2026 Everest Trends with Steve House and Martin Zhor

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Welcome to the uphill podcast. With me today to break down the Everest 2026 season is Mr. Alan Arnett, who’s been chronicling Everest seasons for years. He’s climbed the mountain himself and it works with climbers through his company Summit Coach and he’s also a longtime friend and affiliate of Uphill Athlete. Allan, welcome back. Thanks a lot for having me, Steve. Appreciate it. And Martin Zor, many of you will know as a coach here at Uphill Athlete. He’s based in Shiaan just finishing up with his masters in altitude physiology and he has been coaching athletes on Everest and other high altitude destinations for a lot of years now. Martin, welcome. Good to have you.

So last year there was you had given me a few keywords for the season. and we were talking about the use of drones was starting to be a topic and a few other things. What were the key words for the 2026 Everest season? What were the key themes? Yeah. So, the key words that I’m that I’m used uh in my season summary were quirky, jetream, skiing, running, trash, records, crowds, and wait for it, normal. Normal. Interesting. Why normal? Well, all the headlines around the world screamed about the delays. I know we’re going to get into that. Talking about the delays in the ice fall and you know the big boulder or the big um ice cube in the middle of it. Uh and they all talked about how there even headlines saying speculating that the Ever season was over and they were going to cancel it. I mean it was just all over the map. And yes, the ice fall went in two weeks late within the latest on record. So you know that part was true. But I went back and did a deep analysis. I’ve done this for years on the Himalayan database which is you know the authority in my mind. So all the figures that you’ll hear from me are all subject to being verified by the Himalayan database at some point. But if you look at the history of summits on Everest on the Nepal side, 80% of the summits, the total summits for this season occur between May 17th, 18th and May 23rd and that’s precisely what happened this year. So despite the delays, despite all the drama, despite the jetream coming and going, it was a normal summit season. So let’s let’s go back and go through the numbers a little bit. How many Everest permits did Nepal issue this year? I I think it was a record. Yeah, it was a record. Uh it it broke the 2019 record. Um it was it was at right at 497. So around 500 permits were issued and China was the lead country this year with uh something to like 110 um permits going to the Chinese and that’s a that’s a another continuation of a of a trend that’s been going on. India, United States um were the were the other top three and that’s pretty normal. But Southeast Asia, India and China has really been the growing demographic for Everest climbers. So we had 500 500 let’s say 500 um foreigners and I always used the ratio and it’s been going up over the years. I’ve been tracking this closely of 1.5 support climbers or sherpas or Tibetans on that side but we’ll get into that because China closed to foreigners. So that’s around 750 sherpas that supported those 500 climbers. That’s 1,250 climbers that tried to climb Everest. And then I always take like a 30% attrition rate. And this year it was less than that surprisingly. And so we had the last number I saw was 1,08 summits. So it was an absolute record season. And on May 20th, 274 people summited in a 24-hour period. And uh you know, we didn’t get a lot of data out of that because you know, bad news stays on the mountain. But I heard and talked to I had six summit coach clients on the mountains this year. And so uh from my network and my moles uh I heard it was there were 12 to 18 hours summit pushes from the south pole to the summit. And some some people told me they spent three hours trying to go from just beyond the cornice traverse to the top of the Hillary step which should take about half an hour. Interesting. So that was one of my key words of records and crowds. Um, and that’s where that comes from. So since the Hillary step has changed form, has that alleviated a bit of a choke point? Does that continue to hold true? No, it really hasn’t because what it did it went from being in this off with crack that was, you know, it was all it was very climbable. But if you were very inexperienced and you think about the logistics of it, you’ve got krampons, you’ve got an oxygen mask on, you’ve got a hood on, u you know, and you’re trying to basically do mid fifth class rock. Yeah, it could be dark. Could be mid-fass rock climbing. And a lot of people just don’t have that experience on Everest. So today I call it the Hillary slope because it’s really it’s really a snow slope. Um and there’s really no climbing involved per se. I mean you can you can climb it upright attached to the fixed rope. But the rub is is basically a cornice. And two years ago that thing was overcrowded and there were two two climbers a sherpa and I think he was from the UK that were unclipped from the rope. Big no no right. and that cornice collapsed and thankfully everybody else was saved by being attached to the fixed rope but those two gentlemen lost their lives. So, you know, it may be easier to climb, but it’s not any technically safer than than it was before. Okay. And has it helped with the timing and the flow of people pass up and down through that little section? I believe it’s still a single rope. Martin, maybe you know from your clients, but I think it’s still a single rope because it’s not wide enough to put put two ropes in it. So, it’s still it’s still when you have 200, you know, close to 300 people trying to climb it in that short period of time. So, the Tibet side was closed this year. What happened there? So, nobody really knows except for the officials in Lassa at the CTMA or maybe in Beijing. There was a rumor going around that there was this fireworks display that was sponsored by Arterix and this famous Chinese um pyro pyotractic. What is it? Fireworks guy. Pyroactic. [laughter] Yeah, there you go. Um but that they they uh set off this long ridge of fireworks that’s um that that simulated a dragon and it was in a sacred area of Tibet and somebody got upset about it. So they closed Mount Everest in Shisha Ponga and Choyu. Now that makes no sense to me whatsoever. Yeah, I knew that there was a a a controversy around that, but I didn’t realize it it was connected to Everest because it wasn’t in the same place. I mean, it was in Tibet, but interesting. Yeah. Okay. Well, and it was an outdoor gear company, a Canadian outdoor gear company, Art Carics. So, no one really knows. I talked to I went to a a meeting here in Colorado with a lot of sherpas and I asked several of them and they said it was for uh conservation reasons but even they don’t know. So you know again the mainstream press ran with the fireworks because that was the easiest one to you know you always have a every good story has a villain. So, this story had a villain, but it did end up that there was a Chinese team that did climb. And I confirmed this with a Chinese national that there were 28 Chinese nationals, no foreigners, and they were supported by 60 support climbers of which I assume the vast majority were Tibetans. And 25 of the 28 summited on the Tibetan side supported by an unknown number but again if you go by the 1.5 to2 I would guess there was you know 4050 so there were you know around 75 80 summits on the Tibetan side but really all the action was on the Nepal site and many team many western teams uh like Adrien Ballinger’s Alpenlow they were all set to go on the north side like they always do. Um and then Adrien, you know, Adrien has strong ethics about climbing on the southside. He’s just too dangerous primarily for his staff. So, um and he’s really a big advocate these days using a helicopter to get to camp too, which kind of surprises me a little bit, but he may see analogy, which is a good one, that on Denali, you know, nobody climbs starts in Taletna, everybody flies to the glacier. Uh so you know in his mind uh that would be a that would be cricket to be able to start from camp 2 by using helicopters to avoid the ice fall. Uh but I I’d estimate maybe 125 people transferred from the Tibetan side to the uh Nepal site. So it made some difference you know 10% difference but it it it didn’t have a material impact on the records or the crowds. Okay. Yeah. And I would say, you know, with having spent a lot of time in Alaska, that’s not really a good analogy because the reason people don’t is it’s just simply of how far it is. Like it’s just like the scale could take you a month. It’s not because it’s dangerous, you know? It’s not because the the end of the uh the glacier is a mess at the, you know, bottom of the glacier. It would be hard getting on and it’s going to change every year of course, but it’s also like I don’t know the number of miles it is from, you know, the toe of the glacier up to what we call base camp now. So I mean it’s got to be it’s got to be 30 miles or something. So I I do know people uh pretty routinely go out that