 15,000 feet!" articles.
It's a bit like how the anti-AI cadre have taken to suddenly being incredibly concerned about the energy usage of AI. Despite everything else, it's AI that's going to heat the planet. They never cared about data centre power usage when it was serving their big tiddy goth anime GIFs, but if it's AI suddenly they lament this outrage.
cratermoon
For the record, the two base camps on either side of Everest are at about 17,000 feet. 15,000 feet won't even get you started.
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/
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.