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Alan: I often say that Mount Everest is the mountain people love to hate. Um, and I don’t know why it brings out the critics like it does.
Martin: It’s great to be able to summit, but the main thing is to come back alive. To come back healthy.
Steve: If you’re enjoying the show and want to take the next step in your training, join our newsletter and receive a free four week sample training plan. Head on over to uphill athlete.com/ let’s go, and once you sign up, you’ll instantly get a link to try out some of our most popular training plans. It’s a great way to get a feel for how we train our athletes for big mountain goals. Check it out @uphillathlete.com/Letsgo. That’s uphillathlete.com/letsgo. Welcome to the Uphill Athlete Podcast. My name is Steve House. I’ll be your host today, and I have two wonderful guests, our very own coach, Martin Zohr. Welcome Martin,
Martin: Hi, Steve. Thank you. Good to be here.
Steve: everyone’s favorite Everest commentator, Alan Anette. Welcome, Alan. Really good to have you here
Alan: Hey, thanks for having me. Appreciate.
Steve: Well, you know, I want to start off just by hearing from you, Alan, what were the highlights of the 2025 Everest season or, or even Himalayan season? What sticks out? What is this? What is 2025 the year of?
Alan: Yeah, I always try to come up with a few keywords rather than a sermon. But, , I think the keywords for this year have to include wind, drones and aids. It was very windy all across the Himalayas. Um, and it was also a strange year starting off with an unusually the winter first off was unusually dry and not a lot of moisture. So that made climbing on an annapurna just, you know, just crazy rockfall all over the place. They didn’t even use boots,crampons or climbing boots to go from base camp to camp one. And of course, in a, the season is tragic with two Sherpas dying from an avalanche of all things. ’cause they got a bunch of snow towards the end of, at the end of the season early drones, you know, they experimented with it on Everest last year. They’ve been doing it on the Tibet side for a couple of years earlier. But this year they really used it with full force. And we could talk about that, what detail they did mainly around the Icefall and helping remove trash, which the SPCC did a great job. And then aids you know, we saw this novel use of the Nobel Gas Xenon that allegedly allowed the team to do a week to week. But then we had another, another person that went from New York to claim he did it in under four days. And he didn’t use Xenon, but he did use them, they both, all, all of them use hypoxic tents. So, um, you know, it was an interesting year. The other last piece of Steve and Martin is that I think this year was a pretty good year relative to, um, the weather windows and, you know, but what, what was the unreported story was all the frostbite and and I, I’ll get off on a rant frostbite, ’cause I think in 2025 that it is. Totally avoidable, and I don’t understand how people get frost by, but there was global rescue reported over 130 rescues just by their company in April and May. So it was a normal, tough season. I think that if you wanna have the headline maybe, is that Everest is still damn hard to climb.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. And the environment is still, can be very severe. How did your athletes that you have been coaching and the last 12 months, how did they do? How, how did everyone end up?
Martin: Yeah, so I had, um, a big group of clients. I was preparing for rest this season, so it was about 10 people directly than athletes directly and let’s say like 20 more, more or less indirectly like a group coaching. So quite a big group, let’s say, um, more than last year. So I learned a lot for sure. Um, I would say 90% of them submitted. Um, there were a couple of them that just didn’t succeed for different reasons. A lot of sickness, a lot of respiratory infections.That was, that took the, many people, um, had that, those issues not around the summit days, just like three, four weeks before. But it still has an effect. I mean what I see, what I see on Everest is just the base camp is so high that it’s really hard to recover from anything. So that is the main issue there, I think. And so they still felt kind the, the loss of power, the loss of capacity when the summit days came. And I guess also the unpredictability of the weather. That was a big issue. Yeah, I’m actually relatively happy with the results and the, how they may, how they are. How they succeeded and how they showed up, I guess. And it doesn’t need to be always summiting. Of course, it’s great to be able to summit, but the main thing is to come back alive.
To come back healthy. And well, one of them actually described the experience during the summer day. So he had to turn around at around 8,400 meters, thinking it’s close to the balcony area somewhere up there. And I’m really, really proud. I was really proud of him for the decision he made because he just felt I wouldn’t, I probably wouldn’t have the capacity to come back down on my own. I would have to be helped. And I really wanted to avoid that. And other people in the group, they carried on and they actually had to be kind of dragged down and highly rescued from M two. So those are, were the cases, the, those were the, that was the feedback I was hearing a lot that guessed the. It’s still a big climb. It’s a tough climb and complex. And yeah, it’s not only getting to the summit, but also getting back down to in, in, in one piece. And with, you know, having enough strength, that takes a lot of self knowledge and so most of them, most of my athletes, we’ve worked together for like one year. So that’s for me, an ideal, well, it’s not ideal mo mo the longer, the better I guess. But, the shorter, the shorter it is, the six months to go, it’s, it’s a limit, it’s only, only certain kinds of adaptations that you can achieve. And so, you know I prefer if athletes address or tell us, ask us for coaching earlier than that.
Steve: Yeah. Corroborate that difficulty in going down for my own time climbing there. Like for, I attempted the south base of Nipsey many years ago, and at one point we wanted to go down and get and recover and it was a long way to get down under, you know, 3000, 3,500 meters, something like that. It’s really hard to do that. Of course, if you have the coin for the heli ride that’s another issue. That may money may solve that problem if, if that’s an option for you. But that, that’s a real, that’s a real thing. Alan, you mentioned something I didn’t expect you to bring up, which was the drones. Like how do you know how these have been getting implemented?
Alan: Yeah. So, you know, I’m a little mixed on these drones, um, because this one drone that they used is made by a Chinese company called Drone Technology. And the model is the DJI fly Cart 30 and it costs $70,000. Um, and they have a payload of 30 kilos or 66 pounds. And so what they did was they used it to first off to scout the Icefall for the Icefall doctors.
So rather than having the Icefall doctors go in and, you know, try to figure out what the optimum route is, they just flew over it with the cameras and they were able to look at the video.
And then secondly, they used it to carry ladders, um, rope, um, you know, Tetons, ice ax, , all the stuff you used to do with the fixed rope. And they took it to Camp one. They didn’t go, they went up to, let’s see what the, was, maximum altitude was a crazy 6,130 meters. So about, you know, almost 19,000 feet, roughly. Um, and that’s the highest that a documented drone has ever delivered anything. But they, what the nice part about it was that not only did they take gear up, so that removed the opportunity for the chirp to have to carry it through the ice fall.
And that’s a, you know, was a time saver and potentially a life saver. But more importantly in my mind was they were able to bring trash down. Um, and so they brought it down, you know, with around 30 pounds or 15 kilos each time from camp one back down to base camp. Where then, it was in theory, ethically, um, you know, processed and all, but some of the numbers that, um, the SPCC quoted this year based upon using the drones that they removed 83 tons of garbage.
