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2025 Everest Trends with Steve House, Alan Arnette, Martin Zhor
2.2k Plays6 hours ago
Join us for a recap of the 2025 Everest season with host Steve House, coach Martin Zohr, and Everest expert Alan Arnette. They discuss key themes of the year, wind, drones, and new climbing aids like xenon gas, plus the challenges of frostbite, illness, and unpredictable weather. The conversation covers how drones improved safety and waste removal but also brought noise, and examines the ethics, risks, and potential of rapid-ascent technologies. Martin and Alan share coaching insights, stressing long-term preparation, realistic expectations, and defining success beyond summiting. They close with predictions for 2026, including possible new regulations, shifting climbing demographics, and emerging trends in high-altitude mountaineering.
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Transcript
Introduction to Everest: Love, Criticism, and Debate
00:00:00
Speaker
but I often say that Mount Everest is the mountain people love to hate. And I don't know why it brings out the critics like it does. It's great to to be able to summit, but the main thing is to come back alive, to come back healthy.
00:00:25
Speaker
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 UphillAthlete.com slash Let's Go, and once you sign up, you'll instantly get a link to try out some of our most popular training plans.
00:00:43
Speaker
It's a great way to get a feel for how we train our athletes for big mountain goals. Check it out at UphillAthlete.com slash
Special Guests: Martin Zor and Alan Arnett
00:00:50
Speaker
Let's Go. That's UphillAthlete.com slash L-E-T-S-G-O.
00:00:59
Speaker
Welcome to the Uppail Athlete Podcast. My name is Steve House. I'll be your host today, and I have two wonderful guests, our very own coach Martin Zor. Welcome, Martin. Hi, Steve. Thank you.
00:01:11
Speaker
And the everyone's favorite Everest commentator, Alan Arnett. Welcome, Alan. Really good to have you here again. man Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
2025 Everest Season Highlights
00:01:21
Speaker
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?
00:01:31
Speaker
What is 2025 the year of if we but back ah yeah Yeah, I always try to come up with a ah few keywords rather than a yeah a sermon. But I think the keywords for this year have to include wind, drones, and AIDS.
00:01:48
Speaker
um It was very windy all across the Himalaya. um And it was also a strange year starting off with Annapurna. The winter, first off, was unusually ah dry and not a lot of moisture. So that made climbing on Annapurna just crazy rock fall all over the place.
00:02:06
Speaker
They didn't even use crampons or climbing boots to go from base camp to camp one.
Drones on Everest: Safety vs. Noise Pollution
00:02:12
Speaker
And of course, in ah the season ended it tragically with two Sherpas dying from an avalanche of all things ah because i got a bunch of snow towards the end of at the end of the season early.
00:02:21
Speaker
ah 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. ah But this year, they really used it with full force. And we can talk about that, what detail they did, mainly around the icefall and helping remove trash, which the SPCC did a great job.
00:02:37
Speaker
And then AIDS. ah you know We saw this novel use of ah the Nobel gas xenon um that allegedly allowed the team to do a week to week. But then we had another another person that went from New York that claimed he did it in under four days and he didn't use Xenon, but he did use, they both, all all of them use hypoxic tents.
00:02:55
Speaker
So, um you know, it was an interesting year. ah The other, the last piece of Steve and Martin, is that I think this year was a pretty good year relative to um the weather windows.
00:03:07
Speaker
And, you know, but what what was the unreported story was all the frostbite. And i I'll get off on a rant on frostbite because I think in 2025 that it is totally avoidable.
00:03:21
Speaker
And I don't understand how people get frostbite, but there was Global Rescue reported over 130 rescues just by their company in April and May. So it was ah it was a normal, tough season.
00:03:35
Speaker
I think that if you want to have a headline, maybe it's that Everest is still damn hard to climb. yeah Yeah, the environment is still can be very severe. Martin, how did your athletes that you have been coaching and over the last 12 months, how did they do? How how did everyone end up?
00:03:55
Speaker
Yeah, so I had to quite a big group of of clients. I was preparing for Everest this season. So it it was about 10 people directly, 10 athletes directly, and let's say like 20 more more or less indirectly, like a group coaching.
00:04:11
Speaker
ah So quite a big group, let's say, um more than last year. So i learned a lot for sure. and i would say 90% of them summited.
00:04:23
Speaker
um there was a couple of them they just didn't succeed for different reasons uh a lot of sickness a lot of respiratory infections uh that was that took the like many people um had that those issues not uh around the summit days just like ah three four weeks before but it still has an effect i mean uh 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 and of the the loss of power, the the loss of capacity when the summit days
Safety First: Turning Back and Rescue Challenges
00:05:01
Speaker
came.
00:05:01
Speaker
And I guess also the unpredictability of the weather. ah That was a big issue. But yeah, I'm actually relatively happy with the results and how they made it out, how they how they succeeded and how they showed up, I guess.
00:05:17
Speaker
And it doesn't need to be always summiting. Of course, it's great to to be able to summit. But main thing is to come back alive to come back healthy and well, one of them, ah he actually described the um the experience during the summer day. So he had to turn around at around 8,400 meters, think it's close to the balcony or somewhere up there.
00:05:41
Speaker
And ah I'm really, really proud. I was really proud of him, ah the decision he made because just he felt I wouldn't ah 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 dragged down and highly rescued from camp two. So those were the cases. That was the feedback I was hearing a lot. I guess it's still a bit
00:06:11
Speaker
um yeah and complex and yeah it's not only getting to the summit but also getting back down so in in in one piece and with with you know having enough strength that so that takes a lot of self-knowledge and ah 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, the longer the better, I guess. But ah the shorter the shorter it is, the six months to go, it's it's a limit. So it's only only certain periods.
00:06:47
Speaker
kind of what adaptations that you can achieve. And so, you know, I pre prefer if athletes address ah or tell us, ask us for coaching earlier than that. Yeah, yeah. And I can i can corroborate that difficulty in going down for my own time climbing there like for i attempted the south base of noopsy many years ago and at one point we wanted to go down and get and recover and it was a long ways to get uh down under you know 3 000 3 500 meters something like that it's it's really hard to to do that
00:07:23
Speaker
Of course, if you have the coin for the heli ride, that that's another issue that may so money may solve that problem if if that's an option for you. But that that's a real that's a real thing.
