UKC

Interesting article on the BBC about the method used in this ascent https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqj77pgyq81o

Whilst the effectiveness of breathing Xenon is an interesting topic of discussion, I do find the following a bit rich from Adrian Ballinger 

"If you're promoting xenon as a performance enhancer, but you're not also willing to examine what that means for fairness and integrity in the mountains, it's a problem," 

"People are grasping at shortcuts instead of doing the real work of acclimatisation and training."

Whilst at the same time has the clients he guides also use hypoxic tents prior to and O2 during their ascents.  How come they're ethically fine and not a shortcut, but breathing Xenon (which might not even be of benefit!) not fine?!  

Ah; the noble sport of high-altitude mountaineering.

It doesn't really mention how much xenon they're getting but I'd be interested to know if they were high (in the mental rather than altitude sense) the whole time they were at that clinic - xenon being an anaesthetic gas with a similar effect to nitrous oxide. 

🤣

I think what he meant to say was "Guides, Sherpas, fixed ropes, hypoxic tents and bottled oxygen are all legitimate ways to bring the mountain down to your level, but I don't have a contract for the supply of Xenon so that's taking things too far."

Hahahaha!  Exactly my thinking...

Xenon is banned by the World Anti Doping Agency, so if you're going to use banned Performance Enhancong Drugs, why not use EPO???

If they were full of gas, at least it's a noble gas!

rhEPO has had two decades of rather dubious publicity. What sounds better from a PR perspective – summitting high on cocaine or summitting high on on a totally unrelated substance that just "incidentally" binds to the same receptors as cocaine?

That's assuming xenon does indeed have any significant effect there, which is quite debated. After all, they still did the whole hypoxic tent preacclimatisation regime beforehand and might have just gotten lucky, xenon or none.

WIMPs on Everest?

Am I getting this wrong, or did they use bottled oxygen on this ascent? If so, what's previous use of Xenon got to do with it?

They used hypoxic tents to acclimatise and used bottled O2. So the benefit of Xenon as well can't possibly be known can it?

Won't it simply help them see in the dark a little better?

If Xe causes health issues you would have to helium.

Was thinking of noble gas jokes but the best argon 

Putting Adrian Ballinger's hypocrisy aside......

seem like rubbish to me. Surely the bulk of the carbon footprint is the travel to/from Everest (and Germany....) and taking into account they got a helicopter to Base Camp, the low carbon footprint claim seems like an unsubstantiated justification.

No idea of the comparative footprints of using the hypoxia tents compared to walking up and down Everest to various camps.

I would also imagine it leads to a lot less money being spent in country, hitting the tourist trade somewhat.

I am not sure if just having a brighter head torch can be classed as cheating 

There's also the carbon footprint of producing and bottling the Xenon itself, then flying to Germany to clinic on the way to the climb...

That's the point I was trying to make. 

Yes, that's quite rich of them to mention carbon footprint at all.

Xenon is really costly and produced by liquifying atmospheric oxygen, with xenon likely having the highest carbon footprint of all the noble gases due to its rarity. And while their 30 min. xenon regime probably pales compared to the carbon footprint of their flight to the German clinic, it's still there.

If you’re interested in learning more and have a few hours to spare, there’s a couple of really interesting episodes about Xenon on Uphill Athlete’s podcast.

One episode on the science behind it and another with Furtenbach (the expedition organiser using it). Some great insight and healthy debate from both sides. It’ll be interesting to see where this all leads…

They don’t regulate Everest ascents and there are no such applicable bans.

WIMPs on Everest?

No-one? I thought this joke was quite clever and I was kinda pleased with myself 😂

Fascinating, I did not know that until just know.  Must be a fascinating mechanism of action given how inert it is.  I’m also surprised it’s safe - I’d have (wrongly, apparently!) assumed that it’s very high molecular weight made it hard to clear from the lungs.