And of that, and, and this is, this is an amazing number, was almost 32,000 kilos of human feces.
Steve: Wow.
Alan: Now part of most of that was because they’ve now finally implemented using wag bags. , and so most of that were climbers. And I had, um, two clients through summit Coach on the north side and two on the south side. And all four reported that they were there. Some climbed with Western companies, some climbed with Nepali companies, but all of them were using wag bags. So, but, so, you know, all in all, I think the use of drones and where I get a little conflicted is that, I had one friend, he wasn’t a client of friend, Paul Adler said that he said every, it sat around all the time. There are drones flying over my head all the time, like mosquitoes. Um, and so I can imagine that would be pretty annoying being there. I’ve heard people before talk about Everett base camp, the Nepal side being an airport with all the helicopters coming and going, and now there’s a mosquito swarm with all these drones flying around. One of them got hit by high winds and I guess when you pay $70,000 for a drone, this should not be a surprise, but it got hit by the winds, knocked some of the rotors out, and deployed a parachute. And the parachute allowed it to have a relatively soft landing, but it fell into a CVAs and was damaged.
I never did hear if they reused it or not. So.
Steve: Wow. Yeah, that’s a development I wasn’t really unaware of. And I could see, you know, like with a lot of these, know, developments, there are, there’s, there’s pros and cons, right? I mean, obviously like there’s improved safety for the Sherpa that are having to make a lot of trips to the Icefall, which is the most dangerous part of the climb. Removing a lot of waste, which obviously is, is a positive, but there’s also, it’s, it’s a different place now, right? Like it’s, you’re not basking in the silence of the incredible Western co up there that, , that climbers were 30, 40, 50 years ago. So.
Alan: Yeah, it’s no longer the Viol Valley of silence. Now it’s a viol, a valley of drones. But what I.
Martin: At least, at least it sounds, it was 6,100. So that’s maybe camp one. Guess camp two is 6,400. So I guess upper parts were without the noise, but I think it’s, it should be more positive than negative because I can, I live in Germany and here we get a lot of complaints. People complain about helicopters. There is just no nonstop house where it’s the rescues which kind of gives you a reality check of how many accidents there are in the season.
Alan: Yeah.
Martin: Just nonstop. I live, I look in cha now out of the window and, you know, always you just get used to it. I’ve been here for 15 years, but also when you climb in RAs or, or SSEs and, you know, in the range of bl the, there is always a hell around and it’s really resonating between the walls of the valleys. And people they, they, they tend to say, wow, like it’s the, the noise pollution is crazy and they try to limit this mostly then it’s the panoramic flights, the commercial flights taking people around and and then it’s like three, four different companies operating in the, in the range, I think. So, yeah, I can kind of imagine what they are dealing with. And also, I was in Kubu La the last time I was there, last year, um, with my wife just running through Kubu and towards Island Peak and yeah, I can see that there’s nonstop H flights back and forth. So yeah, it’s just the reality,
Alan: In theory, the Nepali government banned any helicopter flight other than for a medical rescue. But again, just your, Steve, to your point about how it’s really changed is that a lot of people, not a lot, but. There were many cases of people that used a helicopter to fly out from camp two after summiting, and, um, and I don’t think Elizabeth Hawley resting in peace would approve that.
Steve: Yeah, yeah. That, you know, these, these changes, you know, are, are with us. One of the things that really struck me, Alan, when we were chatting earlier, was the number of climbers climbing. And some of these expedition organizers had an excess of a hundred people looking to punch their Everest ticket under one expedition, many in that, in that range of 80 to a hundred u us and Nepali Outfitters both. What is driving this kind of never ending or ever increasing, curiosity around Everest and wanting to, wanting to climb it.
Alan: You know, I’ve said this phrase for years that Everest is a bright light to a lot of bugs. Um, and they may know that it’s gonna be a one-way trip, but the bug is gonna fly into the light anyway. But the real impetus, um, and inflection point happened around 2013, so over a decade ago, and it’s just, it’s just grown from then. And that was the advent of the Nepali companies led by seven Summits, treks, um. Really competing on price. They cut out the Western guide. So that meant that now you don’t have to pay that salary of whatever that is, 10, 15, $20,000. That person’s, um, airplane flight, that person’s permit. Because, you know, if you’re a Western, it doesn’t matter if you’re a guide or a client, you still gotta pay the 11. Now it’s gonna be 15,000. So basically, they turned the entire industry upside down through a business model. By having a lower cost structure, they were then able to, instead of charging 65,000, they charged 35,000. And that brought in an entirely new demographic, primarily the, um, emerging middle class in India and in China. And again, this is a decades old trend, and that’s why, this year in 2025, the leading country was India. And I think they had 89 permits followed by the US at 83. But seven sums. Treks had 103, eight K Expeditions had over 50. And the ratio of client to support this year was one to 1.6. So, in other words, almost one and a half Sherpas for every client. So that meant that seven sums Treks had somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 Sherpas supporting those hundred clients. That’s a lot of people,
Steve: on the mountain, right? Like those are just climbers on the mountain. Those are
Alan: right?
Steve: staff
Alan: Nope.
Steve: all of those
Alan: Now
Steve: people, you know?
Alan: that doesn’t include Cooks and porters and Cook boys and all that. No.
Steve: Yeah, I mean, a small anecdote. In 1999, I did an expedition to Gasper four in the car quorum. And when we started with 99 Porters and each day we sent home four, because that was how many, and that’s 25 loads each. So we were burning through a hundred kilos of kerosene. Rice flour is just supplied every day. So when we arrived at base camp seven days later, we had, you know, whatever the number was, it was 70 or something, porters. Um, and that was the actual stuff, you know, and ’cause we were all eating so much, you know, and it’s sort of this, you know, when you start calculating the weight of food for one human. hours a day for a seven to 10 day trek and we’re hungry and we need snacks and tea and coffee and all the things. It just snowballs and you get into these huge numbers. So, you know, you cited some impressive sort of waste numbers or mask amount of waste that came out of there. And it, frankly, it’s not that surprising to me because, you know, it just takes a lot to fuel that many people and, and working hard, right? Like, they’re not just couch surfing up there.
Alan: Yeah. And also a lot of other things that’s happening is that especially the western companies, and now the Nepali companies are starting to do this . They’re marketing their fantastic food. I mean, they, there’s always been, there’s one company in particular, I won’t mention their name, but they all, it doesn’t matter what’s going on in the mountain, and every dispatch or every comment it says, and today’s meals were delicious.
And so this year, and this has been happening the last four or five years, but , foreign companies have been bringing in European or Australian chefs. Um, you know, to, and there, so the luxury level’s going up. So now you’re gonna have, you know, um, you know, sushi and, um, you know, some type of really nice sauce and on, on your, on your doll bot.