00:07:34
Speaker
Alan, you mentioned something I didn't expect you to bring up, which was the drones. like how do you How have these been getting implemented?
00:07:46
Speaker
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 Flycart 30.
00:08:00
Speaker
And it it costs $70,000, and they have a payload of 30 kilos or 66 pounds. And ah so what they did, ah they used it to, first off, to scout the icefall for the icefall doctors.
00:08:16
Speaker
So rather than having the ice ball doctors go in and you know try to figure out what the optimum route is, they just flew over with the cameras and they were able to look at the video. And so then secondly, they used it to carry ladders, um rope, um you know pitons, ice axe, all the stuff you used to it do the fixed rope.
00:08:33
Speaker
And they took it to Camp 1. they' think they They went up to, let's see, what the maximum altitude was a crazy 6,130 meters. So about, you know, almost 19,000 feet roughly.
00:08:45
Speaker
um And that's the highest that a documented drone has ah 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 Sherpas to have to carry it through the icefall.
00:08:59
Speaker
And that was a time saver and potentially a lifesaver. 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 ah from camp one back down to base camp, where then it was, in theory, ethically you know processed and all.
00:09:20
Speaker
But some of the numbers that the SPCC quoted this year, based upon using the drones, is 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.
00:09:37
Speaker
Wow. Okay. Most of that was because they've now finally have implemented using wag bags. um And so most of that were ah climbers. And I had um two clients through Summit Coach on the north side and two on the south side.
00:09:51
Speaker
And ah they all four reported that they were, there and some climbed with Western companies, some climbed with Nepali companies, but all of them were using wag bags. um 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's not around all the time. There are drones flying over my head all the time like mosquitoes.
00:10:15
Speaker
um And so I can imagine that would be pretty annoying being there. I've heard people before talk about Everest Base Camp on Nepal side being an airport with all the helicopters coming in and out. And now it's a mosquito swarm.
00:10:27
Speaker
Okay. with all these drones flying around. ah 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 it it deployed a parachute.
00:10:43
Speaker
And the parachute allowed it to have a relatively soft landing, but it fell into a crevasse and was damaged. I never did hear if they reused it or not. so Wow. Yeah, that's a development I wasn't really ah unaware of. And I can see, you know, like with a lot of these,
00:10:58
Speaker
you 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 take a lot of trips to the icefall, which is the most dangerous part of the climb.
00:11:10
Speaker
They're 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 guess you're not going to be basking in the silence of the incredible Western clume up there that that climbers were 30, 40, 50 years ago. So that's... Yeah, it's no longer the vi valley of silence.
00:11:29
Speaker
Now it's the valley of drones. Valley of guess... i guess right this At least it sounds like it was 6100, so that's maybe camp one. guys Camp two is 6400, I guess upper parts were without the noise. But I think it's it should be more positive than negative.
00:11:48
Speaker
Because i ah i live in Chamonix, and here we get a lot of complaints. ah People complain about helicopters. There is just no non-stop helis, where it's the rescues, ah which kind of gives you a reality check of how many accidents there are.
00:12:02
Speaker
in the season. It's just non-stop. look in Chamonix 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 Jauras or Jaurasis and you know in the range of Mont Blanc, the there is always a heli around.
00:12:20
Speaker
And it's really resonating between the walls of the valleys. And people, ah they they they tend to say, well, the the noise pollution is crazy. And they try to but limit this. ah Mostly then it's the panoramic flights, the commercial flights, taking people around them.
00:12:36
Speaker
you know And then it's like three, four different companies so operating in the and the range, I think. So yeah, I can kind of imagine what they are dealing with. And also I was in Kumbu last last time I was there, it was last year um with my wife just running through Kumbu and towards Island Peak.
00:12:53
Speaker
And yeah can you notice there's nonstop heli flights back and forth. so Yeah, it's just the reality. In theory, the Nepal government um banned any helicopter flight other than for a medical rescue.
00:13:06
Speaker
But and again, this year 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 helicopter to fly out from Camp 2 after summiting.
00:13:19
Speaker
and um And I don't think Elizabeth Hawley, who rest in peace, would ah would approve that. Yeah. Yeah, that's you know these These changes you know are with us.
00:13:31
Speaker
One of the things that really struck me, alan when we were chatting earlier, was the sheer number of climbers ah climbing. And some of these expedition organizers had an excess of 100 people looking to punch their Everest ticket under one expedition.
00:13:49
Speaker
and many in that in that range of 80 to 100 U.S. 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?
00:14:09
Speaker
know, I've said this phrase for years that Everest is a is a bright light to a lot of bugs. um And they may know that it's going to be one way trip, but the bug is going to fly into the light anyway.
00:14:21
Speaker
ah But the real impetus and Inflection point happened around 2013, so over a decade ago, and it's just grown from then. And that was the ah
Everest's Allure and Climbing Innovations
00:14:33
Speaker
advent of the Nepali companies, led by Seven Summits Treks, um really competing on price.
00:14:39
Speaker
They cut out the Western Guide, so that meant that now you don't have to pay that salary of whatever that is, $10,000, $15,000, $20,000, $20,000.
00:14:46
Speaker
that person's airplane flight, that person's permit. Because you know if you're a Westerner, doesn't matter if you're a guide or a client, you still got to pay the 11. Now it's going to be 15,000. So they basically, they they turned the entire industry upside down through a business model by having a lower cost structure.
00:15:04
Speaker
And they were then able to, instead of charging 65,000, they charged 35,000. And that brought in an entirely new demographic, primarily the population. emerging middle class in India and in China.
00:15:16
Speaker
And again, this is a decades old trend. And that's why to this this year in 2025, the leading country was from India. And I think they had 89 permits followed by the U.S. s at 83. But Seven Summers Treks had 103, 8K expeditions had over 50.
