Lydia Bradey: New Zealand mountaineer on the group who used xenon gas to speed up their summit of Everest

An unconventional trip up Mount Everest by British climbers has started a bit of a debate.

The group managed to fly from London, summit Everest and return home in under a week by using xenon gas. The gas is said to help climbers quickly acclimatise to high altitudes. 

The trip has left many people questioning the ethics of using the gas - and asked if one of mountaineering's greatest accomplishments should be made easier. 

New Zealand mountaineer Lydia Bradey says this isn't unethical, and it's not going to put sherpas out of work.

"You still need to have a base camp, which has to be created. You still need to have equipment, ropes up the mountain which are carried and fixed by sherpas...and you still need to have camps and gas canisters and oxygen bottles carried for the summit."

LISTEN ABOVE

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News talksb Well.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
A trip up Mount Everest buy British Climbers has started
a bit of a debate. The group managed to fly
from London Summitt Everest and return home under a week
by using xenon gas. The gas is said to help
climbers quickly acclimatize to high altitude. The trip has left
many people questioning the ethics of using the gas and

(00:33):
asking if one of mountaineering's greatest accomplishments should be made easier.
Lydia Brady has climbed ever six times in a nineteen
eighty eight was the first woman to reach the summit
without supplementary oxygen. She joins me now to discuss love
you to have you with us, Lydia, thank you for
your time.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Hey, what's your position on the use of this xenon gas?
What did you make of this from the British Climbers.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Well, I'm completely happy and interested in the use of
zeno and gas. The ultimate sheet because it has been
described as a cheat, is of course the use of oxygen,
which I've used, you know, and I like and it
keeps us safe. But you know, to say that the

(01:18):
use a small use of another gas is cheating and
oxygen is not cheating, or some of the other drugs
that we use, even trekking to everspace camp like diamocs,
then it doesn't quite make sense.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
Some mountaineers in the Nepalese government aren't happy about it.
They've sort of questioned the ethics around that. Do they
have the right to be unhappy?

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Well, I think I mean, anyone has a right to
be unhappy. That's fine. And sometimes the people in the
government are not actually mountaineers, so they are responding to
a lot of probably social media and public curiosity. You know,
sometimes people are just curious and it sounds outrageous. So

(02:04):
I have done a little bit of study on it.

Speaker 2 (02:07):
I don't want to be too cynical, but do you
think the Nepalese government to worry that if people are
flying in and flying out and been able to do
it very quickly, that the local economy is not going
to benefit from them being there? The shirpers and other
people involved.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
So there's quite that's relevant. And I think you know,
if you're going to go and climb Saga Matha, chong
Aloma Mount Everest. Then you still need to have a
base camp which has to be created. You still need
to have equipment ropes on the mountain which are fixed
and carried and fixed by shirpers. So it's a huge

(02:44):
cheat if you like, if you really want to talk
about cheating. And you still need to have camps and
gas canisters and oxygen bottles carried for the summit push
and things like that all the way up to eight
thousand meters. So the work there, the work is still there.
It's not as much time. The company that supported these

(03:10):
climbers from the UK to do the seven day ascent
of ever A seven days UK Everest UK, then they
still employ all their staff for three months.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
Okay, right there we go. You've got a lot of
experience in the mountains as a climber, a guide, you're
also a physio. Can you talk me through what the
gas is and how it's been used to help in
a mountaineering sense.

Speaker 3 (03:37):
Okay, So I would just like to qualify that I'm
not a doctor or an a nethetist who would be
much sharper on this than so as a noble gas
and it exists in very small amounts in the atmosphere.
So it has been an approved anesthetic drug with analgesic
or pain relieving properties, interduced into clinical practice over seventy

(04:01):
years ago, and the Russians have used it as well,
I think in sports. But some time ago, in twenty fourteen,
it was banned by the World Anti Doping Agency WIDER
for competition, and this is a digression on how it works.
But climbing everest is of course not regulated by WIDER

(04:24):
or competition, and many substances that we use on everest
widely are banned by WIDER such as dex methodsoe asthmas, spray, diamocks,
and even oxygen. Okay, but as far as studies show
with zenin, it seems to cause a temporary increase in

(04:44):
epo or erythropoitin, which is a hormone that stimulates the
production of red blood cells, so red blood cells you know,
turn into join with iron and become hemoglobin and carry oxygen. However,
even after chronic use, which you know, long term use,
under studies, it doesn't actually appear to increase or improve

(05:07):
athletic performance, cardio respiratory fitness, or endurance. So there's the thing.
It seems to increase EPO, but it doesn't do these
things that we think is why these guys climbed it.
Ever since seven days, it appears that the effect may
be primarily neuro and cardio protective. Okay, so it can

(05:31):
in all the studies, it seems that there's sometimes focal
and global you know, small and big helps with preventing
brain death, spinal cord which is your nervous system death,
and also seems to help in traumatic brain injury. So
there's all the well, there's some of the science wrapped up,
and I do have references, but people can go online.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
So could this actually be making it's safer to.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
Some of it? You have totally hit the nail on
the head. So then we'll let's go back. So my
partner has just come back from running a film team
on Everest and he was working through the same operator,
Lucas Furtenbark or furtin Bark Adventures, who supported these three guys,
four guys to do the seventh Day ascent, and they

(06:21):
said that they were just blistering. I mean, they were
just going, they were really really rapid. But it seemed
that their experience was that they didn't suffer the headaches
and the nausea that you often do when you go
to a new altitude. They felt fantastic.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
So here's the thing. You've still got to be really fit.
You've got to physically be able to climb Everest. This
is just helping you do it without some of those
side effects that we get from high altitude.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
Yes, and let's you just so you're so yeah, you've
got it so clear. On top of that, many many
people nowadays climbing Everest, and these guys slept and even
trained in hypoxic conditions. So we sometimes use a hypoxic machine.

(07:14):
It doesn't change the air pressure, but sucks out the
oxygen in what we breathe, and we put a plastic
tent over our bed and it's very romantic and aesthetic
and makes a lot of noise and it's pretty much horrible,
but you does, you know, seriously, But lots of people
are doing this for prayer climatizing and it does and

(07:35):
that increases your red blood cell count and that increases
your tolerance to high altitude. And these guys had done
a whole lot of that. Oh last, they were really fit.
Plus one of them had already climbed evers before, and
two others had high altitude experience and they or all
climbers so they could move on their crampons.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
This has been fascinating. Thank you so much for talking
us through this, Lydia. That was Lydia Brady there who
because my first thought was I'm sure you were the same,
was like, oh no, this is cheating, this is making
it easier. We're going to get a whole lot of
people flying in and flying up. We rested and doing
this really quickly. But actually the way it's kind of
being presented to me now you kind of go, actually,
this could be a much safer way for this pretty

(08:14):
dangerous sport, you know, to kind of continue. So interesting
stuff there.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks a B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio