Latest news with #EliteExped
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Yahoo
Kangchenjunga: One Climber Dead, Another Stranded in Camp 4
Margareta Morin of France died on Kangchenjunga yesterday. At 63, this was her first 8,000'er. Meanwhile, British climber Adrian Hayes is seriously sick in Camp 4, and bad weather has thwarted attempts to rescue him. Once again, expedition operators reported the summits on May 10 but didn't mention any problems. Adrian Hayes was listed in the summit report, alongside Uta Ibrahimi, who completed her 14x8,000m list and is safely back in Base Camp. Morin never made it to the summit. Yogendra Tamang from the outfitter Peak 15 Adventure told The Himalayan Times that Morin fell ill during her summit push and passed away at 7,800m. IFMGA guide Tendi Sherpa guided Morin. Adrian Hayes fell sick with serious acute mountain sickness symptoms on the upper sections of Kangchenjunga while descending from the summit. Climbers brought him to Camp 4. "Once the weather allows, we will evacuate him from the lower camps," Chhang Dawa Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks told The Himalayan Times. Hayes, 64, is a well-known explorer and speaker in the UK. He has summited Everest and made trips to the North and South Poles in a record one year and 217 days, between 2006 and 2007. In 2014, he summited K2. He has also made a north-to-south traverse of Greenland's Icecap and crossed the Arabian desert on foot and camel, following in the footsteps of British explorer Sir William Thesiger. Before Kangchenjunga, he attempted Pumori. A group of climbers launched a Kangchenjunga summit push on May 8, taking advantage of a weather window, even though ropes were not fixed to the summit. The day before, the team responsible for laying the ropes, led by EliteExped's Nirmal Purja, had to turn around in rapidly worsening weather. They were roughly 150-200 vertical meters below the summit. EliteExped posted about the decision on their social media. Purja, one of Elite Exped's directors and the company founder, said: "The team set around 11,000m of rope from Base Camp toward the summit, but unfortunately, we were forced to turn back just short of the summit because of the extreme conditions. Safety is 100% the priority. The conditions were extremely challenging, it was a full-on whiteout and extremely cold. We made the right choice to prioritize safety, and 100% of the team is safe and no one suffered injuries." Asked by ExplorersWeb, Purja confirmed that his team intended to return to the higher sections of Kangchenjunga and finish the rope-fixing work "after potentially three days, weather depending." "If other teams go up on a summit push in the meantime, they do this in full knowledge that ropes are fixed almost all the way to the summit, but not to the final summit point," Purja wrote. "This is a risk they have to calculate, and it is their decision." But according to an SMS sent by Uta Ibrahimi over Inreach, the climbers who launched their summit push last weekend only found out the ropes were not ready as they reached Camp 3. The SMS is reproduced below, without edits: Still same drama with fixing! Once we know fixing summit, and after on SM we understand that the fixing is not completed! We r on summit push.
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Race from sea level: British Xenon gas climbers summit Everest in just five days, but now US national claims to have done it in less than four
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The race is on to see who can get from sea level to Everest's summit in the quickest time possible. Earlier today (May 21), news broke that four former British special forces soldiers became the first climbers to scale Mount Everest using Xenon gas, which helped them go from sea level summit in an extraordinary five days. It took the four veterans, in their forties and fifties, just five days from leaving London to reach the top of the 29,032ft (8,848m) peak, leaving them two days to get back to base camp to make their seven-day goal for the entire expedition. Usually it takes mountaineers several weeks to acclimatize to the high altitudes. The previous record was 21 days, and most expeditions take 70 days to let climbers get used to the thin atmosphere. But now, Nimral Purja is claiming that a client of his expedition company, Elite Exped, has gone from New York to Everest summit in just 3 days, 23 hours and 27 minutes. What's more, he's claiming that he did it only using supplementary oxygen. According to Purja, on May 15, Andrew Ushakov, left New York at 10.15am to travel to Everest base camp. On May 16, he and a team of five sherpa guides started the climb and reached Camp 3 on May 17. On May 18 they departed Camp 4 and after 22 hours reached the summit on May 19 at 9.22am. Purja said in an Instagram post: "Andrew only started climbing in 2020, he is not a full-time athlete, which makes this feat even more impressive." A full-time engineer and a dad, Ushakov reportedly managed the feat with "dedication, training and lots of preparation and hypoxic training for acclimatisation (*including 400+ hours in a hypoxic tent)". British veterans Alistair Carns, 45, Kevin Godlington, 49, Anthony Stazicker, 41, Garth Miller, 51, inhaled Xenon gas in Germany before their expedition. The gas is said to help accelerate the acclimatization process by increasing your body's erythropoietin production and boost red blood cell count. They also slept in specially adapted hypoxic tents to simulate the rarified air found on Mount Everest in the run-up to the trip. On the mountain they used supplemental oxygen. Anthony Stazicker is the founder of ThruDark a brand that creates high-performance outwear for harsh outdoor conditions. The group's progress was communicated on its Instagram account: "First day (May 17) was 12 hours long yomp. Pretty punishing 6 hours from getting off the plane. Today (May 18) was 5hrs but another 1km in height gained. "The Mission: Everest team is currently at Camp 3 and preparing to move to Camp 4 tomorrow (May 20). They're making great time and morale is high, even dodging an avalanche as they moved through the Khumbu Icefall." The team summited on May 21 at 7.10am in 35mph winds. They were with a team of fiver sherpa and one photographer. Xenon gas has been used by guides before but this is the first time it has been used by regular climbers. Lukas Furtenbach of Austria-based Furtenbach Adventures, which organized the expedition told Reuters: "'Xenon improves the acclimatization and protects the body from altitude sickness and the effects from the hypoxic environment. "Xenon made the climb safer and shorter as it kept the climbers properly acclimatized," he said. 