way. They take pack rafts and and walk out the glacier and then put in uh and at the tow the glacier and float float down the Tina. A couple people do that every year. So anyway, I’m we’re getting off topic here. Let me So 1,08 total summits an all-time record. The prior high was 2019 with 891 is what is in my notes pretty much all the south call. Well, that’s the south pole summits, right? And then then in addition there’s those north call climbers, right? That you around,00 so. So roughly,00. Yeah. 274 people in one day. That’s incredible. Um, okay. So, I have 106 109 Chinese, 77 American, 61 Indian, and 32 from the UK, and roughly 105 women climb uh Everest this year. So, that’s all all pretty amazing. Y Nepal collected $8.5 million in mountaineering fees this season. This is kind of related to one of the questions that we asked last year is you know the around the rules and how they’re managing those rules. $8.5 million in a country like Nepal goes goes a long ways. How is that kind of flowing through to uh to the climbers to the support staff and the whole ecosystem? Is any of that seeing seeing the light of day back up in in the Kumbu? There’s been talk about that for for decades. Um but to my knowledge very little if any uh goes back to uh back to the villages like a Namchi or you know parachute or some place the one exception are the permits that that’s paying to the uh uh SPCC the Sagartha pollution control committee which manages the icefall doctors which put in the fixed route fixed lines from base camp to camp 2. And so they are paid and insured through the permit money. But as far as money going to the sherpas, uh, no, they’re paid by their operator. So, you know, a seven summits or a, you know, uh, Madison mountaineering, they pay their sherpas directly. Uh, so none of that permit money goes back into the ecosystem. It all stays into government coffers. Yeah. which you know was always a big uh point of uh kind of soreness for me as when I was going to the Himalaya frequently. And we we have the British to thank for this system. By the way, we could do another story podcast about the history of the permit system and why we pay fees to governments to climb mountains in certain countries but not in others. Not in most thankfully. So it’s a interesting history. So records are the bright headline. There’s a a human uh number. There was five people who lost their lives on the mountain this season. Five out of, you know, given some of the death tolls and some of the years past, that’s actually doesn’t seem too bad. It seems like it was, you know, points to me towards a pretty smooth season. I mean, there’s always going to be the odd accident, right? or somebody’s going to have a cardiac arrest somewhere or you know a cornice is going to collapse. These these things are somewhat unavoidable when you put that many people in that kind of environment. What What’s your take on that? Yeah, I was I was I was pleasantly surprised. You know, it’s always tragic when anybody loses their life on a mountain course, but um you know, we had the one gentleman at the very end that self-rescued and we’ll we’ll you know, we’ll talk about that, I’m sure. But there were um there were three Sherpas who died. One he was he was a he was a Everest mountain guide and he died while trekking in. So technically that wasn’t a climbing death. That was a trekking death. And then we had uh a sherpa um see no he was 20 years old and he slipped on at camp 3 and fell down to lotsy face. That that has happened before. That’s the reason that you always hear people say when camp 3 is so steep and so slippery and this year it was pretty dry so that was hard blue ice and I don’t you know he didn’t have an ice axe probably wasn’t wearing krampons so he just had no control and then another another uh gentleman um he died while going from base camp to camp one and then we had two um Indians who died and these two really bother me a lot obviously for their death but the circumstances really bother me They were climbing with Pioneer Adventures and Pioneer made this public and they went as far as saying when they both summited and one died right at South Summit and the other one died at Camp 2. But here’s the disturbing part is that uh Pioneer said that they were having difficulties on the ascent. So Martin, I’m sure you coach your clients and Steve I know you do too and I do mine. If you’re in trouble on your ascent, turn around. Stop. Don’t keep going. And this is where the summit fever plays into it. This is where the cultural interactions of sherpas with non-sherpas play into it. This is where having proper medical training, you know, at least having some level of wilderness mountain training, uh, medical training. Um, that where a sherpa can look at you and go, you know, you’re stumbling or you know, hey, tell me again, what’s your name? Where were you born? And if you can’t answer these questions, man, you have some form of altitude sickness, probably cerebral edema, maybe pulmonary, turn around. And if these two young men were suffering going up, they should have been turned around. So that goes in my book, what I call a preventable death. The uh the the 51-year-old who died on his way, that’s probably was unpreventable. He probably had an aneurysm or a heart attack or something. And that’s the contract we sign with the mountain that you know we have some something going on in our body that we’re not aware of. That’s the reason that the best guides will require uh a complete physical u physical with a stress test for anyone over 50 that goes on the mountains to try to weed out those you know those unknown problems. But u anyway in context five historically is anywhere from 8 to 10. Uh three three four years ago we had 18. We had two years in a row where we had a total of 26. 23 of those 26 were with budget operators. So, you know, there there are lessons that you can glean out every single year. And one of the reasons I I’ll just say this quickly is that I think this year was perhaps lower despite the records is that um people are using higher flows of supplemental oxygen starting at lower camps. Right? So today almost the uh standard is to run at 2 to four starting from camp 2 where it used to be you started at camp three on one. Yeah. So you know if you double up the oxygen you’re or quadruple it by doubling the flow starting lower that gives you a much better chance. And finally um the ratio of more sherpas climbing with you. You know, just because you have somebody climbing in front of you or behind you, that doesn’t make you go faster or slower, but it does give you an element of psychological security. And I think that for very inexperienced climbers, that’s that that is a game changer. Mhm. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So, five people died on Everest in 2026, down from eight in 2024 and 18 in 2023, and it’s still well a good chunk below the long-term average. I think it is worth noting that most mountaineering and most Everest deaths happen on the descent after the summit while they’re still above 8,000 mters, the so-called death zone. One of the tests that I’ve used as a as a guide and not and with my climbing partners as well is just have people stand with their and close their eyes and you know that it’s to measure whether or not they can their bodies can remain physically coordinated attack you because that part of the brain is very sensitive to um you know lack of uh enough oxygen. So that’s that. Yeah. And the good thing about it is if you’re doing that, you don’t you can you don’t have to uh move. You can just literally just like close their eyes. They can’t tell usually if they’re weaving to and fro, but everyone else can see it. And it’s just a a very it’s very demonstrable, easy, quick test. So that’s that’s what I like on the ascent when people are struggling because, you know, sometimes people are just having an off day. So this was a late season as you alluded to earlier. The Kumbu icefall that this sort of dynamic section of the glacier between base camp and camp one is the most dangerous part of the route despite what I just said because the ice fall can collapse or people can fall in creasses and it nearly didn’t open. Kind of walk us through what happened. There was a Sarak there. maybe start with what a Sarak is real quick and uh how that how that kind of affected the season. Yeah. So this was this was unusual because the the the usual concern are the hanging soraks. A serak is is just a uh a huge ice cube, a huge collection of ice. And if you as you’re going up the icefall from basec camp to the climber’s left, there’s the west shoulder of Everest and it soarses thousands of feet and there’s this massive collection of uh of ice just that’s just just hanging there and every single year slivers of a cave off. Now, in 2014, it wasn’t a sliver. It was a chunk. And there were um there were 16 sherpas waiting for the icefall doctors to repair a ladder uh near the football field, which is basically around the middle of the icefall. Um and they they they should have turned around. Um some of the western guys, as soon as they got notice of that, they told the sherpas to turn around and get back down, get out of there. Other sherpa stayed and this thing collapsed on top of them. This year was different. This year it was a 100 foot by 200 foot by 100 foot ice cube that was sitting there near the top of the icefall, but it wasn’t it wasn’t vertical. It was leaning. At first when the icefall doctors went up and they saw it, they couldn’t go to the left of it cuz it was blocked. And they were afraid to go to the right of it cuz it was just literally teetering. And one day they said it was, you know, there was a 1T gap, the next day it was 3 feet, the next day it was 8 feet. So this thing was moving. So the icefall doctors, you know, fresh of that memory. Um and then even last year there were three um um sherpas who fell through the top of the icefall. It was like a dome that was really there was a air bubble and it they broke through that and th those three died. So while technically the ice fall is not the most dangerous place, it’s where a lot of deaths happen because there’s been around 70 or 80 deaths in the icefall out of the 320. So to your point, Steve, more people die higher up on the mountain and mostly on the descent. But with this big ice cube sitting there, the icefall doctors, you know, they they used drones to fly over to try to scout all the routes. They went up, they did everything they could possibly do it, but it it went on day after day after day until it got to two weeks. And then Mingma um who is uh uh famous for his u his impatience, also famous for his incredible skill. uh he’s he’s one he was on the team to summon the K2 in the winter for the first K2 winter summit. But uh Ming said, “I’ve had enough of this.” And so he sent uh four of his sherpas and also Bartk the uh Polish skier that we should talk about and give a lot of love to. Um they went up and they found a route [laughter] and they put in some, you know, some rope uh near camp one, but then a white out came and they had to, you know, turn around and go back down. But basically they opened a route and then so all of a sudden the icefall doctors went up to camp one, they went to camp two. Um and so now you know it was routes open. So now Sherpa started bringing up all the gear to camp 2. Uh they were using drones to uh ferry um pickets and rope up to to fix the summit from camp 2 to the summit. And then for some unknown odd reason claiming national security the Nepal government banned the use of using drones. And so that but which was really bad because that these drones were also carrying trash back down. Luckily 5 days later somebody woke up and said wait a minute we’re shooting ourselves in the foot. So they reversed that ban. So this is part of the you know the the cryptic aspect of the season. things were happening and they weren’t happening and you know there were delays and there weren’t delays. So what the the big impact of that was that a lot of teams went and some acclimatized instead of using going to camp 1 and camp 2 and camp 3 to acclimatize they went to the trekking peaks of Mera and Island um and Lobashe and some actually even moved their base camp to these mountains like um climbing the seven sunsets. my c my camel uh they completely set up a mirror base camp uh I think it was on mirror and they just they literally spent the night nights at on the summit there. So they got acclimatized to the equivalent of camp 2. So once the route got to the summit, man, they nobody nobody did a a traditional acclimatization because they were already acclimatized to 65 7,000 meters and then plus using supplemental oxygen to higher flows, lower rates, lower elevations, you know, the season just once they got the ropes to the summit. Um I mean and again that was a massive effort because this jetream it kept coming in and going out, coming in and going out and became very unpredictable. Uh my good friend Chris Tomer uh is a meteorologist uh and he gives weather reports and Michael Fagan and Mark Dieser, they all said, you know, the jetream was just really erratic this year. It kept coming and going, coming and going. Uh and that stopped the uh the the summit rope fixers for about four or five days. And that’s so all of a sudden people started getting more nervous again like they were when the route wasn’t through the ice fall. So it was this kind of on again offagain season. But once the um you know they got the ropes to the summit uh there was there were uh there was a two I think two Norwegians, one Sweden and three Chinese that were fast followers to the rope team and uh they they summited on the same day that the ropes got to the summit. You know the rope fixers don’t like that. They don’t like to have people behind them because you know they’re kicking stuff down and you know there’s lots of problems with that. But uh and then the ice fall, the jet stream came back. So nobody summoned then again for like the next four days. And then we had that uh that next week, the week of the I guess it was the 17th. And that’s when every single day people were going up. The window opened. The window opened. The window opened. Right on right on schedule. [laughter] Right. Right on schedule. It’s It is It is very unique in that way. like I don’t you know all the climbing I’ve done in the Himalaya that’s the only place where there’s sort of this very reliable um you know kind of like clockwork every year sort of pattern most of the Himalaya is just affected by the normal meteorological you know ups and downs of you know good years and bad years but that’s it’s a very very uh interesting thing it’s just just high enough the just it’s exactly the right geograph geography rel relative to where how our weather circulates the globe that it uh that it that it has this effect. So it doesn’t happen in the Alps or the you know the caracorum or Alaska or down in South America. I mean you know those mountains are really hard to forecast whereas is relatively straightforward at least has been historically. Yeah. Yeah. Knock out of wood. [laughter] Last year we spent I think a total uh well we talked about it on this kind of uh recap show but we also dedicated another two podcast episodes to the topic of a certain noble gas called xenon and at the time it was kind of a one-off experiment and this was the year it was supposed to become more of a a product uh and we were going to see a lot of people using uh xenon But from what you can tell, what happened with Xenon and the the 4-day ascends of Everest in 2026? I have not been able to find any public sources that didn’t come from the operator who um who promoted it last year, Futinbach Adventures, to uh to find anybody’s name. I have not seen anybody claim they used it. Um I haven’t even heard rumors or word of mouth. Um, you know, uh, Lucas did put a lot of people, something like nearly 50 on the summit. Um, and he has, he has multiple teams. He has a, you know, the traditional team and he has this flash team which runs in two weeks and others. Um, and he has on his website that they, you know, they were, I think it was from last year that they were going to use Xenon in 2026, but, uh, haven’t, uh, been able to verify that. So, I I I won’t say that they didn’t use it or they did use it. I I simply don’t know. Yeah. And I reached out to to Lucas and Martin, you talked to your athletes and none of us are entirely clear. What I’ve what I see from my point of view is that the trend uh of the last years and seasons is towards the flash expeditions or rapid expeditions more and more. Um I think there is actually space for everybody to to do their their thing. But uh the then the requirements of uh knowing how the acclimatization works and uh what is required uh how to do the pre-climatization is of course increasing to do it right because you’re on average you definitely need to be acclimatized and for I’ve heard several cases or many cases that it just didn’t work uh different problems uh pulmonary edema relatively low still on the mountain even before before reaching the base camp. So um you know doing deep braclimatization at home or uh not on the mountain yet it’s it requires definitely a lot of knowledge. So I would recommend athletes to to reach out to to people who have that knowledge. Um you’re putting a lot on the on the line so your life and of course their succeed success um on the climb. Then um I think uh I think Everest is uh still a tough climb. It’s uh I think uh for me that’s what I was observing even this year. Uh still a lot of uh people didn’t succeed, didn’t make it to the summit. Uh it’s again very hectic. It can be hectic due to the weather conditions. Uh the ice fall. So there’s a lot of this unpredictability. Also even the north side closed actually in the last uh moment. So some of those athletes redirected to the south which is then kind of a different route but you still should be pro probably prepared pretty much to the same level but uh still I think mentally it’s not an easy task. Uh I heard I had some athletes like that they were ready for the north and then last minute and like wow okay we we go to the south and uh I could see that it’s disturbing and uh you know you’re ready for something and all of a sudden it’s it’s changed. So um yeah I