Furtenbach Adventures Archive - Adventure Mountain

21. May 202523. May 2025

Furtenbach team reaches the summit of Mount Everest in five days – thanks to xenon preparation

Lukas Furtenbach and his team at the base camp at the foot of Mount Everest will soon be popping champagne corks. The four Britons Garth Miller, Alistair Carns, Anthony Stazicker and Kevin Godlington reached the highest point on earth at 8,849 meters today (with bottled oxygen and Sherpa support) – five days after setting off from London last Friday. Furtenbach Adventures announced this in its Instagram story.

The Brits arrived at Everest Base Camp (EBC) by helicopter on Saturday and left for high camp that evening with a strong Sherpa team. They are expected back at base camp today or tomorrow morning at the latest and will return home on Friday, Lukas writes to me from EBC. The goal: to be back in London within seven days.

Regardless of how you think about it, Furtenbach’s controversial experiment to radically shorten the time for an Everest expedition by using xenon for pre-acclimatization was a success. Provided, of course, that nothing happens to his clients on the descent.

15. May 202516. May 2025

Death on the South Col of Mount Everest

Among the many summit success stories from Mount Everest today is the news of the first death of a foreign climber on the world’s highest mountain this spring season. The Nepalese expedition operator Snowy Horizon Treks announced that a 45-year-old client from the Philippines died last night on the South Col. The mountaineer had been preparing for his summit attempt when he passed away, it said. He was probably suffering from high altitude sickness.

24. January 202525. January 2025

International alpinism association UIAA warns against xenon use in high-altitude mountaineering – Furtenbach contradicts

In the debate about the planned use of the noble gas xenon with the aim of shortening the duration of Everest expeditions to one week, the international alpinism association UIAA has now also intervened. “According to current [scientific] literature, there is no evidence that breathing in xenon improves performance in the mountains, and inappropriate use can be dangerous,” reads a statement from the UIAA Medical Commission.

17. January 202517. January 2025

Xenon use on Everest short trip: “Trained doctor with appropriate equipment is absolutely essential”

And suddenly the mountaineering scene is discussing a noble gas that we all probably heard about in chemistry lessons at school. But most of us have forgotten all about it. Xenon is one of the rarest elements found on earth. Although it is in the air we breathe, the proportion of xenon is tiny: 87 billionths or 0.0000087 percent (I hope I didn’t make a mistake with the zeros).

If you want to extract xenon, this almost-nothing proportion has to be extracted from the air in a complex process. This makes the gas expensive. But it is also in demand. Xenon is used for light sources (such as car lamps), as a laser gas in the semiconductor industry, as a propulsion agent for satellites, in medicine as a high-tech anesthetic – and probably soon also in commercial eight-thousander mountaineering.

15. January 202516. January 2025

With Xenon to Mount Everest and back in just one week?

Faster than the flash? Lukas Furtenbach is already calling one of his offers “Flash Expeditions”. For around 100,000 euros, the Austrian has been offering clients of his company Furtenbach Adventures the chance to climb Mount Everest in three weeks – with several weeks of hypoxia training at home, a helicopter shuttle to the mountain, two personal climbing sherpas for support and the use of bottled oxygen at a high flow rate. A conventional Everest expedition, which the company also has in its portfolio, lasts six weeks, others up to ten weeks. In the upcoming Everest spring season, Furtenbach now wants to do the whole thing in just one week. Can that work?

14. November 202414. November 2024

Farewell on Putha Hiunchuli: Alix von Melle scatters the ashes of her husband Luis Stitzinger

At the summit of Putha Hiunchuli, Alix von Melle leaves Luis' ashes to the wind — At the summit of Putha Hiunchuli, Alix von Melle leaves Luis’ ashes to the wind

I often think about Luis Stitzinger these days. Now that his widow Alix von Melle has spread his ashes on the 7,246-meter-high Putha Hiunchuli in western Nepal. The same place where I first attempted a seven-thousander in 2011 – in vain, I had to turn back at 7,150 meters. Alix’s expedition leader on Putha Hiunchuli was now the Austrian Herbert Wolf – as he was for me 13 years ago.

And with Eva-Maria Ramsebner, from Austria too, there was also someone en route from the team with whom I was able to celebrate the first ascent of the 7,129-meter-high Kokodak Dome in western China in 2014. Expedition leader at the time: Luis Stitzinger. So many interfaces – no wonder I remember him so often these days.

23. May 202428. May 2024

First summit successes by foreign climbers on the north side of Everest in five years – another death on the south side

“We had the mountain to ourselves. With perfect conditions,” Lukas Furtenbach enthuses on Instagram. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and not many people will experience an empty Everest ever again. I am aware how magical this is. Have I deserved it? I am not sure. But I am so thankful for the best Everest summit I ever had.”

For the 46-year-old head of the expedition operator Furtenbach Adventures, it was the fourth Everest summit success after 2016, 2019 and 2022, the second (after 2019) via the Tibetan north side. The Austrian led a small team over the Northeast Ridge to the highest point at 8,849 meters early this morning local time. The group had only entered Tibet from Nepal eleven days ago after the Chinese-Tibetan authorities had taken a long time to issue climbing permits.

7. May 202410. May 2024

Mount Everest: First summit success of the season reported from the Tibetan north side

Tibetan north side of Mount Everest (in 2005)

First the rope-fixing team, then the others. This is how commercial mountaineering on eight-thousanders usually works. Mount Everest is no exception. Today, the first summit success of the spring was reported from the highest mountain on earth.

In the morning local time, the Tibet Himalaya Expedition team, which fixed the ropes on the Tibetan north side of the mountain, reached the highest point at 8,849 meters. This was confirmed to me by Mingma Sherpa, head of the Nepalese expedition operator Climbalaya, and Lukas Furtenbach, head of the Austrian company Furtenbach Adventures.

Tag: Furtenbach Adventures