Steve: Yeah, that is. So, you know, one of the things that seems to stand out for me is the advent, at least publicly, of using the Noble Gas xenon as a, as a purported aid to help with. We’re not sure it’s acclimatization or if it’s protective organ protection or, or what. And another very interesting sort of natural experiment, if you will, with an individual who, as you pointed out. Climb Everest in four days round trip from New New York using pre acclimatization and of course supplemental oxygen, let you know. What, what, what, when did you first hear about this, Alan? What was your initial, not, not your current? I, I’m curious what your initial response was and because for a lot of people, they’ll be hearing about this the first time, and the three of us have already talked and thought and written about this extensively. So I’m curious about your initial reaction to
Alan: Yeah. Um, I originally got introduced to it when the reporter, The Financial Times, initially broke the story. He contacted me in either late December or early January, kind of on a deep background and a, and a promise that I wouldn’t talk about it until he printed the story. So, you know, the marketing around this was top notch even though later on there was a lot of misinformation that the Xenon team claimed was out there. But that’s a great question, Steve. My initial reaction versus my current reaction, um, once I heard that it’s really used, it had been used in Russia for decades as anesthesia. I was like, what? And then, then as I began to understand more that it’s very safe with anesthesia. You and, and Dr. Peter Hacken has had an outstanding podcast on this a few months ago, or I guess whatever, a couple months ago.
And, Dr. Hackett really did a great job of explaining how safe xenon is under medical supervision in an operating room. And the other thing that people, people, I think conflate is that they didn’t use xenon on the mountain. They had a 30 minute exposure to it under a doctor’s supervision in Germany, not even in Nepal. So, and what happened was that Xenon then stimulated the bone marrow to create more red blood cells, and in theory allowed them to acclimatize quicker. But here’s the factor that that strikes me, is that. These four guys that were from the UK, they were all ex-military, UK special forces. These guys are the fittest of the fittest.
I know we’re gonna talk about physical training and preparation. And [00:21:00] these guys trained for a year. So these guys were in fantastic shape. That’s number one. Number two, they spent 500 hours, 62 nights in a hypoxic tent, and they were with fruit and BCH adventures. And he, along with Adrian Bollinger, are probably the best and the best at understanding how to use this hypoxic code approach. And they have formulas, they’ve got doctors, they absolutely hold their clients’ hands. And so they go to acclimatize probably to 23,000 feet, 7,000 meters. Um, and then third is that. Lucas didn’t disclose how much supplemental oxygen they used, but he’s told me in the past that he’s modified his regulators to go up to eight.
Now again, Dr. Hackett will say that anything over four is really not useful, but nonetheless, um, it could be a psychological thing. So, and the guy from Andrew from New York, um, he acclimatized 500 hours and he used supplemental oxygen from base camp, which is unheard of to the summit at also at an undisclosed flow rate. So there are a lot of things that we don’t know. So to single out the xenon was the magic formula. I don’t think there’s enough data there. And I understand that Lucas would especially disagree with that assessment. ’cause he’s done it. He’s used it himself personally. And he said he never felt better in the world. And I am not going to discount what that man says. He’s got a lot of experience. He’s a very credible person. So, but for me, I originally was aghast. Now I have a completely different opinion of it, but I’m gonna stop there.
Steve: Martin, what was your initial reaction?
Martin: Well, it’s a tough one, but I think maybe as an athlete, because let’s say I put an athlete hat on of course I was a bit skeptical about using Xenon and I heard about Xenon first in the social Olympics 2014, when it, I think actually came out first time because it was used by the Russian athletes back then. And actually, I think what’s interesting to mention about Xenon, I guess Pete, Pete hack I agreed, was a great, great podcast that Steve did with him. He explained it really well. But it’s a noble gas, it doesn’t bind to organic molecules, and we are pretty much made of organic molecules, which is an interesting thing there. And that’s why it’s, it’s great. It’s being used in medicine, um, because well. That is the issue with many medic and, you know, other, I guess different medical protocols where you have the side products, side effects. Side effects.
Alan: I appreciate it.
Martin: We’ve seen that is not happening. That’s where it’s really interesting, I guess the effects, what, what it actually does. That is the big question mark. And the research is really lacking there. And I guess why it’s lacking is because it’s too expensive. At least what I understood about it. I tried to read a lot of it ’cause I wanted to really understand it. And I guess I now put the scientist hat on, which I am studying altitude physiology currently in the master. Program in, in Oster University. So, you know, there is, I definitely am interested in this, what is actually happening. And so I guess that is still non-inclusive. We just don’t really have enough data and enough research. And I guess that’s where there was a lot of this response internationally in different media outlets and media, different journalists and also well, coming from all sorts of directions. And I guess rightly so, we wanted, we want to understand and I guess, yeah, we’ll we will not know from this. We just don’t know what was the effect of xenon and what was the effect of other, the supplemental oxygen. But to be fair, I do think that it did something. Um, I don’t really think that was the hematological part. Like the red blood cell production takes time and so again, we just dunno exactly when that happened. The inhalation, but, what I know about the, you know, the timeline of blood cell production, energy, poises, and all that it takes days and weeks. And so it sounds more like that. The other effects of xenon wear are powerful, which is like the neuroprotection and protection of tissue. So, you know, quite interesting. But it needs to be, it needs to be confirmed, I guess by further research.
Steve: Yeah, and I would say that there is data out there, it’s just that only one person has access to it. You know? I mean there’s, you know, Lucas will say there’s been over 20 plus senses of Everest. You know, this is my recollection, using C on in some format. So. You know, but he has access to all that data. Nobody else does. It’s his proprietary thing. He took the risk, he innovated on it. You know, we may find out someday, and, you know, frankly, we may not, I mean, or we may not in our lifetime. It may, may be beyond, beyond that. I wanna just chime in with my sort of first which was, I think, what people expected from me. You know, I’m known as perhaps the, the purists, the pure alpine style. Like, you know, in my own climbing career, I never used supplemental oxygen or, or medicines or drugs or shortcuts of, of any kind. I my approach was always, you know, to. Focus on the process of the experience. That’s what I was there for. That’s what I was going for, that’s what I was engaged in. So for me, it didn’t make sense. It was actually completely counterproductive to try to quote an unquote shortcut that said, you know, that’s all I did at that time in my life. I was, I had no kids. I had no other career as a professional climber. I was sleeping and drinking, climbing all the time. So, um, I had that luxury, right. And that is a luxury I have to admit. Um, and not everyone has unlimited time and, and can approach things in that way as altruistic as that may be. So part of me was honestly like. Hey, this is great. If this cuts down the time that people need to climb Everest from three weeks to five days, it is just a huge win because, you know, people won’t be on the mountain as long. It’ll be safer, there’ll be less waste, there’ll be less human impact, there’ll be less environmental impact. I was thinking really almost immediately along those terms, and I was also like, well, you know, what difference does it make? You know, like we’re already, people are already, you know, using everything they can. I mean, that’s human nature. We’re tech. We, you know, a lot of this conversation so far has been around technology. We’re, going to use whatever technology we get and, you know, if it’s supplemental oxygen, we use that. If it’s dexamethasone, many people use it. If it’s you know, another Noble Gas person will use that and it’s. I think in a way, one of the things that I take away from this is that I’m really grateful for the fact that I’m really grateful and you put it well, that ever is this bright light and there’s a lot of moss, a lot of insects will fly towards that light. And I have no problem with that because I’ve been to the Himalaya and I’ve climbed other peaks and I know just how many mountains there are and how many there are, so in a way it’s like, okay, let’s concentrate on all the people that wanna do that. And I, you know, I’m, I’m perfectly happy to support those people however I can to do that. And it essentially makes everything safer, less, less human risk. And it keeps people that are doing sets on that kind of seven summits track focused on that. And, you know, the rest of the mountains are wide open for those that want to explore in that vein. So I almost think that. We need to come up with a different term. I’m gonna propose that we, you know, come up with, I don’t know what this term is, but this mountaineering? Do we need a new, new terminology for climbing mountains, you know, using technology, using drones, oxygen, xenon climbing mountains entirely for the process? Or do we have that term as one alpinism and one mountaineering? I don’t know. Like that. That’s, that’s what I think, you know, are we ever gonna make that distinction in the public eye? Probably not. Um, but that’s okay. So that, those are kind of, that was my whole thought process in, in all of this.