think then as I maybe can can be redirected then to my perspective as a coach the how to be ready for a climb of course is not just about the physical capacity but that’s the one where you can change the most with physical training with uh with right preparation and how long it takes but then the economatization uh and other techniques to to be able to succeed but I think also that mental mental capacity the robustness to just be ready to face uh a lot of uncontrol the the factors that you cannot control uh like the weather like the crowds uh waiting in the line which uh yeah it was quite spectacular to see some of the days were really busy so um yeah I just think that simply nothing really prepares you for that it’s a very unique situation and uh so yeah I definitely uh fit that in the preparation this year more than before the mental full readiness. Yeah. And you know, I think Xenon promised to dramatically shorten people’s time on the mountain, which there’s a strong safety argument for for spending less time in a in a risky environment. But drones are also trying to do the same thing specifically for the people who carry the loads through the places like the icefall up to the upper mountain or at least to camp too. and that as you as you mentioned earlier Allan turned a little bit of an international incident this year. I just want to hear about this sort of technology I think there’s both the technology story and there’s also a money story in this and uh how did this kind of unfold what is the what are the why use drones on Everest? How does and how much can they actually do? Yeah. So it actually started maybe I don’t know three or four years ago uh during the COVID closures that the Chinese were uh using it extensively to remove trash uh these um these drones and then a Nepali company um bought uh a couple last year and experimented with it. U one of them crashed in the uh in the icefall. Uh, but these things are these things are like $80,000 and they have a payload of something like 60 pounds, but they only use half of that because of the the altitude. But, um, I guess when you have an $80,000 drone, it should come with a parachute, which it does. So when the rotors stopped the the parachute deployed and so they were able to get the drone back out of the out of its own creass in the icefall but um they’re using it mainly as a way of offloading the sherpas and reducing the number of trips that they go through the icefall. Uh that’s on the ascent. So they’re carrying up you know pickets and screws and and rope. um you know they’re just attaching it to the bottom in a net and just and some guy is sitting at base camp and he’s just you know they’ve got cameras on so they’re just flying them up and then dropping them off at camp one. Um so it’s really straightforward and then once he gets to camp one then they’ve got a you know some rice bags filled with trash and they just attach it to the drone and carries back down to base camp for proper disposal. Um so and that was actually uh everybody was really excited about that this year. Then there was this American company that also brought over some drones and apparently um somebody in the Ministry of Tourism or perhaps it was defense. Um they they raised a question about what happens if they lose control of the drone and it flies into a human. Uh you know who’s who’s who’s liable for that? And then it was like okay we also we’re right on the Chinese border and so we are not allowed to fly into China. what happens if somebody loses controls. So there was this myriad of arguments that caused, like I said earlier, for the authorities to say, okay, no more drone flights. Um, and this was during that delay period that I was talking about earlier. So then people were saying, wait a minute, if we can’t use drones, which was going to kind of be a a shortcut for us, especially in a situation, the scenario like this that that developed of the delays, then, you know, come on, let’s get real. And so the government reversed itself. And so they did allow drones then to carry um you know mainly rope fixing gear up into the [ __ ] the western [ __ ] and bring trash back down. And it was just one or I I’m not 100% sure, Steve, but I I’m 80% sure it was just a camp one because of the uh you know it’s another 2,000 ft 195 to 215. So you’re around 6,500 m. And maybe you can describe this a little bit because I’ve not been there myself, but my understanding is camp one is a lot like an advanced base camp and there’s there’s cook staff often there and like there’s there’s like there’s quite a bit of infrastructure at camp one. That’s that would be camp 2. Camp 2 is is technically advanced base camp. Camp one is is more of a way station for on your first acclimatization. You spend the night there because you’re going from 175 at base camp to 195 and then you spend a you spend actually spend two nights there. One night um you know just resting from the ice climb icefall climb and the next day you have an active rest day where you go up halfway and then most teams today then move to camp 2 and stay there for three or four days. Um they may go up to 7,000 meters in the loy face for a climatization and and that’s it. I mean, in the old days, you know, when I climbed it, uh, you know, it was we went out to camp one and back down. We went back to camp one, then we went to camp two, and then we went back down, then we went back to camp one, camp two, camp three, back down, you know. So, we had like like at least three rotations through it. These days, most people just do one because they’re using the supplemental oxygen and they’re they’re acclimatizing at home as as Martin described and they’re acclimatizing on the trekking peaks of mainly lobby. So those three factors have to completely change the schedule and that’s part of why it’s no long it’s very rare that a company will run two months expedition all you arrive at you know May 1st you leave on June 1st almost nobody does that now uh you know Madison mountaineering had a twoe climber uh we mentioned Fruitbach had a two week expedition uh Adrien Ballinger regularly runs two to three weeks in the north uh so four to five weeks has now become the average. So it’s been three weeks it’s been shaved off. Interesting. Yeah. So when you So the drone is sort of like a inexpensive helicopter. It’s just doing this this this work and it’s replacing the risk of of moving humans up and down through that hazardous area. Is it displacing workers that want that job, do you think? or what is the what is the you know there’s always sort of a and I think this is a big topic these days the human cost of technological advancement right like that you can’t put the gene back in the bottle drones are here we’re going to use them what are the consequences and who owns the repercussions of those consequences well the the obvious um casualty would be uh sherpas because they get paid by by the load and they get paid not only how much weight they carry but how many times they they will carry a load to a camp. So, but I I have not heard an outcry saying that drones are going to take away my job because most sherpas they’ve lost family, friends, yeah, relatives, brothers, fathers, you know, to casualties within the icefall. So, you know, it’s dangerous enough, you know, climbing up the load sey face in the southeast ridge and second step, much less having to go through this, you know, this ice cube. Is this the prelude to the drones doing all of the carrying and moving all the gear to each of the camps and just sort of the the step one of the technology if we peer into the future. So there’s been a lot of um request to have helicopters not drones because a helicopter can carry one load where will take multiple drone trips to do. Uh and the Nepal government is slowly coming around to that. This year once the delays went in they did authorize helicopters to fly gear to camp 2 which might have been why the drones only went to camp one but you know a helicopter can carry tons of stuff. If you look at some of the you look at the base camp and where they’ve got sofas literally you know sofas you would buy from a a furniture store in a big dome round tent that sofa was carried up by a helicopter not on the back of a porter or on a yak. So helicopters are already playing a pivotal role in making you know bringing the luxuries you know to camp. Hey one thing about the drones which um is really interesting I was talking to Dan Richards. He’s the CEO of Global Rescue. uh they’re probably the dominant uh evacuation company uh worldwide. And I was talking to him mainly about this insurance fraud that’s been going on uh uh mainly in trekking, not on not climbing Mount Everest, but with treers um getting uh poisoned by putting eye drops in their in their u you know their water bottle or um putting baking soda or something and then they get they get upset stomach. They start throwing up. They say, “Oh, you need to have a helicopter rescue out.” They you know they fly him back to catmand do and you know the the guy the Kreken guy calls her uncle who’s the helicopter pilot who calls his brother who’s the doctor at the hospital. So there’s this whole thing about 