00:15:32
Speaker
And the ratio of client to support is ah this year was 1 to 1.6%. So in other words, almost one and a half Sherpas for every client. So that meant that Seven Summers Treks had somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 Sherpas supporting those 100 clients.
00:15:48
Speaker
And that's on the mountain, right? Like those are just climbers on the mountain. Those are not support staff supporting all of those people. That doesn't include cooks and porters and cookboys and all that. No.
00:16:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, a small anecdote. In 1999, I did an expedition to Gashrum IV in the Karakoram, 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, just supplies every day. So when we, when we arrived in base camp, seven days later, we had, you know, whatever the number was, it was 70 or something porters.
00:16:32
Speaker
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 24 hours a day for a 7-10 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 generation numbers or mass amount of white waste that came out of there. and
00:17:03
Speaker
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 like couch surfing up there. They're they're working hard.
00:17:15
Speaker
Yeah, and also a lot of another thing that's happening is that especially the Western companies and now the Nepali companies are starting to do this. ah they're They're marketing their and they're fantastic food. i mean, they've 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.
00:17:33
Speaker
And every dispatch or every comment has says and today's meals were delicious. Yeah. And so this year, and this has been happening the last four or five years, but foreign companies have been bringing in like European or Australian chefs, um you know, to and their for the luxury levels going up. So now you're going to have, you know, you know, sushi and, ah you know, some type of really nice sauce and on oh your, on your doll bot. so It's over the top.
00:18:02
Speaker
yeah That is. So, you know, one of the things that seems, uh, To stand out for me is the advent, at least publicly, of using ah the noble gas xenon as a as a purported aid to help with, we're not sure if it's acclimatization or if it's protective ah organ protection or or what.
00:18:27
Speaker
And another very interesting sort of natural experiment, if you will, with ah an individual who, as you pointed out, climbed Everest in four days round trip from New new York using pre-acclimatization and, ah of course, supplemental oxygen.
00:18:44
Speaker
like you know, what when did you first hear about this, Alan? What was your initial, not not your current, well I'm curious what your initial response was and because for a lot of people to be hearing about this the first time and the three of us have already talked and thought and written about this extensively.
00:19:01
Speaker
so I'm curious about your initial reaction to this idea. Yeah. um I originally got introduced to it when by ah the reporter, um,
00:19:12
Speaker
in the Financial Times, initially broke the story. ah He contacted me in either late December or early January, kind of on a deep background and ah and ah promised that I wouldn't talk about it until he printed the story thing.
00:19:26
Speaker
ah So yeah 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.
00:19:40
Speaker
um Once I heard that it's really used, it had been used in Russia ah for decades as anesthesia, I my i was like, what?
00:19:52
Speaker
but And then then as I began to understand more that it's very safe with anesthesia, you and and Dr. Peter Hackett has had an outstanding podcast on this a few months ago, or guess a couple of months ago.
00:20:06
Speaker
and um And Dr. Hackett really did a great job of explaining how safe xenon is under medical supervision in an operating room.
00:20:17
Speaker
Yeah. And the other thing that 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, wasn't even in Nepal.
00:20:32
Speaker
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...
00:20:47
Speaker
These four guys that from the UK, they were all ex-military UK special forces. These guys are the fittest of the fittest. I know we're going to talk about physical training and preparation. been These guys trained for a year.
00:21:01
Speaker
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 Frutenbach Adventures, and he, along with Adrian Bollinger, are probably the best and the best of understanding how to use this hypoxic approach.
00:21:20
Speaker
And they have formulas, they've got doctors, they absolutely hold their clients' hands. And so they go in, acclimatize probably to 23,000 feet, 7,000 meters. is that 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.
00:21:40
Speaker
Now, again, Dr. Hackett will say that anything over four is is really not not useful, but nonetheless, um it could be a psychological thing. So, and the guy from Andrew from New York, 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.
00:22:02
Speaker
So there's a lot of things that we don't know. So to, to single out the xenon was the magic formula. I don't think there's enough data there. And I understand that especially Lucas would disagree with that assessment because he's done it. He's used it himself personally.
00:22:17
Speaker
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, um but, but, For me, i originally was aghast.
00:22:29
Speaker
Now I have a completely different opinion of it, but I'm gonna stop there. Martin, what was your initial reaction?
00:22:37
Speaker
ah Well, it's a tough one, but I think ah maybe as an athlete, because let's say I put an athlete hat on, ah of course, I was a bit skeptical about using Xenon. And I heard about Xenon first in the Sochi Olympics 2014, when it, I think, actually came out for a time because it was used by ah the the Russian athletes back then.
00:23:04
Speaker
And actually, I think what's interesting to mention about xenon, I guess Pete Hackett, I agree, it was a great, great podcast that you, Steve, did it with him. He explained it really well, but it's noble gas. It doesn't bound bind to organic molecules. And we are made of organic molecules pretty much, which is an interesting thing there. And that's why it's it's great. ah it's It's being used and in a medicine because, well,
00:23:30
Speaker
That is the issue with many medicaments and you know I guess different medical protocols where you have the side side side production effects.
00:23:42
Speaker
And here with CDAM, 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, ah at least what I understood about it. I i tried to read a lot upon it because I wanted to really understand it.
00:24:01
Speaker
And I guess I put now the scientist head on, which I'm studying altitude physiology currently in the master program in Ostersund University. So, you know, there is I definitely am interested in this.
00:24:13
Speaker
What is actually happening? And so I guess that is still non-conclusive. 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 the media, different journalists, and also, well, coming from all sort sorts of directions. And I guess, rightly so, we want we want to understand And I guess, yeah, well we will not know from this. We just don't know what was the effect of Xenon and what was the effect of the utter and the supplemental oxygen. But to be fair, I do think that it did something.
00:24:50
Speaker
ah I don't really think that it was the hematological part, like ah the red blood cell production takes time and so again we just don't know exactly when that happens, to the inhalation, but ah what I know about the you know the timeline of red blood cell production, additive proyses and the all that, it takes days and weeks. And so it sounds more like that the the other effects of Xenon were more powerful, which is like the neuroprotection and the protection of tissue. So, you know, quite interesting, but ah it needs to be, it needs to be confirmed, I guess, by further research.