Alan: You know, it’s interesting here in Colorado, um, you know, we have four, we have 58 mountains that are higher than 14,000 feet or, 4,000 meters roughly. And there’s a really popular website called fourteeners.com. It’s about 50-50 between when people say, I climbed Mount Albert versus I hiked Mount Albert. And, you know, and the term alpinist is really more prevalent in Europe. You don’t see it as often in the US but in my mind, when I see someone who calls themselves an alpinist, I think, okay, they climb an Alpine style. It’s not, you know, siege, mountaineering you know, they don’t use supplemental oxygen. Chances are they don’t have any support. They’re with a couple of friends and they’re just, you know, they’re truly, truly climbing the mountain and they’re not, and they’re, and they’re challenging themselves against a mountain. Whereas mountaineering, I think, is that broader coverage of what we see in modern climbing today. And, and so Steve one. Over the last six months now, I’ve really spent too much time thinking about this stuff, about the Xenon. Um, and I finally have come to a spot where frankly, I don’t care. It doesn’t make any difference to me. Um, and because I am not physically gifted like you are. To be able to climb a mountain like Everest or K2 without using supplemental oxygen, I struggle. It hurts. I suffer every time I go out. And for me, that was part of the experience. And I think flying from Denver to Catman, doing helicopter to base camp, running up, running down, returning home as fast as I can to get back to my life. I think that misses the whole point. And this is my personal opinion, that I think expedition mountaineering is something that is, is is a point where you suffer, you do challenge yourself against a mountain, you do figure out who you are and you, it removes, I’ve said this many times, it removes any veneer, pretense about who do we think we are. And all of a sudden you see who you are, your goods and your bads, your faults. And if you’re honest with yourself and you allow that process to change you, you will come home a different person. Martin, you coached Eva 64 years old. Oldest, I think oldest American woman to summit Everest. I could be wrong on that, but um
Martin: actually just, there was another
Alan: Oh, that’s right. One day later.
Martin: Just after, she held the record for a day or two.
Alan: She had it for 24 hours. So still less of accomplishment. Um, you know, like, like me, I held the oldest for American for 10 years. And I think there was a lady who just surpassed me last year. Nonetheless, I digress. But I think if you go through that process, then you come home a better version of yourself. And if you’re a better version of yourself, then tell me what the downside was of spending four weeks versus four days. You know, and I’m not sure if you rush it, that you really get the full experience. I like sleeping on the ground. I like crawling outta the tent on my hands and knees. I don’t wanna sleep in a box tent on a cot with a down duvet. You know, I don’t buy an eating doba, actually, that’s not true. But, you know, just, I enjoy the exposition life. I enjoy the camaraderie of my teammates and on and on. So that’s where I am today. And with respect to Xenon, if that’s for you, if it’s helium, if you want to go up in a space suit. Knock yourself out. I’m not gonna judge you. And if it, you know, if it works for you, good on you, but I’m not a fan.
Martin: If I, if I may add something. So yeah, I think I agree with that. I think it was quite a kind of triggering topic in the recent months and it was, it took a while to maybe come with some kind of understanding of the situation. I think maybe personally what I noticed is that I guess the difference is that people pay a lot of money and I understand that they really want to make it to the summit and it’s being sold as that
Alan: Yep.
Martin: We will, we will get you there. So I think then where do we draw the line? I think we crossed that line already many times. Right? So I grew up as a kid reading about, Reul Messner and then Steve you know, the style of climbing which, and coming from Eastern Europe, the mentality is very strong there. The purist style. But now I’m here and I am nobody to judge people how they want to choose to climb. I think maybe just the thing about safety that was mentioned a lot is like, we, we will guarantee it, it’ll guarantee the safety. I think for me it’s that, um, there needs to be the space to also turn around and go home to just accept that the mountain is too strong for me or I’m not strong enough just to be able to accept that. Rather than forcing it. So maybe that’s what I wanted to mention. And again, everybody needs to find that for themselves. I think
Alan: Yeah.
Martin: me and I remember Steve telling me two years ago I was going to Pakistan myself to try Broad Peak. And I came without a summit. I came home. I just couldn’t for different reasons. But you told me in the last years of your career, I think more, it was more, more times you didn’t succeed. You didn’t summit more than you did. And then actually that’s what I just said. Is it success or look of success? How do we define success? Is it the summit or is it like the experience of trying to get there? So yeah, just.
Alan: You know, with my summit coach clients, but I always tell ’em this in the first call, like within the first 10 minutes, is that in my mind, success is having a positive experience and coming home with all your fingers and toes back to your family and your and your dog. It’s a positive experience. There’s many reasons why we don’t summit some within our control, most out of our control. And most of it just comes down to simple preparation, people waiting too late, and I think we’re gonna get into that. But they don’t take, they, they, they commit, and I’ve said this often, they commit the greatest sin that a climber can commit. And that’s a sign of arrogance, that you overestimate your capacity and you underestimate how difficult a climate altitude is. I committed that sin three times on my first three attempts on Everest before I finally woke up and realized that I have completely thought way too big of myself. And so I had to double down on my preparation and I had to go into the mountain with much more humility and much more respect and much more dedication to preparation.