80 people have been indicted by the Nepal FBI uh on this scheme. So I was talking to Dan Richards about all of that and and again I need to emphasize that this is all trekking not Mount Everest guides poisoning Mount Everest climbers. That was the bait click headline that you read 100% inaccurate. I talking to Dan Richards about about all of this. I said, “Any chance that you will use drones instead of helicopters to uh help evacuate people in the future.” So, think about that. Now, you got a drone. You’re you’re you’re longlined to a drone or you’re put into a net with a drone. And he said they have they have seriously talked about it. The technology is not quite there yet to be reliable and to carry a you know a 250lb person with gear. Maybe they don’t care but you know bringing down a 150 200lb person but that might be something that we see three five seven years from now. Absolutely absolutely absolutely. So let’s answer the question everyone types into Google. How much does it cost to climb Mount Everest in 2026 or in 2027 that matter? So I always write this annual article about that and I go and I survey all the guides. I talk to Nepali guys and western guys and I I get their prices and stuff and then I have the mother all spreadsheets where I do you know standard deviations and calculations and medians and averages 50,000 bucks that’s what it was this year that that was the median but it ranged from the the poly companies they will they will discount they will bargain with you so you could get it for $30,000 for like base camp only services all the way up to what like seven summits Trex calls their V VIP So two V’s. So it’s really important. Uh then that might be very important person. Very very So that might be you know 200 250,000 and then you might have a one-on-one with a world famous climber like a Nimmerall or a Kenton Cool and that could run you 500,000 to a million. Uh so it it is all over the map and just like that in airlines where you know you can fly across the the uh Atlantic for $1,000 or $25,000 depending upon where you want to sit on the airplane. Yeah. It’s the same thing with uh you know with mountaineering now and and that’s not unique to Evers. That’s all around the world. Uh you know there are companies that are really ratcheting up the luxury side of it. Um, but the permit price went from 11,000 to 15,000. Uh, and you really didn’t get anything more for it. Um, except the government got, you know, they made an extra however many 500 times 4,000 was. U, they got that extra money. And, uh, but I predicted last year I didn’t think it was going to have a material impact on the crowds. And sure enough, we had record crowds this year. So, I think what had more of a material impact was the 7,000 meter rule. So, whenever you want to talk about that, if you’ve been wondering whether one-on-one coaching is the right next step for your training, this is the month to find out. Sign up for coaching and receive a free 30-inute call with one of our specialists. Visit uphilllete.com to learn more. Now, back to that show. I want to talk about uh whether or not you can train for Everest. And this is the this is the question that gets typed into Google that brings a lot of people to uphill athlete is you know asking people asking how to train for Everest. They want to hear that it’s a certain I don’t know magic exercise or something. Um how fit they need to be how to measure their fitness to know they are fit enough to to climb Everest. How fit they need to be to climb Everest without oxygen. These kinds of things. So, so Martin, why don’t you uh start with this? Let’s start with this question. How long does it take to prepare physically for climbing Everest? Like what’s the honest answer?

Ideally, I would say at least one year, but that that’s of course u yeah know that that’s relative of course to what you’ve been doing all those years before. I don’t know. It it always depends in in endurance coaching, endurance training. So, you know, that’s always the first uh maybe one of the first tasks to see where the athlete is when we start working together and coaching him so or her. So, um you know, start where we are and how long do we have and so how long do we have is really kind of the knowledge we have about how long it takes for the body to adapt to training and so we take it from there, right? So we have now many athletes approaching us in October um which is like 6 months before 6 7 months before uh the climb. So I mean um it’s not ideal but uh we have to do our best and usually these athletes they they are serious they’ve been they had been doing some training uh some form of training right so then it’s really uh not wasting any time do the testing to see where they are making sure that they know their intensity zones they know what to do and uh setting up some volume and then take it from there and uh yeah again um the more ideal version is that the athletes approach us two years even before and they say okay we I have this plan I want to climb some big mountains and eventually Everest that’s of course much much better we have some time we have time to figure it out we have time for multiple big blocks the macro cycles not the micro or meocycles actually the big year cycles and uh evaluate assess see how actually they respond everybody responds a bit differently and need more time but um yeah this it really depends uh Uh but again most of these athletes uh there needs to be sometimes uh reality check that uh I’m sorry but uh we don’t really have much time here and uh you’re not in a great shape uh to be honest for this big climb. So I I would uh recommend taking more time because you also you want to be safe, you want to enjoy the climb and you might just simply not make it. So, um, yeah, that’s, uh, I talked to a lot of these people on the phone or on Zoom, and, you know, I sort of say there’s a couple things I always say. I always say like e, uh, exercising is not training. That that that that people are like, oh yeah, I’m playing tennis, so I’m doing this. I’m like, well, that’s not the same as structured training where you’re improving your fitness over time using proven, well understood methodologies. and to you can it takes about 10 years of structured training to realize your genetic potential as an endurance athlete on average and if you’re older it takes you know that curve maybe maybe uh maybe a little steeper on the back side of it. So um I I really encourage people to to start at least a year you know we’re really really pushing for that now as much as we can. Another question people want to know is how fit they actually need to be and they want a number. They want a V2 max or a chronic training load score. Why is that is that the right question to ask? And if so, why? I think it’s natural that people just want to like quantify it and uh they just want to see am I there or uh what does it take for me to get there? Uh so none of those uh like Vomax or lactate threshold speed or uh the CTL and training peaks are wrong. They’re definitely represents something right like a sum of something. And so Arab maximum Arabic capacity but uh one number again there’s no one number that will tell you will you or not make it are you actually fit in that specific in those specific factors that you need. uh with CTL I I think there is definitely a lot of power in that number because it represents the accumulated volume of training per months months the last months of of uh of the training uh you’ve done so far so there is definitely some power but it all depends also how what you did what you did to increase that CTL right so uh there needs to be of course a minimum amount of Arabic volume because that represents the time that the body was in was adapting and making you stronger and you know you might have been doing that cycling so that’s great general fitness but uh when you go up the hill or down the hill uh with big boots with a lot of with weight not sure that it’s going to help you. So I think that uh what I’ve been coming to in the last seasons was setting up a list of factors that I consider really important. So they are physical and they are uh then more like the tied to the physical like nutrition uh breathing techniques uh breath work training um yeah um acclimatization of course and others but I think one number that I sort of look at quite often in in a training peaks uh with my athletes and myself included is the how fast can you go up the hill. So basically the the work so the potential energy whatever the physics behind it but I think it’s a great proxy. It kind of tells me quickly where the athlete is. It’s uh really visible on training peaks where it’s the bum v number. You can set it up on your garment or watches that you have with GPS. you can see live then when you go up the hill uh also you can calculate it estimate it uh on treadmills uh based on the incline and uh the speed of the treadmill so that’s what I’m watching with the intensity with the heart rate and seeing how how much elevation gain the athlete can can cover in a time and uh that gives me some idea of how fast they are moving and uh they can sustain that speed and in the fresh state in the