00:25:31
Speaker
yeah And I would say that there there is data out there. It's just that only one person has access to it. you know mean there's you know Lucas will say there's been over 20 plus a sense of Everest. you know This is my recollection using Xenon in some format. so you know But he has access to all that data. Nobody else does. It's his proprietary thing.
00:25:56
Speaker
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.
00:26:07
Speaker
I want to just chime in with my sort of first impression, which was I think not what people expected
The Meaning Beyond the Summit: Climbing Philosophy
00:26:16
Speaker
from me. you know I'm known as perhaps the the purest, the ah pure Alpine style. like you know In my own climbing career, id I never used supplemental oxygen or or medicines or drugs or shortcuts of of any kind. i My approach was always have 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.
00:26:43
Speaker
It was actually completely counterproductive to try to quote unquote shortcut that process. 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 eating, sleeping and drinking, climbing all the time. So um I had that luxury, right? And that is a luxury, I have to admit.
00:27:01
Speaker
ah And not everyone has unlimited time and can ah but approach things in that way as altruistic as that may be so part of me was honestly like hey this is great if this if this cuts down the time that people need to climb everest from three weeks to five days this 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.
00:27:31
Speaker
I was thinking really almost immediately um 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 we you know A lot of this conversation so far has been around technology. We're we're going to use whatever technology we get. And you know if if it's supplemental oxygen, we use that. If it's dexamethasone, many people use that. If it's you know another noble bath, people will use that.
00:28:05
Speaker
And it's and i think in a way, one of the things that I take away from this as – that I'm really grateful for in the sense that I'm really grateful and you put it well that Evers is this bright light and there's a lot of moss, a lot of insects will fly towards that light.
00:28:24
Speaker
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 like, so in a way it's like, okay, let's concentrate all the people that want to do that. And I, you know, I'm i'm half perfectly happy to support those people however I can.
00:28:42
Speaker
to do that. And it essentially like makes everything safer, less, less human risk. And it keeps people that are doing set on that kind of seven summits track.
00:28:54
Speaker
focused on that and you know the rest of the mountains are wide open for those that that want to ah explore in that vein so i almost think that we need to come up with a different term i'm going to propose that we you know come up with i don't know what this term is but is this mountaineering do we need a new do we need new terminology for climbing mountains you know using technology using drones oxygen xenon versus climbing mountains for entirely for the process? Or do we have that term as one alpinism and one mountaineering?
00:29:31
Speaker
and I don't know. like that that's That's what i think. you know Are we ever going to make that distinction for in the public eye? Probably not, ah but but that but that's okay. So that those are kind of that was my whole thought process and in all of this.
00:29:47
Speaker
You know it's interesting here in Colorado, um you know, we have 58 mountains that are higher than 14,000 feet or 4,000 meters roughly. And ah there's a really popular website called 14ers.com.
00:30:00
Speaker
And it's about 50-50 between when people say, I climbed Mount Albert versus I hiked Mount Albert. and yeah And the term alpinist is really more prevalent in Europe.
00:30:13
Speaker
ah 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, OK, 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.
00:30:28
Speaker
They're with a couple of friends. And they're just you know they're truly... truly climbing the mountain and they're notre and they're challenging themselves against the mountain. Whereas mountaineering, I think, is that broader ah coverage of what we see in in modern climbing today.
00:30:46
Speaker
So, Steve, one... i've Over the last six months now, I've really spent ah too much time thinking about this stuff, about the xenon. um and And I finally have come to a spot where, frankly, I don't care.
00:31:04
Speaker
It doesn't make any difference to me. um And because i I am not physically gifted like you are to be able to climb a mountain like Everest or K2 without using supplemental oxygen.
00:31:16
Speaker
I struggle. It hurts. I suffer every time I went out. And for me, that was part of the experience. And I think flying from Denver to Kathmandu, helicoptering to base camp, running up, running down, returning home as fast as I can to get back to my life.
00:31:34
Speaker
I think that misses the whole point. And this is my personal opinion, that I think expedition mountaineering is something that is is is just a point where you suffer. You do challenge yourself against a mountain.
00:31:46
Speaker
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,
00:31:58
Speaker
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.
00:32:12
Speaker
But she actually just, there was another American lady just after. So she held the record for a day or two. She held it for 24 hours. So still less than a comment.
00:32:23
Speaker
amazing 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.
00:32:37
Speaker
And if you're a better version of yourself, 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.
00:32:50
Speaker
I like sleeping on the ground. I like crawling out of the tent on my hands and knees. I don't want to sleep in a box tent on a cot with a down duvet. You know, I don't mind eating dollbot.
00:33:01
Speaker
Actually, that's not true. But, you know, just I enjoy the expedition 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.
00:33:18
Speaker
I'm not going to judge you. And if it you know if it works for you, good on you. But I'm not a fan. If I may add something.
Climber Mindset: Limits, Humility, and Preparation
00:33:27
Speaker
So ah I think I agree with that. I think it was quite a kind of triggering topic in the recent months. And that's was it took a while to maybe come with some kind of understanding of the situation.
00:33:40
Speaker
I think maybe personally, what I noticed is that... ah 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.
00:33:51
Speaker
And it's being sold as that. The Eurolay, we will get you there. ah 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 Reinhold Messner and then Steve, you know, this the style of climbing which, and coming from Eastern Europe, of the the mentality is very strong there, you know, the purist style.
00:34:17
Speaker
ah But now I'm here and I know body to judge people how they want to choose to climb. I think maybe just ah the the thing about safety that was mentioned a lot as like we we will guarantee, it it will guarantee the safety.
00:34:32
Speaker
I think for me it's that um there needs to be the space to also turn around and go home to to just accept that the mountain is too strong for me or I'm not strong enough just to be able to accept that.
00:34:45
Speaker
rather than forcing it. So maybe that's not what I wanted to mention. And again, everybody needs to find that for themselves, I think. For me, and I remember Steve telling me two years ago, I was going to Pakistan myself to Peak.
