It usually takes six to eight weeks to climb Mount Everest, but four ex-military friends are planning to accomplish it in a week. It sounds impossible, but they hope to summit the 8,849-metre peak with the help of noble gas xenon 10.
Lukas Furtenbach, CEO of Furtenbach Adventures, said, "Before you can go to climb Mount Everest, you need to adapt your body to the low levels of oxygen." Xenon is sometimes used as an anaesthetic, he mentioned.
He explained that before trekking to the base camp, you need to do several rotations on the mountain. It means going up and down several times to make your body used to the high altitude.
After weeks of acclimatising, your body is ready to make more red blood cells to carry oxygen better, and then you can attempt to reach the top.
The four men will fly from the UK to Kathmandu and will take a helicopter straight to the base camp. They will then try to summit the mountain, and if they succeed, it will be the first time anyone has done it this quickly, according to CNN.
"One side effect of using Xenon is that it triggers the body's EPO production, and that results in an increase of red blood cells in the blood - and that's the same effect that you have when you are acclimatising at real altitude," Mr Furtenbach told CNN.
Mr Furtenbach's primary objective with this approach is to enable climbers to reach the summit quickly, hence decreasing the possibility of being stranded in adverse weather conditions, avalanches, or becoming sick, BBC reported.
The UIAA (International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation) cautioned that xenon should be treated as a medication since it is an anaesthetic and that using it in an unmonitored situation may cause "impaired brain function, respiratory compromise, and even death."
It added that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has prohibited the substance since 2014.
Al Carns, a British lawmaker, said he was comfortable with the risks, as were the other members of the team, Garth Miller, Kevin Godlington, and Anthony Stazicker, who have also had careers in the armed services.
He stated, "We're all from a military background, very specialised elements in the military. Our whole careers have been built around the ability to balance risk, to take risk and mitigate it in the most effective ways."
He explained, "Xenon is only one small section of it that probably enhances our ability by five or 10 per cent and particularly reduces the chances of high altitude sickness or oedema, which are the big things that will catch us out."