fatigue state so that gives me an idea of okay that you’re great when you’re doing one hour session but actually the client will take many many hours right so what happens then so that’s what we’re trying to build uh especially in the most specific stage the four five months before h because ultimately that will help the most and also muscle endurance the strength requirements that is of course for the uphill for the downhill that also links to the fatigue resistance um yeah so actually basically it’s complex It’s not one number. One number will never give you an answer to am I ready? Am I fit for Everest? Yeah, I think it’s true that most people are going to need one to two years of structured training to climb Everest, not a few months. And the biggest determinant of success is going to be having spent the time to build a deep aerobic base that is built mostly with easy zone 2 training and plus of course the climbing experience to be able to efficiently move up the mountain and make good decisions when you’re there. Let’s ask you Alan, what is the experience sort of the apprenticeship that you recommend people have before they step onto a mountain like Everest? Yeah, I I fully agree with everything that Martin said. Um, here in Colorado, I tell people um that at they start most of our mountains that are 14 years or 14,000 foot mountains, they start the base camp or the hike trail head is at 9,000 ft. And so I like to see them do 1500 feet an hour. Um, and you know, make that consistent. So that’d be what it’d be 300 meters um at a 4,000 meter mountain. Um, and I tell them if they could do that continuously and then um, go do back-toback training sessions. You know, if they go go, you know, they do a 5 hour climb to get to the top of a 14er. When you get back down to your car, get some water, get some calories, do it again. And then, you know, do that and then do it again the next day. U, and so what I’m looking for with them for, so kind of my KPI, my key performance indicator is the recovery time. And I ask them to rate themselves on a scale from 0 to 10 where zero is that um oh I could do it again. I could do a third time and 10 is that I need to go to the to the emergency room, [laughter] you know. And so and what you do is you and if ideally if you do this over a year and you do the a backtoback once a month and you track yourself, then you should see that recovery index. And it’s totally quantitative. I mean it it’s yeah quantitative. It’s you just it’s it’s a simple question. How do you feel? Yeah. Yeah. Throw away your watch. Throw away your, you know, everything else. Throw away anything that’s got a battery in it and just ask yourself and, you know, in a private moment, how do I feel? And just be honest with yourself. That to me, that’s the best indicator that you can possibly get. But I have people come to Summit Coach that um that I love I love that line that exercising is not training. That you know, they say, “Yeah, I’ll play I play pickle ball, you know, twice a week.” Well, good. Keep it up. you know, but but now let’s let’s add some real training in there. Um, you know, and it’s a it’s for me it’s I take a very holistic approach to it and I ask people to, you know, work on their their mental toughness, uh, you know, their emotional stability, uh, and then their physical strength and it’s the lower body, it’s the core, those those are the key areas for me. the upper body, you know, you I always use Alex Hondold as my role model that uh you know, he’s kind of a skinny guy, [laughter] you know, but he’s but he’s an ant. You know, he is disproportionately strong for the size of his muscle and his bodies. And so part of that, a lot of that comes from his holistic approach of training the mind, the emotions, and then also the physical strength. But I have people come to me all the way from great athletes that are running marathons that, you know, I’ve got a 70-year-old client and his V2 max is in the 99th percentile, you know, and then I’ve got other people where they’re, you know, their heart rate variation is, you know, in the in the single digits. It’s a miracle they’re alive. So, you know, and I for most people I refer them to you guys for the physical training because um just like Martins, you know, you guys are the you know, you’re the experts in the field. What about the um on mountain experience kind of the climbing apprenticeship? So that is a continuum. Um you know I always suggest I start off with a uh one-on-one uh intro to mountaineering with an IFMGA guide. Uh so that is just the two of them. Uh you know teach them that krampons have a left and a right foot. You know how to double back your harness. What are the four basic knots that you need? You know what’s the what’s pressure breathing rest up? How do you how do you take a an efficient break? How do you pack your pack? So 80% of the weight is on your on your should on your hist, not your shoulder. So that one-on-one day. So if you don’t know anything, go get some basics to begin to develop good practices. Don’t just rely upon your buddy. You know, I I’ve never been a good skier because I the first time I ever went skiing, uh I taught myself and I taught myself all the bad habits. They’ve stuck with me for life. So I said, I’m never going to be a good skier, so never do it. And so, you know, if you want to be a bad climber, then, you know, just climb with your friends and don’t get any any professional training. So, number one, intro to m intro to mountaineering with IFMGA guide. Number two, go take a class like on a Reneer or a MLANC, you know, from again a truly trained IFMGA guide that you’re going to actually be on the snow. You’re going to learn how to, you know, the footwork, the krampon steps, all that stuff. Then you begin a series of climbs, you know, and basically four, five, six, 7,000 meter climb. Um, so go to Peak Linen, go to Himmlong, go to um, Akenagwa uh, for the 7,000s, go to Ecuador for the 6000s, Kyrgyzstan for some of the 6,000. The world’s full of of mountains that that go through this gradation. And then ideally before you go to Everest, um, I want to see people go to Manisloo or Cho. Uh because the problem is that for most of my clients, they don’t know what they don’t know. Um and the only way to know is to stick your nose in it. And you know, if you go and you don’t summit, there are incredible lessons that come from that. It’s not a failure, it’s a nonsummit. It’s only a failure if you don’t learn from it. But uh yeah, I like to see people go, you know, go to those 8,000 meter mountains before they try at first because, you know, I always say two things about altitude. One is it’s random. One time you’ll do great, the next time you won’t. Uh, and it’s exponential. So, you may say, “Well, I, you know, I did a killy and I I did great on killy. I didn’t even breathe hard.” Good. Proud of you. Where’d you go? That’s 20,000 ft. You got 9,000 more to go. Yeah. And again, you don’t know what you don’t know. And it’s not a linear curve. It’s an exponential curve. It’s It’s so true. It’s such a difference between even 7,000 and 8,000 or even 6,500 mters and 7,000 mters. you’re, you know, it is is an exponential curve. Uh Martin, what what are you uh telling people to to do in terms of their apprenticeship? Any anything to add to Allen’s description or is that is that a pretty good track? I I think it’s pretty good. Yeah, I agree with that. It’s the technical aspect. It’s uh the acclimatization. As much as we learn, the more that we learn, the better. Yeah. How you handle altitude. A Konagua is great uh in terms of like if you get to that 7 almost 7,000 meter altitude without supplemental then you know it’s it’s a good test because it’s easy terrain and then you know you will be doing that probably now a bit lower as you Alan you said that people start supplemental oxygen on a rest in well much lower now come come to maybe even lower sometimes so you know but uh still I think it’s great to test the body test the capacity and um But I think the trend is maybe just the people are sort of rushing it and uh not everybody again not everybody but uh they want to skip they they don’t want to go to um to the 8,000 meter peaks but I do recommend it. Yeah. I think also just taking the time. I know that some people really want to do like okay Denal in spraying 8,000 or like manazu choy in in September and then I rest I’m like calm down because the mental um space it takes and energy like they burn out. I often see that you know if they just go one after one another it backfires seriously. So I usually just try to keep them patient and just use my examples from my athletic career is like you know take takes years and it’s actually the enjoyable part like that’s the journey and um yeah but anyway back to back to our rest and what to climb I think more the better. Denali is great also uh even though it’s relatively lower but uh it’s a great like technical different aspects but still a big physical effort uh big expedition and I think it’s also one of the great prerequisites or u you know kind of checkins whether you’re think Himalaya and Nepal also that experience in the in the country I think it also helps