00:34:59
Speaker
And I came without the summit. I came home, I just couldn't for different reasons. But you told me in the last years of your career, I think it was more more times you didn't succeed, you didn't summit than you did.
00:35:15
Speaker
And then actually that's what I just said. the Is it the success or luck of success? How do we define success? ah Is it the summit or is it actually the experience to try to get there? So yeah, just wanted to. do know With my summit coach clients, but I always tell them this in the first call, like within the first 10 minutes is that in my mind, success is having a positive experience.
00:35:39
Speaker
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 some comes down to simple preparation, people waiting too late, and I think we're gonna get into that.
00:35:54
Speaker
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 the sin of arrogance. that you overestimate your capacity and you underestimate how difficult it is climb at altitude.
00:36:09
Speaker
I committed that sin three times in my first three attempts on Everest before I finally woke up and realized that I have completely thought way too big of myself.
00:36:21
Speaker
And so I had to double down on my preparation and I had to go but into the mountain with much more humility and much more respect ah and much more dedication to preparation.
00:36:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think that that's great for both of you. I love to hear this. I mean, my friend Marco Prezel and I used to always joke about, well, let me tell the story. We were coming down from ah walking out after 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 we probably 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 ah that was and we were ragged, pretty ragged. And we're going down to the trail, super dusty and it's super hot.
00:37:12
Speaker
And this ah guy sees us and sees we're climbers, he's walking up and he's all clean. You can smell, still smell those the shit be perfumes and in his shampoo or whatever, you know, and it just hits you like a wall and he just gives us this big smiley face and he's like,
00:37:30
Speaker
us And, you know, we knew what he meant. He meant Didby Summit. And, you know, I mean, we looked like that walked over it and Marco just laughed at him and like, yeah, he just laughed looked at him, laughed like, ha ha ha, yes.
00:37:46
Speaker
our success and then he just kept going and we didn't really think about it that much until later we're 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 like 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.
00:38:21
Speaker
And we used to joke about that throughout throughout our partnership about what is success? You know, it was our our standing gag about ah this. And I think it's a ah very important, serious question, right? and 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, it's important to define that. for for yourself and what that means for you. and 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.
00:38:55
Speaker
And what that says about the people judging more than what it says about the people trying new things and innovating and changing and maybe doing things that people don't like, but you know,
00:39:08
Speaker
They 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?
00:39:21
Speaker
He loves mixing it up. He loves trying things. He loves thinking outside the box. And those people aren't always popular. ah But they also, you know, try stuff and are ah and have a thick skin and are able to to push things forward.
00:39:39
Speaker
forward. 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.
00:39:53
Speaker
ah i My favorite part was actually the last couple of weeks when my athletes came back and just ah hearing from them. I gave them a bit of time because that's already what I learned. hey know You need time ah time to process and decompress and just hearing their their stories, whether it was, again, they didn't summit or they did summit.
00:40:12
Speaker
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 Manazlu, my first 8,000 meter peak and you know my lifelong dream 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.
00:40:30
Speaker
And that is that was in September last year. So funny, I actually realized that later that I had more of a burnout after the success summit than after not succeeding on Broadpeak two years ago.
00:40:44
Speaker
I just felt a little hollow, like, 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?
00:40:55
Speaker
And I think i'm I'm totally fine with that. I already know I've had some burnouts and before. So i that is actually an experience and I learned so much from that. But it's still, you know, an interesting when you realize, OK, I think it what matters is the how you show up and what what you invest and you choose your own style.
00:41:19
Speaker
I think that um I wrote a little essay a few years ago called The Climber's Depression, and I attached it to the end of this season's summary. And ah it is ah kind of a humorous, satirical piece, but basically it goes through ah three three scenarios for a ah climber that you summited.
00:41:36
Speaker
You didn't summit and it was somebody else's fault. You didn't summit and it was your fault. And kind of the the refrain here is that you get back home and people are you' all excited to hear your story.
00:41:48
Speaker
But then as soon as you start talking and going into detail, they're like, oh, that's great. Hey, um so what's next? And then you go into the abyss of, you know, of what's next.
00:41:58
Speaker
And there's this depression. And i'm I mean, yeah 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?
00:42:09
Speaker
You know, it didn't matter the result. Just knew exactly what you said, Martin. I mean, you're going Manaslu from base camp to the summit, no O's. I mean, my gosh, one push. That's incredible. But you came home and you didn't feel elated.
00:42:23
Speaker
totally i did I did, but no it was kind of maybe later. It was just that, okay, what what now? i cool what am i What am I going to do now? and so like and I've talked to people that run marathons or Ironman or whatever, and yeah they and anybody that has these really big, massive goals that they set, and once they complete the psychological side of it, it just begins to take the toll rather than the physical side once you get home.
00:42:48
Speaker
Yeah, famously Olympic athletes, right? It's only every four years. so yeah And you run 10 seconds. or one One jump. and the Yeah. Interesting. There's a lovely Jim Carrey line about him saying he wishes everybody could be successful so they'd realize that it's not all that it's cracked up to be.
00:43:08
Speaker
Ooh, I like that. and I don't, I'm i'm just... Yeah. I'm just paraphrasing. Of course, he said it in a much funnier, witier 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.
00:43:23
Speaker
It's, I think, any kind of achievement oriented thing. direction that we put our hearts and souls and and time and money and everything into, they they have these, they have these effects.
00:43:36
Speaker
But the important thing, as I long maintain, is just doing the hard thing, like doing, it's just important to go to do hard things because that are, that interests you, that catch your interest because, you know,
00:43:49
Speaker
That's that's life. That's growth. That's that's progress. And it doesn't always look like progress, but it but it is. It's the Teddy Roosevelt, the man in the arena. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. ah Classic. Right. 100 percent.
00:44:02
Speaker
I love that. So, you know, there was quite a bit of. blowback as we've alluded ah to the idea of using Xenon.
00:44:14
Speaker
um Some of the places it came from were, you know, trying to sound helpful, but I think we're, um you know, by i'm by this I mean like, um hey, this is not approved for this application. Well, okay.
00:44:34
Speaker
you know, but bottle oxygen also isn't approved for, you know, climbing to high altitude. People, you know, there's never, you know, there's 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 constructive.
00:44:56
Speaker
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 that's that's the scientific process, right? Like, 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.
00:45:27
Speaker
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,
00:45:39
Speaker
I would hypothesize that 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 going to figure we're going to try to figure this out. you know they're they're going they have there's This is not going to be the exclusive domain of Fortenbach Adventures for very long, I would argue.
00:46:04
Speaker
And then we will start to get some other Data, whether or not that's public data, it won't I suspect it won't be, but at least it will be additional data points in the sort of evolving natural experiment that is Mount Everest. what What do you think is the logical next step, Alan? What what happens now?
Climbing Ethics: Technology and Traditionalism
00:46:27
Speaker
You know, well, Lucas, to his credit, a couple of things to his credit. um Number one is he does not think this is going become a standard ah for a couple of reasons. One is charged, I think it was $153,000 because xenon gas is is very expensive.
00:46:45
Speaker
And ah he, if you're going to do it, he did it, I guess, the way you're supposed to do it under tight medical supervision. Yeah. So he doesn't think it's going to become a you know the new standard.
00:46:55
Speaker
ah 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 ascents and stuff. I think that might become the new standard. it won't be two months now, it'll be three weeks.
00:47:10
Speaker
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 ah because of what we talked about earlier with this, you know, people that, you know, bugs to a light and stuff. And, you know, there's I think it's wonderful that we have so many people interested in high altitude mountaineering and especially younger people.
00:47:30
Speaker
ah You know, that's the that's going to keep the sport alive and growing along with the technology, the progress, the advances, the innovation. mean, all that's goodness. The dark side of that is that people will see, oh, this guy did it in three weeks. He did three days.
00:47:45
Speaker
This guy, you know, four guys did it in a week. I can too, because I don't have the time to take off from my work. So they're going to 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.
00:47:59
Speaker
And they're going to try to use it, and not under medical supervision and not knowledgeable about what it is. There was a good case study of a guy that... um ah Schaefer did in Outside Magazine maybe five or six years ago, he used dexamethasone and he basically OD'd on it and he almost died, but he came away from base camp, even went above base camp, but he did serious damage to his liver and his kidneys.
00:48:25
Speaker
um And so there's a dark side to this. if People don't really understand the dangers of it if it's used improperly. Yeah. Yeah. and And those are real, right? And I don't know that...
00:48:38
Speaker
so so where are we Where is Everest going? where What do we need? like Martin, when you talk to your athletes that are considering climbing Everest you know next season, for example, what do you tell them? What do what do they need to do to prepare? What do what do you want them to do?
00:48:59
Speaker
So I think maybe just one last note one last note about the casino. And ah i again, i was I've been reading a lot about it, trying to just understand it more and but also come into terms with it ethically.
00:49:14
Speaker
ah It's considered a doping, as is the supplemental oxygen, and I think that's where we can agree on. And so there were ah there was a lot of criticism coming from that point, logically so, but we can also then agree that most of the clients or most of the people climbing in Everest are not professional athletes or athletes trying to break some official records.
00:49:35
Speaker
And so, you know, they are free to do ah what they want to. And so I think we can sort of put it in the same bracket. Like, I don't know. i'm Again, I'm not an expert and it's it's kind of tricky still. But yeah, i just to maybe um take the pressure off a bit on the Xena.
00:49:53
Speaker
And so I agree with the if you that it's so so expensive. I mean, it's one of the rarest products. gases in atmosphere. So that's, I guess, why it's so, it's hard to extract it from the atmosphere and that will stay expensive. And I think then it also automatically leads to that it will only be for some ah some people who can afford it if they want to then.
00:50:16
Speaker
And that's that's, I guess, what we discussed if if you actually want to, if you choose to. ah climb Everest in in five days and ah sort of shorten that experience. um So for me, I think what ah 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 ah ah helping out with that. We we have that option.
00:50:46
Speaker
i am digging into the literature and research like every day, ah trying to you know learn more about altitude physiology because it's still so unexplored and ah 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.
00:51:10
Speaker
ah yeah because everybody's acclimatizing slightly differently. The individual variability in response is huge. So I think that's hopefully we can get better in this. and ah And I think then for the environment, it's only better, I hope, for the Nepalese community, Sherpa community.
00:51:34
Speaker
it's still It's still good, I guess. We can discuss that as well, right? ah Whether, you know, people flying in and out, so they're not hiking or trekking through the valleys, so the people in the villages, they have less business than... I don't know. I'm not an expert, but...
00:51:51
Speaker
Anyway, but I think still the Everest is, there is just one Everest, the highest mountain on earth. And for myself personally, it's still a big, big dream of mine, whether I can make it a true one a day, I'm not sure, but I can understand why people are motivated to to go.
00:52:09
Speaker
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.
00:52:19
Speaker
Because, you know, you don't see that ah that same venom that comes out about people that, you know, a solo sail around the world or swim the English Channel or, you know, do something else that's really tough. But I guess mountaineering has this, you know, this this reputation, this...
00:52:35
Speaker
mostly defined by End of Thin Air by Mr. Krakauer, that you know it's just a bunch of rich jerks you that are paying a lot of money to be drug up to the summit and come home. and 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 and ah they you know they feel very grateful to have have had the experience regardless of the result.
The Road to Everest: Preparation and Reality Check
00:53:02
Speaker
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?
00:53:21
Speaker
I'm with Martin as as much as possible, 5, 10, 15 know. and Just really as long as possible. It's a, uh, it's not a get off the couch and you just fly to Kathmandu and climb the mountain type of thing.
00:53:32
Speaker
Um, ideally, uh, minimum of a year. Um, you know, I, I tell the story of a young Ryan, uh, Mitchell. He was 18 years old. He contacted me in December of 22. um he ah he was He's a YouTube sensation, had made it an absurd amount of money doing a Minecraft video on YouTube.