Steve: Yeah, I think that that’s great from both of you. I’d love to hear this. I mean, my friend Marco Appraisal and I used to always joke about, well, let me tell the story. We were coming down from a walking out after cl not climbing this peak in the Peruvian Andes, and we had. Epic pretty hard. We were pretty exhausted and we were just sort of cows to the barn.
Just, probably just stopped and eaten and slept and all those things, but we just wanted to get to the valley and get to some ceviche and a beer. And that was, and we were ragged, pretty ragged. And we’re going down the trail super dusty and super hot. And this guy sees us and sees we’re climbers. He is walking up and he is all clean. You can smell, still smell those, the, the sh the perfumes in, in his shampoo or whatever, you know, and it just hits you like a wall. And he just, because there’s this big smiley face and he is like, and you know, we knew what he meant. He meant did we summit? And you know, I mean, we looked alike. That walked over and then Marco just laughed at him and like, yeah, he just laughed, looked at him, laughed like, ha, ha, ha. Yes, success. And then he just kept going. And we didn’t really think about it that much until later. We were like, yeah, what is success? Like, why was that funny to us? And you know, of course to us, we were also a little angry and upset that we didn’t do what we wanted to do, and we failed. But at the same time, we get back, you start talking about it, you learn from it and you stand. And then we went on and did like three more successful climbs that season. Partly because we had failed, quote unquote, and learned some things that were key that we were able to then apply to actually get up some climbs. And we used to joke about that throughout, throughout our partnership about what success is. You know, it was our, our standing gag about, about this. And I think it’s a very important, serious question, right? And when we talk about it on the Voice of the Mountain Series in depth, but also with our athletes one-on-one all the time, because you know, you, it’s important to define that for, for yourself and what that means for you and it, and I think one of the things that was so interesting for me watching the whole xenon debate unfold was how judgmental people are. And they were, and still are in many cases, I believe. And what that says about the people judging more than what it says about the trying new things and innovating and changing and maybe doing things that people don’t like, but. know, don’t care if people don’t, don’t like it. And I think that dynamic is super interesting too. You know, for Lucas, I think success is actually being an innovator. I think he loves being a disruptor. That’s his, that’s his happy place, right? He loves mixing it up. He loves trying things, he loves thinking outside the box. And those people aren’t always popular. But they also, you know, try stuff and are and have a thick skin and are able to, to push things And sometimes it’s two steps forward, one step back or three steps back. That’s the nature of progress. And I think that that has all been super interesting. Kind of that’s been brought up by this whole controversy.
Martin: Okay. My favorite part was actually the last couple of weeks. When my athletes came back and just hearing from them, I gave them a bit of time because that’s already what I learned. You know, you need time, time to process and decompress and just hearing their stories, so whether it was, again, they didn’t submit or they did submit. And so actually then I just thought about it when you, we were talking about the topic of success and defining it. So funny. I climbed Manaslu, my first 8,000 meter peak and, you know, my lifelong dreams since I was a kid. I dreamed about that in a style that I wanted to, so one push from the base camp without oxygen, and that is, that was in September last year. funny, I actually realized. That later I had more of a burnout after the success summit after not succeeding on Growth Peak two years ago. I, I just felt, I just felt a hollow, like, without what am I doing now? Like what now? Because I dreamt about it for so long, for so many years, and now I did it.
So, so, so now what? Now? And I think I’m, I’m totally fine with that. I already know I’ve had some burnouts before, so I, that is actually an experience and I learned so much from that. But it’s still, you know, interesting when you realize, okay. Um, I think what matters is how you show up and what, what you invest and you choose your own style.
Alan: I wrote a little essay a few years ago called The Climbers Depression, and I attached it to the end of this season summary. And it is a kind of a humorous, satirical piece, but basically it goes through three, three scenarios for a climber that you summited, you didn’t summit and it was somebody else’s fault. You didn’t summit and it was your fault. And kind of the refrain here is that you get back home and people are all excited to hear your story, but then as soon as you start talking and going into the details, they’re like, oh, that’s great. Hey, um, so what’s next? And, and then you go into the abyss of, you know, of what’s next. And there’s this depression. And I’m, I mean, I’ve been on 38 major expeditions and not one of them did I come back home after a couple of weeks going, gee. Why am I so down? You know? And it didn’t matter the result, just exactly what you said, mark. I mean, you go from base camp to the summit. No so I mean, my gosh, one push. That’s incredible. But if you came home and you didn’t feel elated, totally. I think that’s
Martin: I did. But you know, it was kind of, maybe later it was just that, okay,
Alan: A little delayed.
Martin: Like am I, what am I going to do now?
Alan: I’ve talked to people that run marathons or Ironman or whatever and they, and anybody that has these really big, massive goals that they set and once they complete it, the psychological side of it, it just begins to take the toll rather than the physical side once you get home.
Martin: Yeah. Famous Olympic athletes, right? It’s only every four years
Alan: Yeah.
Martin: you around 10 seconds or you jump and yeah. Interesting.
Steve: There’s a lovely Jim Carrey line about saying he wishes everybody could be successful, so they’d realize that it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be.
Alan: Ooh, I like that.
Steve: I don’t, I’m just,
Alan: Yeah.
Steve: I’m just paraphrasing. Of course he said it in a much funnier, Whittier, more memorable way. But, um, you know, it’s, it’s not limited to mountaineering. It’s not limited to alpinism or climbing or ultra running. It’s, I think. kind of achievement oriented direction that we put our hearts and souls and, and and money and everything into have these, they have these effects. But the important thing as I long maintain is just doing the hard thing.
Alan: Yeah.
Steve: It’s just important to go to do hard things because that is, that interests you, that catches your interest because you know, that’s life, that’s growth. That’s, that’s progress. And it doesn’t always look like progress, but it, but it’s,
Alan: It’s Teddy Roosevelt, the man in the arena.
Steve: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That classic, right? A hundred percent love that. So, you know, there was quite a bit of. Blow back, as we’ve alluded to the idea of using Xenon. Um, of the places it came from were, you know, trying to sound helpful, but I think were, um, know, by, um, by this I mean like, hey, this is not approved for this application. Well, okay. Bo bottle oxygen also isn’t approved for, you know, to high altitude people. You know, there’s never, you know, there, there’s lots of, lots of these things. So I think that there’s some, some of this blowback, some of this feedback has been categorically kind of not Um, and that bothers me. Like I will, I would like to see us as a community. Be skeptical. I think we have every right, as you both pointed out, to be skeptical about what works. That’s how, the scientific process, right? Like if you have, if you can run an experiment and you can get a result, you should give me the same condition so I can run the experiment and verify independently that that result does come out of these methodologies. And so, you know, we are in a place right now where we’re talking about commercial interests and proprietary knowledge. So therefore, you know, I, I have to say, I. I would hypothesize that, I mean, there, there’s more than one anesthesiologist in the world, and I would hypothesize that there’s some very good doctors in places like India, um, who are, you know, gonna figure, gonna try to figure this out. You know, they’re, they’re going, they have they’re. is not going to be the exclusive domain of fort and b adventures for very long, I would argue. Then we will start to get some other data, whether or not that’s public data, it won’t, I, I suspect it won’t be, but at least it will be additional data points in this sort of evolving, natural experiment that is Mount Everest. What, what do you think is the logical next step, Alan? What, what happens now?
