The final stop was at around 7,400 meters. After almost ten hours of climbing, Tyler Andrews decided to abandon his speed attempt on Mount Everest and descend again. “Slower pace than planned, snow has gotten worse and harder to break through solo,” it said on his website.
The 35-year-old long-distance runner from the USA wants to climb Everest without bottled oxygen – and faster than anyone has ever done before. The current record for reaching the summit without a breathing mask from the Nepalese south side is 20 hours and 24 minutes, claimed in 1998 by Nepalese mountaineer Kaji Sherpa.
Fourth attempt
Last spring, the much-hyped “Race on Everest” between Andrews and Karl Egloff – who has Swiss and Ecuadorian passports – failed at the end of May due to bad weather. Egloff, who set off without oxygen, turned back at Camp 3 at around 7,300 meters on the route secured with ropes up to the summit, while Andrews turned back at around the height of the so-called Balcony (8,400 m). Due to the stormy weather, Tyler had already decided before his start at base camp to use a breathing mask in the upper part of the mountain, contrary to his original plan. It was Andrews’ third unsuccessful attempt of the spring season.
Having arrived already acclimatized
Tyler had arrived at Everest Base Camp just yesterday, Monday. “I live in Ecuador, at an altitude of 3,000 meters, train almost daily at 4,700 meters, and use a hypoxic device at home that allows me to simulate training at 9,000 meters,” he said in an interview with Nadine Regel in the magazine Bergundsteigen: “This allows me to arrive as acclimatized as possible without having to spend many nights at extreme altitudes. I deliberately avoid that.”
Tyler says he doesn’t see himself as an elite mountaineer: “I am a runner through and through; that was my first sport, my first love, and it shapes my approach. I bring my endurance to the mountains and want to see how far I can get with it.” He climbed Manaslu in 2024 from base camp without an oxygen mask in nine hours and 52 minutes – via the normal route secured with fixed ropes. He relies on the infrastructure of commercial mountaineering, says Andrews. “Thirty years ago, it would have been unthinkable for me to attempt Everest.”
Currently, apart from him, only the expedition team of Polish ski mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel is on site – reinforced by two Nepalese Icefall Doctors. Bargiel, also en route without bottled oxygen, has reached the South Col at almost 8,000 meters as part of his acclimatization and skied down from there. The extent to which the route above the Khumbu Icefall is secured with fixed ropes has not yet been communicated.
Fastest ascent disputed
In the mountaineering chronicle Himalayan Database, Kaji Sherpa’s rapid ascent of Everest in the fall of 1998 is still listed as disputed. Other mountaineers who were also on Everest at the time doubted that Kaji had really reached the highest point at 8,849 meters.
The summit success was also not listed in the chronicle as an ascent without bottled oxygen: Kaji had received supplemental oxygen from his two Sherpa companions, who were wearing breathing masks, during the descent between the South Summit of Everest (8,749 meters) and the South Col (7,906 meters).
Previously, the Guinness Book of Records had listed Frenchman Marc Batard as the fastest man without a breathing mask on Everest. He had climbed the highest mountain on earth in 22 and a half hours in fall 1988, without using bottled oxygen on either the ascent or the descent.
This article offers fascinating insights into modern mountaineering, particularly the push for speed ascents without oxygen. It’s impressive to see how training and technology enable climbers like Tyler Andrews, but the risks, especially on Everest, remain a constant concern.