00:53:51
Speaker
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. Love it. And ah I said, what kind of experience do you have? None. and When do you want to climb it?
00:54:02
Speaker
In March. Okay, let's stop. I said, there are companies out there that will take your money, ah but I will not coach you. He said, well, what what will it take?
00:54:13
Speaker
I said, well, it's going to 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 go climb mountains. I want you to get the experience. We're going to work on mental toughness.
00:54:27
Speaker
ah We're going to work on the holistic approach to how you prepare to go climb this mountain, not just the physical. It's physical and mental and emotional and understanding what you're getting into and having the basic skill set.
00:54:41
Speaker
So he. I said, yes, sir. And so he went and did, um first off, he did the Ecuador volcanoes. And then he did um Denali, then Aconcagua with Ed Visters of all people.
00:54:54
Speaker
And then he went to Everest with ah Garrett Madison and i absolutely nailed it. And now he's, he in fact, I'm talking to him tomorrow on a podcast because he's leaving in two weeks to go to K2.
00:55:07
Speaker
So that's a story where somebody took you know to the advice seriously. Because I've seen other people go, dalan you don't understand. i don't have the time and money to wait. I'm going to do it now. Yeah.
00:55:19
Speaker
And I quote this a lot. Sadly, 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.
00:55:33
Speaker
um ah Tragic, every one of them. However, and put it in context, I've got you know data of using the Himalayan database goes back to 1920s that on average in the median is around seven or eight deaths every year.
00:55:46
Speaker
So it happens. That's the contract you sign on these mountains. But this this five deaths paled in comparison to the 18 two years ago and a little bit with eight last year.
00:55:57
Speaker
So of those 26, 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 going to be with has summited 20 times. So you're in safe hands. If something goes wrong, we'll take care of you.
00:56:14
Speaker
We'll helicopter you off. And there's too many people that buy that value proposition and they, because 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 want to go climb these mountains, my clients, hell, they typically come from a place where they don't know what they don't know.
00:56:34
Speaker
and they're asking for help to figure that out because it's a confusing world out there with all the marketing and the social media and the websites and, you know, slick ah representation of statistics and everything else.
00:56:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a, it's an annual recurring problem, you know, questioned. And one of the things that, that I've always encouraged people, I think we all agree on is to just give,
00:57:02
Speaker
yourself as much lead time as you can. One of the stories that i are not stories one of the facts that I share with people is that for an adult, it typically takes roughly 10 years, plus or minus a year, to fully develop your genetic potential as an endurance athlete.
00:57:19
Speaker
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 go and how how much they are capable of.
00:57:32
Speaker
You know, I always said I have and I think it's amply I could amply ah demonstrate. I can easily demonstrate that I have no athletic gifts.
00:57:45
Speaker
you ah Scott 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 love doing all the sports, but I was completely middle of the pack in all of them.
00:57:58
Speaker
The only thing that I had in alpinism that. super 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.
00:58:13
Speaker
And that's what allowed me or enabled me to get to be able to practice at a high level was that that mindset. And people really don't give themselves enough credit for what they can accomplish if they put in the time and put in the effort.
00:58:31
Speaker
Martin, what is what are you thinking about changing in terms of training or your approach to coaching for Everest 2026? if anything for average twenty twenty six
00:58:45
Speaker
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 the holistic approach you mentioned. and Maybe that's something we ah we use in Appel 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 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 ah on Everest and ah prepare the athletes for the well the the whole thing.
00:59:30
Speaker
the 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 the adversity and then with the weather and so um 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 went there frustrations or kind of fears as well, anxiety and just, you know, simple message was like, hey, you're doing fine. Just be patient.
01:00:01
Speaker
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 ah because you just, you're just not prepared for this kind of scenario when you're sitting up there at in the tent, in the windstorm 7,000 meters high and thinking what's going to happen.
01:00:21
Speaker
um But I think maybe ah what I would like to keep developing is the monitoring and testing. So ah you know ah many athletes and also operators you know but asking me, okay, like how do you prepare ah the the athletes? How do you prepare the clients? like ah they want one number, like Veomax, for example, right?
01:00:46
Speaker
So has has their Veomax improved after two, three months of training? like Are they going to be ready? And I had to tell them, hey, like, the Veomax will not tell you the whole story. I'm sorry, it's it's's it's not that. And I guess if youre 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...
01:01:13
Speaker
the testing vo max and the lactate threshold speed and and and the the running economy you know we can get really close to is estimating the the finish time whereas on Everest I mean we are not there yet and so that's where I learned a lot from this season and I would like to and 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 space for improvement there.
01:01:40
Speaker
And ah of course, then um sort of include it in the training plans for the next season.
01:01:48
Speaker
You know, yeah I like to like the KPIs, the key performance and indicators. um The one that I like the most, um and because, you know, training for the new Alpinism and the follow-on book that Steve and Scott wrote, ah my gosh, I call it the, ah you know,
01:02:04
Speaker
a PhD paper on high altitude physiology, ah but it's great information there. But for me, and you can one of the key indicators is recovery time.
01:02:15
Speaker
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 10 miles and gain 5,000 feet in altitude. Well, do that, come back down to our load up on water and fuel and then go do it again, same day.
01:02:32
Speaker
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,
01:02:44
Speaker
um'm but I'm going to the ER. r And 10 is, I could do it a third time. So keep a journal of that over a year and do that maybe once a month.
01:02:55
Speaker
and And you have to be totally honest with yourself. you 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're a three, you're a three.
01:03:06
Speaker
Mark it in. And then look at that trend line. And if and to your point about the VO2 max, you know I don't know if it's going to 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.
01:03:20
Speaker
I agree. It's that famous durability, ah the sort of new factor in endurance, ah we call it. So the fourth dimension of endurance performance, we have VO max, lactate threshold and running a economy.
01:03:35
Speaker
and now the durability in especially the long endurance events. And so it's exactly, well, pretty much exactly how we tested. You go up hill, come down and you go again and you compare the two You can do that quite easily on training peaks or yeah software you're using and you see the difference, right? Like how it drops, how you maintain it, how the heart rate changes.