Alan: Lucas, to his credit, a couple of things to his credit, um, number one is he does not think this is gonna become a standard for a couple of reasons. One is he was charged, I think it was $153,000. Um, because xenon gas is very expensive. And he, if you’re gonna do it, he did it, I guess the way you’re supposed to do it under tight medical supervision. So he doesn’t think it’s gonna become a, you know, the new standard maybe cutting it to three weeks, like what Adrian does. You know, that’ll become, you’re seeing more and more people like Garrett Madison offering and Mike Hamill offering, you know, these rapid ascent stuff. I think that might become the new standard. It won’t be two months now to be three weeks, but the biggest thing that I’m concerned about, and we talked about this a little bit before we started recording, is the unintended consequences that because of what we talked about earlier with this, you know, people that, you know, bugs to a light and stuff and, you know, and there’s, I think it’s wonderful that we have so many people interested in high altitude, mountaineering, and especially younger people. I, you know, that’s the, that’s gonna keep the sport alive and growing along with the technology, the progress, the advances, the innovation. I mean, all that’s goodness. The dark side of that is that people will see, oh, well this guy did it in three weeks. He did it for three days. This guy, you know, four guys did it in a week. I can too. ’cause I don’t have the time to take off from my work. So they’re gonna somehow or another figure out how to get a hold of some aid, whether it’s, you know, the drugs we talked about or the gases and they’re going to try to use it un not under medical supervision and not knowledgeable about what it is. There was a good case study of a guy that Schaeffer did an outside magazine maybe five or six years ago. He used Dexamethasone and he basically OD’ed on it and he almost died, but he had come away from Basecamp, every one about Basecamp. But, um, he did serious damage to his liver and his kidneys. Um, and so there’s a dark side to this that people don’t really understand the dangers of it, if it’s used improperly.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. And, and those are real, right? And, um, I don’t know that, so, so where are we? Where is Everest going? Where, what do we need? Like, Martin, when you talk to your athletes. Are you considering climbing Everest, you know, next season? For example, what do you tell them, what do they need to do to prepare? What do you want to do?
Martin: So I think maybe just one last note one last note about the casino and I, again, I was, I’ve been reading a lot about it, trying to just understand it more and come to terms with it ethically. It’s considered doping as supplemental oxygen, and I think that’s where we can agree on. And so there were, there was a lot of criticism coming from that point. Logically, we can also then agree that most of the clients, or most of the people climbing Everest are not professional athletes or athletes trying to break some official records. and so, you know, they are free to do what they want to. And so I think we can sort of put it in the same bracket. I, I dunno what I’m, again, I’m not an expert and it’s, it’s kind of tricky still, but yeah, just to. Maybe, um, take the pressure off a bit on the, and so I agree with you that it’s still so expensive. I mean, it’s one of the rarest gases in the atmosphere. So that’s, I guess why it’s so, it’s hard to extract it from defrauding the atmosphere and that will stay expensive. And I think then it also automatically leads to that. It’ll only be for some people who can afford it if they want to then, and that’s, that’s I guess what we discussed. If you actually want to, if you choose to climb Everest in, in five days and sort of shorten that experience. Um, so for me, I think what it, what my feeling is, what will happen is the, yeah, more and more of the hypoxic conditioning. So pre acclimatization at home, I think that’s where it’s going. I mean, we, in uphill, we, we are also helping out with that. We, we have that option. I am digging into the literature and research every day trying to, you know, learn more about altitude physiology because it’s still so unexplored and the lack of understanding. And so that’s where I see myself. I really would like to be able to monitor the acclimatization process much better so we can have a, we can provide that to the people and for them to be safe again, it’s because everybody’s acclimatizing slightly differently. The individual, I, the individual variability in responses is, is huge. So that’s, hopefully we can get better at this. And I think then for the environment, it’s only better, I hope for the Nepali community, Sherpa community. Still, still good. I guess we can discuss that as well, right? Whether, you know, people flying in and out so they’re not hiking or trekking through the valley.
So the people in the villages, they have less business than, I don’t know, I’m not an expert, but, anyway, but I think still Everest is, there is just one Everest. It’s the highest mountain on earth. And for myself personally, it’s still a big, big dream of mine. Whether I can make that true one day, I’m not sure, but I can understand why people are motivated to go.
Alan: It’s a fantastic experience. I mean, there’s a lot of critics out there. I often say that Mount Everest is the mountain. People love to hate. Um, and I don’t know why it brings out the critics like it does ’cause you know, you don’t see that, that same venom that comes out about people that, you know, solo sail around the world or swim the English channel or, you know, do something else that’s really tough. But, um, I guess mountaineering has this, you know, this, this reputation as, um, mostly defined by end of thin air by, you know, Mr. Krakauer, that you know, it’s just a bunch of rich jerks, you know, that are paying a lot of money to be drugged up to the summit and come home. And, um, I’ve certainly seen my share of those on the mountains, but the vast majority are just normal people with big dreams and big ambitions and they, you know, they feel very grateful to have had the experience regardless of the result.
Steve: Alan, so, you know, when, when you’re working with your clients at Summit Coach, what kind of timeframe do you want them to be looking at in terms of their preparations? What kind of apprenticeship, if you will, do you want them to go through in their, in their journey towards, towards that ultimate goal?
