Boss Lowe wrote about doping with xenon gas more than a decade ago: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/another-use-xenon
Also, and quite interestingly, xenon isn't the only element that does this. Cobalt does something very similar: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6157393/
Athletic use is probably more common than people think. And I'd be absolutely shocked if Xe gas weren't already being used in racehorses. (You wouldn't believe the state of chemical warfare in that sport.)
There's also potential military use -- especially in combat divers. They're very limited by the amount of breathing gas they can carry. Anything to meaningfully cut oxygen use could be a game changer.
Xenon isn’t a new magic. Russian athletes were rumored to use it in the 2014 Sochi Olympic, and WADA banned it shortly thereafter: https://www.aip.org/inside-science/catching-some-xes-has-str...
It spikes HIF-1α → EPO for a day or two, but meta-analyses still doesn't show a real performance bump, let alone safety at 8 km. Feels less like innovation and more like mountaineering’s own carbon-plate shoes, except the failure mode here is cerebral edema, not a slow marathon time.
So they slept in hypoxia tents which activates the hypoxia-inducible factor molecule, but they also took xenon which also activates the molecule. So, it's not clear if the xenon actually did anything?
Back during the 2000 dot-com boom crash I met a guy who got into a top business school in part by writing about the challenges of climbing Everest. He confessed drunkenly at a party to me that he'd never even left the USA...
Important to note that they didn't use xenon for the climb, only for the prepwork, which makes this outcome all the more remarkable. Still, I would feel uneasy if this were to become a trend, as incorrectly administering xenon can lead to death, as seen on Hamilton's Pharmacopeia[0].
> In an interview, Mr. Carns said that his expedition had been in touch with the ministry, and clarified with the department that it had not taken the gas on the mountain.
Xenon is used by athletes to increase their endogenous erythropoietin production. As it's a noble gas, it leaves no trace in their body, so post-hoc detection of this doping method is impossible.
But as a recreational climber, why bother with xenon? Just inject EPO.
Related: They want to climb Everest in a week using an anesthetic gas (3 points, 13 days ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43988039
Use Xenon gas to climb Everest in a week? (12 points, 27 days ago) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43837865
Climbers using xenon gas to climb Everest (107 points, 4 months ago, 145 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42705180
> Himal Gautam, the director of Nepal’s tourism department, which is responsible for regulating expeditions on the nation’s mountains, said in an interview that using the gas was “against climbing ethics,” […]
Okay, but then be consistent and also ban bottled oxygen and the services of Sherpas.
> […] and that it would hurt the country’s tourism industry and the Sherpas who help climbers by reducing their time on the mountain.
Ah, okay, there's the real reason. "Climbing ethics" my ass.
I've long held that climbing Everest has become a gross display of wealth and vanity and basically nobody should do it. There's no glory in being the 4000th person to do so. It's not glamorous. You're basically climbing over trash and dead bodies to do it.
Often inexperienced people with too much money are putting themselves, their sherpas and other climbers are risk by doing so.
Using bottled oxygen already made this substantially easier. But this Xenon is on a whole new level. I went looking for the cost and found [1]:
> After a week, the Brits could be back at their desks at home. They still pay an introductory price of an undisclosed amount. In future, such a short trip to Everest will cost around 150,000 euros.
From my understanding, that's 50-100,000 more than usual. The whole thing just reeks of Oceangate.
And for what? To take a selfie at the top and to brag to you're equally vacous and wealthy friends? It would be more ethical to stay home and just Photoshop yourself into a photo. ChatGPT can probably do it for you.
Nepal is a very poor country. Being a sherpa is one of the few (locally) high paying jobs there are. Sherpas risk their lives for this. At least on K2 or Annapurna you're more likely to find experiernced and technically capable mountaineers who won't endanger your life for a selfie.
Everest is not a technically difficult climb, as far as I understand it. The death zone and general conditions make it a challenge. Negate those with Xenon and it's just a really expensive walk.
[1]: https://abenteuer-berg.de/en/with-xenon-to-mount-everest-and...
IMO this climb doesn't really do much to prove of xenon's effectiveness (altitude researcher Dr. Peter Hackett says as much [0]).
The team used supplemental oxygen on the climb, with the starting altitude and flow rate not being reported [1]. This is speculative, but if they were using more oxygen than typical and starting at a lower altitude, that's a massive advantage.
Further, Andrew Ushakov traveled from NYC to the summit in just under 4 days this year without the use of xenon (but also with supplemental oxygen with unknown starting altitude and flow rate). He used a hypoxic tent to prepare as well, and depending on the accuracy of the reporting may have even spent less time doing that than the xenon team did [1].
