FOUR BRITISH SPECIAL FORCES OPERATORS MAKE EVEREST HISTORY WITH A NOVEL METHOD

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, looks like the Special Forces are in the news
as British Special Forces make Everest history. Four former Special
Force soldiers have set a record by climbing Mount Everest
in under five days without acclimatizing on the mountain as
part of a high speed expedition controversially aided by Xenon
gas x E N O N. The team, which included

(00:22):
a UK government minister, submitted submitted the world's highest peak
early on Wednesday. A few weeks back. Xenon was used
to help them pre acclimatize to low oxygen and high altitudes.
Climbers usually spend between six to eight weeks on Everest
before summoning. Organizers said the use of Xenon had made

(00:45):
such a fast ascent possible, but the science around using
the gas remains controversial. Although the expedition is a record
in Everest ascent without acclimatas acclimatation in the Himalayas, it's
not the fastest Everest time though. That record still belongs
to Laca Gilou Shrpa, who climbed from base camp to
the summit in ten hours and fifty six minutes about

(01:07):
twenty two years ago, but he did this after acclimatizing
on the mountain. The Xenon aided team, accompanied by five
SHRPA guides and a cameraman reached the twenty nine thousand
foot summit early on a Wednesday and began their descent
soon afterwards. They started on the afternoon of the sixteenth
of May and submitted on the morning of the twenty first,
taking four days in eighteen hours. The four SAS soldiers,

(01:31):
who included veterans minister Alistair Kayak Karnes, slept for six
weeks in special tenths before traveling to Nepal to helped
him acclimatize to decrease levels of oxygen in high levels.
They then flew to Everest base camp from Katmandu and
started climbing straight away. Mister Ferdinbach said they used also
supplemental oxygen like other climbers during the expedition. Climbers usually

(01:54):
spend weeks going up and down between base camp and
higher camps before making the final push for the summit.
They need to do that to get used to thinery
oxygen levels that hire Mountain two high Mountain two mountain
altitudes having a hard time speaking to the above eight
thousand meters, known as the death zone. Available oxygen is
only about a third of that president at sea level.

(02:15):
The team made a three month acclimatization program and simulated
altitude before coming to Nepal. The simulated altitude was created
and what is known as hypoxic tents, from which oxygen
is sucked out using a generator, emulating, of course, simulating
the environment. The climbers inhale xenon gas, though at a
clinic in Germany two weeks before the expedition, and this

(02:37):
is to help to protect the body from altitude sickness.
Some researchers say xenon increases production of a protein called
erythroprotein that fights hypoxia, a condition that occurs when the
body can't get enough oxygen. They say it does that
by increasing the number of red blood cells, which of
course contains hemoglobin which transports oxygen around the body and iron,

(02:59):
but this remains disputed subject and many say further studies
are required. Some in the mountaineering industry have cautioned against
the use of this gas. According to literature, there is
no evidence that breathing xenon improves performance in the mountains,
and an inappropriate use, though it can be dangerous and
trying to acclimatize the altitude as a complex process that

(03:19):
affects the various organs and such as the brain, the heart,
the kidneys, the lungs to a different degree, and it's
not yet fully understood from a cycle. From a physiological
point of view, a single one off drug cannot be
the key to improving acclimatization or aclimatizing. Another individual who
heads an expedition team climbing Everest from the Chinese side

(03:42):
to the north also makes his clients undergo preaclimatization training
like using hypoxic tents to shorten time on the mountains,
but he opposes using xenon gas, and his theory is
if you're promoting as a performance, if you're promoting xenon
as a performance enhancer, that the person is not really
willing to examine what that means for fairness and integrity.
People are grasping at shortcuts. But now that the British

(04:04):
team of Special Forces have made their ground baking Everest ascent,
expedition operators think in some worry that this method may
be used by other climbers as well. If that happens,
then it will certainly have a direct impact on the
tourism industry as the length of time of mountaineers stay
will come down significantly. So maybe there's a reason behind
why some people don't want you to do it. Maybe

(04:24):
it's health, maybe it's money. And Paul's Tourism Department officials
so they were not aware the British team were climbing
Everest without the acclementization. Now that we know about it,
they said, we will be discussing the issue and decide
on our future course of action. But why climb the
highest peak at such speed. Well, shorter expedition has a
lower carbon footprint and less ecological impact, and it could

(04:45):
be safer for climbers because they can climb them mountain
in good health and they're exposed to high altitude risks
and mountain hazards for shorter time. So I don't know
what side you lean on. But the Special Forces have
contributed now to the hiking of the summit in Mount Everest.
Interesting story indeed,