Alan: I am with Martin for as much as possible for 5, 10, 15 years. Um, I know, you know, just really as long as possible. It’s not a get off the couch and just fly to Catman, do and climb the mountain type of thing. Um, ideally a minimum of a year. Um, you know I tell the story of young Ryan Mitchell. He was 18 years old. He contacted me on December 22. Um, he was a YouTube sensation, had made an absurd amount of money doing a Minecraft video on YouTube. And so he said he wanted to get away from that. He wanted to inspire his generation by climbing Mount Everest. I said, great, wonderful goal. I love it. And I said, what kind of experience do you have? None. He said, when do you wanna climb it in March? Okay, let’s stop. I said, there are companies out there that will take your money, um, but I will not coach you. He says, well, what, what will it take? I said, well, it’s gonna take you agreeing to, it’s been at least a year training, getting the, getting your body in shape, which was pretty easy for this buff 18-year-old. Um, but I want you to go climb mountains. I want you to get the experience. We’re gonna work on mental toughness. We’re gonna work on the holistic approach to how you prepare to go climb this mountain. Not just the physical is physical and mental and emotional, and understanding what you’re getting into and having the basic skillset. So. I said, yes, sir. And so he went and did, um, first off he did the Ecuador volcanoes, and then he did, Denali, then UA with Ed Vesters of all people. And then he went to, Everest with Garrett Madison, and absolutely nailed it. And now he is, in fact, I’m talking to him tomorrow on a podcast because he’s leaving in two weeks to go to K two. So that’s a story where somebody took, you know, took the advice seriously. ’cause I’ve seen other people go, Alan, you don’t understand. I don’t have the time and money to wait. I’m gonna do it now, you know? And I quote this a lot. Sadly, well, this year, I should have added this in the very beginning. Steve, when you asked me to summarize the season, is that, um, tragically we had five people die on Everest this year. Three Sherpas and two foreigners. Um tragic, every one of them. However, in, in, put it in context, I’ve got, you know, data using Himalayan databases goes back to 1920s, that on average in the median is around seven or eight deaths every year. So it happens. That’s the contract you sign on these mountains. But these five deaths paled in comparison to the 18, two years ago, and a little bit eight last year. So those 26, 20 18 of the 26 were with low cost operators that said, no experience required. I’ll take your money. You know, and this Sherpa that you’re gonna be with has summited 20 times. So you’re in safe hands. If something goes wrong, we’ll take care of you, we’ll helicopter you off. And there’s too many people that buy that value proposition and they, ’cause they don’t know what they don’t know. And that’s why, you know, uphill athlete and hopefully what I provide is helping people understand what they don’t know. ’cause most people that wanna go climb these mountains, we, my clients, hell, they typically come from a place where they don’t know what they don’t know and they’re asking for help to figure that out. ’cause it’s a confusing world out there with all the marketing and the social media and the websites and, you know, slick representation of statistics and everything else.
Steve: Yeah. I think it’s an annual recurring prob, you know, question. One of the things that I always encourage people, I think we all agree on, is to just give. Yourself as much lead time as you can. One of the stories that I, or not, one of the facts that I share with people is that as an adult, it typically takes roughly 10 years plus or minus a year to fully develop your genetic potential. As an endurance athlete, that’s 10 years, not 10 months, not 10 weeks, not 10 days, 10 years. So, you know, people underestimate themselves at how far they can
Alan: Yep.
Steve: And how, how much they’re capable of, you know, I always said I have, and I think it’s amply. I could amply. Demonstrate, I can easily demonstrate that I have no athletic gifts. Johnson used to say that all the time, and it’s true, like I was in all the sports as a kid. I was, I, I loved doing all the sports, but I was completely middle of the pack in all of them. The only thing that I had in Alpinism was that long timeframe, that way of thinking like, okay, I’m, I’m in this to develop myself over years and decades, not days and weeks, and I just love doing this.
And that’s what allowed me or enabled me to be able to practice at a high level was that. That mindset. Mindset. And really don’t give themselves enough credit for what they can accomplish if they put in the time and put in the effort. So Martin, what is, what are you thinking about changing in terms of training or co your approach to coaching for, if anything, for Everest 2026?
Martin: Um, I don’t think I’ll be changing so much. Maybe just working with what I’ve been working on so far. And actually, Alan it was great to hear actually what the holistic approach you mentioned. and maybe that’s something we call, we use an Apple athlete as well, or, you know, I talk often about the key performance indicators, the KPI, which, you know, gives you an opportunity, opportunity to kind of break that performance into factors and, and then actually okay, like which factors can I improve and how, and to, to what extent.
And so then yeah, physical and the mental as, as you mentioned, right? And I think the mental aspect is so, so important, on Everest. And prepare the athletes for the, well, the whole, the whole thing, approach, the many weeks of, getting to the base camp view. And, and then once you’re there, the waiting game, the uncertainty and getting sick. What do we do with adversity and then with the weather? And so, I’ve, I was in touch with most of them on Garmin Messenger, so I think it was so important for them to stay in touch with me, to be able to just kind of we, their frustrations or one of fears as well.
Alan: Yeah.
Martin: Just, you know, a simple message was like, Hey, you’re doing fine. Just be patient. You have to sit, sit, sit it out. But you’ll be fine. Just be patient, and you’re getting there. I think that was just so simple, but so powerful because you just, you’re just not prepared for this kind of scenario when you’re sitting up there. the tent in the store, windstorms 7,000 meters high, and you know thinking what’s gonna happen. Um, but I think maybe what I would like to keep developing is like the monitoring and testing so, you know many athletes and also operators you know, asking me, okay, like how do you prepare the, the athletes, how do you prepare the clients? Like the, they want one number like VO2 Max, for example, right? So has their VO2 Max improved after two, three months of training? Like, are they going to be ready? And I had to tell them, Hey, like, it’s the VO2 Max will not tell you the whole story. I’m sorry. It’s not that, and I guess if you’re, we compare it to marathon running. I guess we can model or get that estimate of the time, the goal time really well actually with, with the modeling of the performance and taking the testing M max and the lactate threshold speed and, um, and, and the, the running economy, you know, we can get really close to estimating the, the, the finish time. Whereas on Everest, I mean, we are not there yet. And so I, that’s where I learned a lot from this season. And I would like to, you know, it’s been a couple of weeks now, so work with the data, look back, think and I think there is a lot of improvement there. And, um, of course then, sort of include it in the training plans for the next season.
Alan: You know, I like the KPIs, the key performance in indicators. Um, the one that I like the most. Um, and because, you know. Training for the new albinism and the follow on book that Steve [01:02:00] and Scott wrote. I call it the you know, a PhD paper on high altitude physiology. But it’s great information there. But for me, it, you can, one of the key indicators is recovery time. And what I suggest to people is that they do, um, I call it extra credit training, where you go out and do, basically, let’s say you do, um, 10 miles and gain 5,000 feet in altitude. Well do that, come back down to our load up on, you know, water and fuel, and then go do it again same day, and then do it, do like a 20 mile one day, and then do that 20 mile again the next day. And so after each one of those, on a scale of one to 10 of one is that, , I’m, I’m going to the er, and 10 is I could do it a third time. So keep a journal of that over a year. Do that maybe once a month. And, and you have to be totally honest with yourself. It’s not for me as your coach or anybody else on this planet. It’s only you. And be honest with yourself. You know, if you are a three, you’re a three, mark it in, and then look at that trend line. And if, and to your point about the VO two max, you know, I don’t know if it’s gonna increase or not, but look at how you feel that your recovery is. And if it’s not going up, something’s wrong with your training.
Martin: I agree. It’s that famous durability, the sort of new, factor in endurance. They, we call it. So the fourth dimension of endurance performance. We, you know, we are v max, like they treasured and running the economy. And now the durability in especially the long dance events. And so it’s exactly, well, pretty much exactly how we tested.
You go up a hill, come down, and you go again and you compare the two, you can do that quite easily on training peaks or
Alan: Yeah.
Martin: You’re using it. And you see the difference, right? Like how it drops, how you maintain it, how the heart rate changes. As I agree with that, it’s a very good way to measure the capacity of you, you can include some altitude, effective altitude, even better.
Alan: But I think that the secret though is that you’ve gotta be objective. You took, you’ve gotta be brutally honest with yourself. I mean, again, that’s why I stress that no one else is gonna see this number. It is just you. I mean your, your trainer, your therapist, your dog. No one else is gonna see it. It’s just you. And if you’re gonna cheat, the only person you’re cheating is yourself.
Steve: Yeah. Well that’s great wisdom guys. Alan, how do people find you and find Summit Coach
Alan: Well, they can first off, they can find me through the Uphill Athlete site. Um, I’m one of your partners, I guess, affiliates, whatever you call me. A lot of my clients use you guys. I offer physical training, but I tell people, if you want the best out there, go uphill. They’ve got, you know, world class coaches and nutritionists and physiologists and marriage counselors and everything. So you know, but they can find,
Steve: I think we’ve branched out the marriage counseling yet. Maybe. Maybe we should.
Alan: I always joke with people because I ask ’em also, you know, how does your spouse or partner feel about you going and doing this? And they give me an answer and I say, Hey, listen, just so you know, I offer marriage counseling for a, a very affordable fee of $10,000. So it’s a joke. Um, actually though I talk to spouses often by people that are on the mountains. Um, they find they can find me at my website, alanarnett.com, or go to summit coach.org. So
yeah. Great.
Steve: Excellent. Well, thanks so much, Alan. Thank you so much, Martin. Let’s
Martin: Thank you.
Steve: again in a year’s time and look back and, and see, see where we’ve come.
Alan: Sounds good. See if we were smart
Steve: Well actually, like, let’s, maybe we should back up. Maybe we should make some predictions. Predictions are always, and then I can torture you with this. In 12 months, what is your prediction for trends in 2026? Alan?
Alan: Well, I think we’re gonna see a lot more first ascents of Unclimbed Mountains in the Himalayas. I know people like Garrett, um, are focusing on that and also in Pakistan. So commercializing first ascents is I think, an emerging trend. Um, I think we’re also gonna see, um, just again, more, more people on Everest. If the Nepal government goes through with this proposal that you have to have a 7,000 meter summit in Nepal, I think they’re gonna see their business drop by 50%. I don’t think the permit going from 11,000 to 15,000 is gonna have a measurable impact. I think people will figure out how to absorb that. Um, but. Um, if you’ve gotta, if you’ve gotta fly to Nepal and you have to get a medical certificate from a government approved authority before you can climb Everest, that’s a showstopper. And if you have to climb a 7,000 meter, that takes away mountains like Amman de Blo, um, ua, which misses it by what, three or four meters? Denali. All Pete Glennon. All that’s Pete Lennon’s a 7,000. But all the usual suspects that people use around the world. Ma blanc, you know? So I think it’s, I think they’re gonna see it, their, their business. Just get devastated if they make it. I love the idea, to be very clear. I love the idea of requiring a 7,000 meter mountain before you can go to Everest.
On the Chinese side, you’ve gotta have climbed a mountain, which is a thousand meters lower than the mountain you’re applying so, and if you’re a Chinese national, you have to have summoned an 8,000 meter mountain before you can go to Everest. That’s the reason that, um, so many people from China come over to the Nepal side where there are no rules.
So, I applaud Nepal for the 7,000 meter one, make it worldwide and have a little bit of latitude. Make it, make, make it 6,500 meters. You know, don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.
Martin: I agree. I think, you know, it would make sense to include ahead and Aconcagua. But I think what I want to do just mention before we finished I’m a bit concerned about these new regulations possibly happening in Nepal and compared to China that actually affecting possibly more like the alpinists that look for the F first science or climbing without oxygen. Basically the, the, the regulations will be that the expeditions will be shorter. If I understood correctly. The base camps will be there only for a couple of weeks and then gone. So you will actually, if you are acclimatizing in a classic way without oxygen, you will just not have enough time at, at, that’s what I heard in you know, in the media. So I do hope that it doesn’t take place and that there is still space for, well, everybody. Also, you know, for climbing without oxygen, and I just wanted to mention that this year, um, the statistics were quite severe. Only two, two athletes, two people succeeded to climb without oxygen. That’s pretty, if you see the statistics, how, what was the total, do you remember
Alan: Well, since, since
Martin: this year,
Alan: of this, oh, in total summits.
Martin: Total summits. Yeah.
Alan: Yeah. So, um, I have 846 people on both sides.
Martin: Wow.
Alan: And so on the Paul side it was, 257 clients supported by 421 support climbers, Sherpas, Tibetans, others, and on the Tibetan side, roughly 150, something like that. So
Martin: I wanted to highlight that because I think it’s really, it wasn’t an easy season for anybody, but without oxygen, especially the windows were so short and so, um, one of them was a lady called Anya. I actually met her close to a Manas blue summit last year, and so just wanted to
Alan: yeah, she’s, She’s fantastic. She’s got 12 of the 14, just needs shish and Troy, and she’ll become the first German female I think to get.
Martin: she was the 10th woman, 10th woman so far having climbed Everest without supplemental oxygen. So
Alan: Yeah, she did it. Um, she wasn’t quite solo because there were 33 other people that submitted on the same day. But, you know, she went unsupported, no os um, and just, just nailed it. She’s, she’s amazing. One thing about the statistics though is that this year on the DePaul site, only 49% of the, um, foreigners who had permits, there were 517 permits issued.
And 257 summits, that’s 49% typically on Everest these days in the last handful of years, has been in the, in the sixties and seventies. So I think what happened was that we ran into all the stuff we’ve been talking about for the last hour, is that you had people that lacked the experience. They underestimated how hard it was gonna be. They didn’t, I mean, this is harsh to say, they probably didn’t train hard enough, long enough. And once they got up there, especially on those windy days, um, they just said, I’m turning around. I’m done. And that was probably the right decision and that helped bring that death total down, even though it’s still tragic. But, and I think there’s a lot of good case studies here. Um, I just wish there was more transparency out there about the people that you know, that have trouble. And I applaud the people that admit it.
Steve: Yeah. Yeah. Forecast for 2026 are mo you know I heard you guys sidestep the question. You’re a very good politician there because, ’cause there was, I asked for a forecast and you just started talking about regulations, which brings in a lot of uncertainty, right? Um, if we look forward to 2026, the big question is do the regulations play out? Let’s follow up with that and a year from now and we’ll, we’ll, we’ll see what, what went into effect, what didn’t and how that changed the, the, the game of, of climbing Everest in 2026. So thank you Alan. Thank you Martin. Really appreciate your time.
Alan: Thanks.
Martin: Thank you.
Steve: not just one but a community together.
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