if you go to Kumbu and uh you know what to expect I mean that helps Good point. Yeah. Yeah. I want to segue to the kind of future of Everest and come back, circle back on the predictions we made here last year. But one of the ways I wanted to do that is call out an incredible accomplishment this year, which also is really interesting that the that Everest was skied for the second time without the use of supplemental oxygen in just two years. At last year, it was already incredible. And one of the things that has so often happened with incredible first is there’s no second for like decades after because someone’s done it. It’s like, well, you know, that that kind of takes takes the allure off. But Bartk Zimski, I believe I’m saying that right, a Polish mountaineer and skier, not only uh skied off of Everest without supplemental oxygen, but also uh skied off of Lozi without supplemental oxygen, did the full descent. So, I think that that was uh that was for me personally, that was kind of the highlight of the of the Everest season is is seeing seeing that go down and and and just see somebody who’s who’s obviously there doing it for the love of it, not because he wants to really cares about the record. Like, if he’s first or second or 10th, like that guy obviously just like wants to be there and doing what he’s doing. And I I always always love to see that. You know, Loi Loy, he he went up before the ropes were put in and he he basically soloed. I mean, he was 100% alone. He climbed he summoned Loy and he skied back down 100% alone, no O’s. I mean, just that was a that was the highlight of the season for me. Yeah, just seeing the video like the your raw video of no ropes and the beautiful kar and wow, this is loty nobody there. So, it was really there and and you know fourth highest mountain in the world if I remember right and you know like skiing off of the top like I’ve been to 8,000 meters a few times that that is hard I mean and I haven’t been as high as Loty so so I can only imagine like and I I always a lot of people have asked me over the years about skiing off of 8,000 meter peaks and I’ve always sort of said you know like I I I don’t think it actually makes that much sense most of the time because most of the time the snow isn’t very good it’s icy the wind. It’s re very very windy at those altitudes. So, the wind is the snow is all compacted and and thrown around by the wind and it’s it’s just going to be it’s not going to be great skiing [laughter] and you’re going to have to carry the ski like you’re kind of handicapping yourself by carrying all the stuff up and then like using it on the way down. It’s most of the time faster to just walk out or climb down. uh you know seeing these guys uh you know Bartekch this year and and the and the all the skiers last year. It was it was really cool to to see um them doing that on their terms and and making it look great and you know terrifying but but great. Yeah. I think it’s just like that there’s still space for everyone to to you know to show up and uh have an experience. So I think the next day that there was a fixed line I think it would be impossible for him to to do any turns and it was so narrow it almost the skis didn’t fit. So imagine so that was cool. So last year when we were here Alan you said and I quote I think we’re going to see a lot more first ascent of unclimb mountains in the Himalaya commercialized first asense. And you also said that you’re going we’re going to see more people on Everest. And you suggested that if they go through with their proposal to require people to have a 7,000 meter summit in Nepal, they’ve climbed that they’re going to see the Everest numbers cut in half. and you s predicted that the permit prices were going to go from $11,000 to $15,000 and that that was not going to have a measurable impact. You’re absolutely right on that one. It seems like actually as you pointed out like it was a record year. So if anything it was was a was a people that didn’t seem bothered. What happened to the 7,000 meter requirement? It is hung up in um Nepal’s government. uh they have two chambers. They have an upper chamber and a lower chamber. It passed the upper chamber um which is equivalent to like the United States Senate and then the larger um lower chamber which is equivalent to like the house of representatives. we have more u individual representatives from all throughout Nepal. Uh is it has not um is not passed that chamber and um my understanding is that there is some serious consideration to changing the wording uh around the 7,000 meter requirement. So remember this this is called a tourism bill and it’s 2081. You can go to the website you Google Nepal tourism bill 2081 and you can actually see a tracker of where it is in the process. But my understand it’s a big tourism bill. I mean it covers casinos and gambling and mountain climbing and taxis everything. Um but they the big push back has been the seven. Nobody’s pushing back on the 7,000 meter requirement. What people are pushing back on is in Nepal only. So in other words, you could have summited K2 and not a 7,000 meter mountain in Nepal and not be eligible for an Everest permit. And if you say it like that, I don’t know anybody that would say, “Oh, yeah, that makes sense.” Um cuz and then then you get into what’s the motivation here. Is it really behind safety and increasing people’s experience or is it a revenue generating? Uh and the problem with that argument is that the trekking peaks, those permits are hundreds of dollars. So you’d have to have thousands of people to generate any meaningful revenue for the country. So then you just say, you know, the common sense thing is to make it any mountain and maybe it’s not even set 77,000 mters, maybe it’s 6,500 m. I personally would like to see it be 8,000 mters uh anywhere in the world and that would that would narrow it down to three countries. But um you know 7,000 meters anywhere in the world and maybe you throw in a few um climbs by by name by exception like like Ahmedablam uh Denali Aken Kagwa um you know Peak Linen which is over 7,000 anyway but uh you know maybe you have a short list of acceptable clims uh not just make it an altitude. So my understanding is that discussion is going on. Um there was a big meeting that was held around June 1st of a lot of um not notoriety people whatever it is um that it was held in Catmand do to discuss all of this. The Sherpa community came out real strong talking about the lack of experience in the mountain uh the lack of training for the Sherpas. The Kumbu climbing center is doing a great job of of training a lot of Sherpas. just like this year um you know the the gentleman that got drafted to be a guide um then ended up getting left behind uh and basically self-rescued is is it is a it is an amazing amazing story. Um but um you know word had it that that he didn’t even know how to use a stove you know a gas stove. Uh so you know and then there was a story about five or six years ago of uh Tani uh Sherpa that uh was with a Pakistani military uh older gentleman in his 60s refused to turn around, ran out of oxygen. Tanji gave him um his oxygen. They both ended up collapsing right below the summit. Um and uh he was they were both rescued by other sherpas. But um this young man, he was a porter. he was he’d never even been on Everest and he ended up tragically losing all 10 fingers to frostbite. Um so it’s you know it’s stories like that and and the one of this year um that causes you know the sherpa community to say you know enough is enough and it’s being led by some pretty high powered people you know like um um Kamirita Sherpa who got his record 32nd summit at age 56 um you know and people like Dorier who was with uh you know Hall and Ball back in 96 and been working for Adventure Consultants ever since then. He got his 25th summit this year. Uh so the Sherpa community I think is beginning to speak up. Last time I saw this happen in Ernst was after the 2013 Manisloo avalanche which killed around 13 people I think somewhere in that neighborhood that the Sherpa said we got to change this. And what changed then was that they began to um to uh form their own companies. Uh and so that’s where companies like Seven Summits Trek and Elite and 8K Expeditions, it was Asian Trekking was really the dominant incountry uh firm, but now we’ve got there’s there’s I think there’s 2,000 registered trekking companies. Uh and again, Nepal has no requirements for being a mountain guide, unlike in the US where the National Park Service gives out concessions. Uh same thing in Europe in the Alps, you know, you’ve got some really high bars that um you know who can who can guide who can call themselves a guide. So Nepal has a has an opportunity to clean things up. Uh so if I was going to make a prediction for the future, uh and unfortunately I have said this way too often that I think this was the year that things will change. Um I thought that I thought the 18 deaths was a Rubicon. I thought we weren’t going back and um instead what I keep seeing is that a lot of the bad practices are um codified u by the unwillingness of the guides to make changes that would put revenue at risk.