'Shorter expedition also means less garbage, less resources, less human waste in this sensitive environment." Xenon is a gas mainly used in manufacturing of lights, but also as a surgical anesthetic. It is recognized as a doping agent in competitive sport by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and in May 2014 was added to the Prohibited List of substances. Adrian Ballinger, American climber and guide from Alpenglow Expeditions company, told Reuters that the use of Xenon was a 'stunt ... it's never seemed like the type of experience we want to provide.' However, he admitted that 'everyone should climb the mountain in a form they are proud of. If these climbers are proud of this style, then that's their choice'. The British group are hoping to raise over £1 million ($1,341,000) for veterans charities. Social media comments on the Elite Exped's posts were not so congratulatory, however: Matteusstarling commented: "Speed means nothing, that's just EGO. No respect for setting a dangerous example for climbers. There is a method to keep people alive and healthy and that's just cutting corners to make headlines. Internet and social media help bring these kind of sadly bad examples to life. But in the mountains, life will be always priority. Congratulations to the courageous climb, but it's not an example, it's merely a exemption of someone risking it's [sic] life and fellow sherpas." Hornsby_type_r replied: "These 'records' are mostly a product of artificially cutting corners most others don't when climbing mountains. Hypoxic tent before, ~5 Sherpas supporting you and probably a very high oxygen flow rate making the actual altitude relatively irrelevant. Still very hard, but with a lot more aid than most people get when climbing the mountain." Lanzetta posted: "Well if we're talking about Sea to Summit I'd say Tim Macartney Snape did it correctly. Walked from the beach to the summit of Everest. If you go by plane it's not sea to summit, it's just a quick ascent of Everest." British MP Alistair Carns told The Sun the xenon team were treating the climb like a Special Ops mission – using every advantage they could get. He said: 'This is like a Special Forces mission. We have the best people, the best training, the best kit and we are at the very cutting edge of science. We'll go in, hit the objective and leave no trace, no waste.' Elsewhere at Everest base camp, a UK nurse, fresh from her summit, has revealed how it was her nursing profession that gave her the skills she needed to reach the world's highest peak. Rowena Rowberry, 34, who is a nurse and lecturer in nursing at the University of Derby, is mid-way through her challenge of scaling each of the seven highest summits in the seven continents. Mount Everest was her fourth summit. She's taking on the challenge to raise money for the Royal College of Nursing Foundation and to shine a light on the hardships of nursing. Rowberry told the BBC: "I feel battered and bruised, mentally and physically exhausted. I really did struggle on the way down and if it wasn't for my amazing sherpas who kept encouraging me... they were the real machine into making this happen. "There's so much I've been through and I don't think I would have been able to do this if I hadn't had some of the qualities nursing has given me. "I wanted to shine a light on the profession and show what we can do." The best winter hiking boots: for unbeatable performance in the cold The best ice axes: for tackling frozen terrain
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
US mountaineer who claims to have climbed Everest in quickest time ever from sea to summit arrested in Nepal over cash smuggling allegations
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. A Ukrainian-American mountaineer, who claimed to have made the fastest ascent of Mount Everest from sea level, has been accused of money smuggling. According to The Himalayan Times, Andrew Ushakov was detained at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu for illegally carrying a large sum of undeclared foreign currency. He was reportedly stopped at the airport on May 25 while carrying $20,000 cash. He was then arrested by the Department of Revenue Investigation (DRI) for attempting to board a Turkish Airlines flight to the US. The DRI alleges he was trying to smuggle the undeclared foreign currency out of Nepal. Ushakov, a client of Nims Purja's Elite Exped, claims to have gone from New York to Everest summit in just 3 days, 23 hours and 27 minutes using only supplementary oxygen. He has not posted on his Instagram account since he shared photos of his summit journey (above) on May 23. According to The Himalayan Times, Ushakov, who works as a structural engineer and was a relatively unknown climber, had hidden the cash in his luggage when it was discovered by police during baggage scanning. They said he claimed he had originally brought the money from the US and intended to take it back after summiting Mount Everest. He has reportedly been issued with a $60,000 fine for violating foreign currency regulations. On May 26, Ushakov remained in custody, having apparently not paid the fine. Nims Purja and the Elite Exped team are reported to have intervened to try to facilitate his fast release. Currently the Department of Tourism (DoT), under the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation, is investigating Ushakov's claims of the record ascent, along with four British climbers who used xenon gas and hypoxic tents to avoid the need for traditional slower acclimatization methods. Ushakov had attempted to make a fast ascent of Everest in 2024, reaching 8,500m (27,880ft) before developing a vision problem. He failed to complete the climb that time. The best winter hiking boots: for unbeatable performance in the cold The best ice axes: for tackling frozen terrain