01:03:57
Speaker
I agree with that. It's a very good way to to measure the capacity. If you you can include some altitude, effective altitude, even better.
Training and Support: Uphill Athlete and Summit Coach Collaboration
01:04:06
Speaker
so I think the the secret, though, is that you've got to be objective. You've got to be brutally honest with yourself.
01:04:13
Speaker
I mean, again, that's why I stress that is no one else is going to see this number. It is just you. I mean, your your trainer, your therapist, your dog, no one else is going to see it. It's just you.
01:04:23
Speaker
And if you're going to cheat, all your only person you're cheating is yourself.
01:04:29
Speaker
Well, that's great wisdom, guys. Alan, how do people find you and find Summit Coach? Well, they can, ah 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.
01:04:44
Speaker
And I, a lot of my clients use you guys. I offer physical training, but i I tell people, if you want the best out there, go to Uphill. They've got, you know, world-class coaches and nutritionists and physiologists and marriage counselors and everything.
01:04:59
Speaker
So, know, but they find me. I don't think we're friends out to marriage counseling. Yeah. ah Maybe we should. I always joke with people because i ask them 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 it a very affordable fee of $10,000. It's a joke.
01:05:21
Speaker
um which Actually, though, I talk to spouses often by people that are on the mountains. they but They can find me at my website, alanarnett.com or go to summitcoach.org. So, yeah, great.
01:05:33
Speaker
Excellent. Well, thanks so much, Alan. Thank you so much, Martin. Let's do this again in a year's time and look back and and see see where we've come. Sounds good. See if we were smart or dunces.
01:05:46
Speaker
Well, actually, like maybe we should back up. Maybe we should make some predictions. Predictions are always – I can torture you with this in 12 months. What is your prediction for for trends in 2026, Alan?
01:06:00
Speaker
Well, I think we're to 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.
01:06:13
Speaker
um I think we're also going to see um ah just, again, but more people on Everest if... 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 going to see their business drop by 50%.
01:06:31
Speaker
yeah i don't think the I don't think the permit going from 11,000 to 15,000 is going to have a measurable impact. I think people will figure out how to absorb that. um But um if you've got a flight in 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, so that takes away mountains like Aminablam.
01:06:55
Speaker
um Aconcagua, which is misses it by what, three or four meters? ah Denali, Peak Linen, all the usual suspects that people use around the world.
01:07:06
Speaker
Mont Blanc, you know, so yeah i think it's I think they're going to see their their business just get devastated. If they make it, I love the idea, let me be very clear. I love the idea of requiring a 7,000 meter mountain before you can go to Everest.
01:07:19
Speaker
On the Chinese side, you've got to have climbed a mountain which is a thousand meters lower than the mountain you're applying for. ah so And if you're a Chinese national, you have to have summited an 8,000-meter mountain before you can go to Everest.
01:07:30
Speaker
That's the reason that 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 and spite your face.
01:07:47
Speaker
I agree. I think you know it would make sense to include Amada Blom and Akung Agua. But I think what I wanted to do just mention before we finish, the I'm a bit concerned about these new regulations possibly happening in Nepal and compared to China that ah ah actually affecting possibly more like the alpinists that we look for the...
01:08:10
Speaker
first ascents or climbing without oxygen. and 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're acclimatizing in a classic way without oxygen, you will just not have enough time.
01:08:32
Speaker
That's what I heard in you know and the media. So I to do hope that it doesn't take place and that there is still space for well everybody ah also you know for climbing without oxygen. And I just wanted to mention that ah this year, um the statistics were quite severe. Only to two athletes, two people succeeded to climb without oxygen.
01:08:57
Speaker
That's pretty... very if you If you see the statistics, how what was the total? i Do you remember? ah This year. Total summits? just did this year this year this ah and Total summits,
01:09:11
Speaker
total summit sir yeah so um i have for both sides eight hundred and forty six people And so on Nepal side, it was 257 clients supported by 421 support climbers, Sherpas, Tibetans, others.
01:09:33
Speaker
And on the Tibetan side, roughly 150, something that. something like that so 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.
01:09:47
Speaker
And so um one of them was a lady called Anja. actually met her close to Manaslu summit last year and so just wanted to... She's fantastic. She's got 12 of the 14 just needs shish and choy and she'll become the first German um female. she I believe she was the 10th woman so far ah having climbed Everest without supplemental oxygen. so Yeah, she did it in car she wasn't quite solo because there were 33 other people that summited the same day.
01:10:18
Speaker
But she went unsupported, no O's, and just just nailed it. she's just She's amazing. One thing about the statistics, though, is that this year on the DePaul side, only 49% of the foreigners who had permits, and 257 summits.
01:10:32
Speaker
That's 49%.
01:10:35
Speaker
and two hundred and fifty seven summits that's forty nine percent Typically on Everest these days in the last handful of years, it's been in the 60s and 70s. 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.
01:10:52
Speaker
They underestimated how hard it was going to be. They didn't. I mean, this is harsh to say that it probably didn't train hard enough, long enough. And once they got up there, especially on those windy days, um they just said, that I'm I'm I'm turning around.
01:11:08
Speaker
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 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.
01:11:23
Speaker
And I applaud the people that admit it. Yeah. Yeah. So i'm I'm hearing that the Forecasts for 2026 are, you know, I heard you guys sidestep the question. You're very good politician there. are is because Because there was, i asked for forecasts and you just started talking about regulations, which brings in a lot of uncertainty, right?
01:11:47
Speaker
um But if we look forward to 2026, the big question is, ah big question is how do the regulations play out? Let's follow up with that in 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 but the game of climbing Everest in 2026. So thank you, Alan.
01:12:10
Speaker
Thank you, Martin. Really appreciate your time and expertise. Thank you. We are not just one, but a community. Together we are Uphill Athlete. Please like, subscribe, and share if you found this episode to your liking, and we will catch you next time.
01:12:37
Speaker
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01:12:54
Speaker
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