But maybe this will be different. Maybe maybe through this bill, you know, the difference between this bill and everything else we’ve ever seen is those things they show up in Nepali newspapers. Mhm. And it’s not a law and there’s no way to enforce it. So it’s a it’s an idea. This is a law. Right. Right. Yeah. And everybody will know it’s a law. Uh we went through a process where everybody had a chance at least at least the interested parties had a chance to voice their opinions and weigh in. So they had some some opportunity to shape it. So that that that’s if those people are taking advantage of that it sounds like which is which is good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think it’s and I think it will go through. I think it it’ll be 7,000 meters anywhere in the world. Yeah, that’s my that’s my forecast. Okay, great. Well, we’re going to check in on that forecast next year. One of the things that you said last year uh was that you thought there was going to be more commercialized

like other asense outside of of Everest and that didn’t happen. I don’t think that I’ve seen anything like that. And you know, when you said that, I bit my tongue because I tried to do that for years. [laughter] Sell those kinds of it’s very difficult because you there’s such a small pool of people that are actually capable of Yeah. of partnering with a a guide to do a real climb. Um that and and then and then you’re like, “Yeah, we’re going to do this thing. It’s going to be harder. It’s going to be more expensive. And we’re going to By the way, we only have like a 20% chance of actually doing this other than that.” And so there’s just, you know, it’s just it’s just it’s just hard to uh make all those those things line up. And I feel like it’s needed, you know, to your point to I think one of the one of the things I think all of us would like to see and I think one of the things I like to imagine is the intent of the 7,000 meter in Nepal requirement is to just spread out the traffic across more mountains and take take that pressure off of those few highly trafficked theaslams and and push it out to some some other places because there’s plenty of beautiful mountains in Nepal. uh that uh that could would be excellent venues for for mountaineering and they’re just they’re just a little like the logistics are a little complicated or you know they just haven’t they’re a little out of the way, they’re a little expensive, they’re a little unknown, whatever the thing is and so people don’t don’t go to them. So I I will say on my anywhere else in the Himalaya nobody would pay any attention to it but because of where it is like hundreds of people climb it every year. Uh one of the things I’ll say about the um not the commercialization of unclimb peaks is that uh there are companies like um climbing the seven summits and Garrett Madison and a few Nepali companies that attach that as an option to a standard climb of like an almond or a K2 or an Aen Kagwa. They’ll say we’re going to go do a climatization on an unclimb peak. So they’re not offering as a standalone climb but they’re offering it as as an option to an existing one. And that kind of mitigates some of that, you know, the the the business model aspects of it. Yeah. Yeah, that that makes sense. That makes sense. So, Martin, what are your predictions for 2027? I’m going to pin you down. Last year, you dodged the question, but this year we’re going to get you on the record. Oh, did I? Wow. Um, I think that things will be improving uh in all aspects. I think they are but uh hopefully maybe more regulations to some extent. Uh I think many of these big uh big names in Sherpa community the leaders uh let’s call them they have been asking for it. I think for everybody’s uh you know well-being and safety it will be it would be beneficial but what that that looks like I’m not sure exactly reducing the numbers I don’t I’m not sure. the mountain will still dictate the rules. The weather, the the jetream, I think that’s not going to change. The conditions seem to be just getting drier and drier. As I was there, I think 2 years ago in in March, there was no snow, which was really surprising to me. It was kind of winter and uh the locals told me that it hasn’t snowed properly in winter in 10 years. So, it’s it’s scary, but um I think otherwise uh people will hopefully seek more coaching and guidance. uh you know to to prepare properly to know what they’re what what they’re doing and uh hopefully China will open for Westerners. So I think it can be so I had definitely have a large number of athletes that would prefer to go to the north side. Um otherwise do you think they’re going to pass the 7,000 meter requirement? Yeah. Uh I don’t know honestly. I thought it was already passed, but it it doesn’t seem to be. But I agree with Alan. I think that actually including Amadaban for example, it stands there like it’s 6,900 m almost and so technically it’s pretty much more technical than anything on south side of on the normal route. Uh I would say that it passes the requirement and other other mountains in the world or the 7,000ers in Pameir mountains in Kyrgystan and Tajikistan. I think that’s Tajakistan Panin and stuff. So I think that makes sense but also actually to spread the people around Nepal, the other parts of Himalayas. Uh I think that maybe is their goal and I don’t think that’s bad. It’s actually beneficial for for the people and uh so it doesn’t need to be only Kumbu but um Kumbu Valley. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I’m going to take the uh other side of this bet and I’m going to say that they’re not going to pass a 7,000 meter requirement and I’m going to go on the record saying that Tibet will be open next year for business. I could be wrong, but I’m going to I’m going to put it put it out there. So, you know, where can people follow your Everest coverage and reach you at at Summit Coach Allen? Yeah, just the gateway is just go to Allan.com. So, a lan a r ne t.com and that’s got links on the homepage to everything I do. Great. Great. And Martin, uh, give us a a little summary of what it’s like working with you as a coach. I we you can contact me through uphill athletes and uh I like to look at your history, look at see where you are, test it and then just talk about your climbing plans to talk about what you’ve done so far. I like to talk about strategy uh the clims that will prepare you for your goal. Uh I love it. I love I think I have a good knowledge about the seasons and uh the different mountains that you know have some specific factors that will help you ultimately for the bigger clims. I think that’s beneficial and otherwise I’m sports come from sports science so it’s a science-based approach and also mixed with my experience. Yeah. And I’ve I’ve seen I think you’re really good at this. I’ve seen you do this countless times where like really like that that assessment planning piece of really like figuring out strengths and weaknesses and how to integrate and not just physical and how to integrate a plan that gets people to the mountain that is where they’re they’re ready. So if any of you want to understand how the world’s highest mountains are really climbed, reach out to us here at Uphill Athletes. Uh we do this every day all day. You can find our training plans, our coaching, and if you get something out of this, please subscribe, hit that like button, and we’ll be back next year with Allan and Martin to see if any of our [music] predictions come true. Thanks for being here, guys. Thank you. Thank you. [music]

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