[0] https://www.npr.org/2025/05/18/nx-s1-5398553/a-new-company-i...
[1] https://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2025/05/21/everest-2025-fas...
“Days instead of weeks on the mountain foot” - that’s the crucial point. Less time -> less money spent on accommodation, supplies, personnel there. Obviously they don’t want to lose income.
"former special force", "flew to expert across Europe for testing and trial"
Yeah this is not your average mountain climber group, "normal" people could not do this just by xenon gas alone
Climbing Everest these days just seems to be the quintessential activity for people that have lost site of what really matters in life. It's where you end up if you never grow out of the idea that life is a competition you can win.
Isn't Xenon very expensive?
I used it in my Laser MSc has part of the mix for a CO2 laser (marks how long ago that was). CO2 for the optic properties, and Xe to reduce the electron temperature.
So the Xe in this case triggers a response in the human body, but people aren't quite sure why. Quite strange considering Xe is an inert gas.
> Should scaling Mount Everest, one of sporting’s greatest accomplishments, be made easier
But it has been, for a long time. Base camps, oxygen masks, advanced gear, etc all make climbing easier.
Similarly, should lifting 200 kg be made easier? It has been made easy, you can use a forklift and barely move your finger to do so. But this is not seen as an accomplishment; if you want to be considered a strong weightlifter, you have to lift an old-school barbell.
The biggest problem, as I can imagine, is not the dilution of the achievement, but the intensity of the stream if the climbers. Mt Everest is already full of climbers who follow each other at a short distance. Doubling this stream might ruin the experience altogether, or there would be large lines and inevitably large fees to jump them.
What even is the point anymore of doing something like this if you cheat your whole way up.
It’s like bragging about sailing around the world when in reality you did a cruise
Next step is probably exoskeletons.
Unfair?
I thought that mountain was mainly climbed by CEO's that let sherpa's carry their stuff?
I'm waiting until the trash pile on Everest is higher than the mountain itself. Everest isn't supposed to be easy to climb. If someone wants to do it faster/quicker - why would I care how. I'd still look at them and say you cheated.
Why not just climb with oxygen and skip the hypoxia all together?
How safe is Xenon to breathe?
Would nitrous work as well?
Will it also crash Rasperry Pis?
Climbing Everest in just a few days with xenon gas does sound pretty wild.
But it also makes me wonder if we’re turning what used to be a deeply human and challenging journey into just another experiment in efficiency.
Not sure if that counts as progress. Curious how others see it.
Sherpa (local) climbs Everest in eleven hours: national pride
Foreigner climbs Everest in three days: "against climbing ethics"
Got it.
Why does mountaineering need a future? Mountaineering should just be done. Stop.
The mountains have been scaled. All of them. We've been there, website seen what's to be seen. It's done, it's over. Just leave these grandiose wonders alone rather than destroying the natural beauty in the name of an ego boost.
LESS people have Tesla car than amount of people who were on top of Mount Everest, why bother ?
Amazing and hilarious.
Genuine technological innovation in adaptation to low oxygen. Nay-sayers say it does nothing. Guys climb Everest in a week using said innovation. You can't argue with results, so they switch to:
"Himal Gautam, the director of Nepal’s tourism department, which is responsible for regulating expeditions on the nation’s mountains, said in an interview that using the gas was “against climbing ethics,” and that it would hurt the country’s tourism industry and the Sherpas who help climbers by reducing their time on the mountain."
and
"From a medical point of view, off-label use without a scientific basis and with unknown health risks must be rejected"
So it simultaneously does nothing and is unethical, and it doesn't matter whether it works anyway, because even if it did, it'd be against made-up "medical" rules.
I've never seen a stronger case for telling very serious people to go fuck themselves.
Note that these all of these Xenon-Everest stories come back to the same person: Lukas Furtenbach
Why? Because he’s launching a business that sells Xenon-assisted Everest tours: https://www.furtenbachadventures.com/
These stories are never about uncovering an underground world of Xenon performance enhancement or discussing the science (which is much less optimistic about Xenon’s benefits). They’re always lazily relaying the PR information that Lukas Furtenbach gives them.
So while it’s true that Xenon appears to have some possible performance enhancing properties, all of these news pieces about how climbers are using Xenon always come back to this one same guy who is, coincidentally, trying really hard to sell people on expensive Xenon-assisted Everest tours.