Everest 2025: Climbers to Watch and a Death on Ama Dablam

With Nepal Everest permits for foreigners breaking 400 and on the Tibet side, including Chinese nationals and Sherpas/Tibetan support climbers, approaching 300, there are a few individual climbers I will be following closely. Heavy snowfall has stalled progress over the last few days, but has restarted. An Austrian climber died on Ama Dablam.

Big Picture

Due to heavy snowfall, progress has stopped on both sides of Everest for the last few days. Several teams cancelled planned rotations to the Western Cwm, but restarted on April 29 as reported by Summit Climb, “This morning, team members ascended from Camp 1 to Camp 2 to aid in altitude adaptation before returning to Camp 1 for rest and recovery. The team reports good conditions on the route and plans to return to Camp 2 tomorrow for an overnight stay as part of their acclimatization schedule.”

This is a great photo taken by the very talented photographer Jason Weiss as he arrived at the Chinese Base Camp on the Tibet side.

He’s climbing with the Nepali outfit, Climbalaya. He said it looks like there are six teams with base camps established: Climbalaya, Kobler & Partner, Alpenglow, Furtenbach, Imagine Nepal, and a massive Chinese Team. When counting all the Chinese climbers, Sherpas from Nepal, and the 48 foreigners, there will be nearly 300 people on the Tibet side this year.

Female climbers continue to increase on Everest. On the Nepal side, this year, 74 of the 427 permits issued were for females, or 17%. In 2000, on the Nepal side, 32 female clients out of 234 went above base camp, or 14%, and 23 summited.

On a tragic note, I learned last week but chose not to publish the story until it became public, that Austrian Martin Hornegger, 64, died on Ama Dablam. Apparently, after summiting with his daughter, he fell while descending. Ama is playing tough this year. Ryan Mitchell tells me from the mountain that he and his partner abandoned their climb after experiencing frozen ropes between Camps 1 and 2, and reports of the upper 500 feet of the pyramid peak was solid blue ice.

Over on Makalu, seven Sherpas from Seven Summits Treks summited along with five clients of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police team they supported.

Please allow me to remind my readers that Nepal’s new rules, including the requirement to climb a 7000-meter mountain to qualify for an Everest permit, have NOT been approved and are NOT a current requirement. If approved, it MAY take effect in 2026. The mainstream media is reporting it as if it is a current regulation. It is not.

Unique 2025 Storylines

With so many people climbing, a few out-of-the-ordinary ones always emerge. While my reporting has shifted from individuals and teams to broader storylines, let’s look at a few climbers this season, some impressive, others creative, and some a bit nutty, but everyone has their reasons, and it’s not my place to judge, but I do have opinions 🙂

Speed

American Tyler Andrews, 34, an experienced mountain runner with 85 mountain records, including a world record on Manaslu, will attempt a speed record for ascending and descending Everest starting mid-May 2025.

In 1998, French alpinist Marc Batard ran (or walked very fast) from EBC to the summit with no O’s in 22:29 hours. Kazi Sherpa broke that record, taking 20:24 hours in 2008—though he’s believed to have used O2 on the descent. In 2003, Lakpa Gelu Sherpa set another new record from EBC to the summit at 10:56 hours, but used O2.

Tyler will use Asian Trekking for logistics and have his friend and training partner, Chris Fischer, with him through the icefall and some of the descent.  As for safety, he says, “I’ll have specific cutoff points all over the mountain—not just ‘be at the summit by 2 p.m.’ but precise times for each section. If I’m not hitting those windows, I’ll turn around and try another day. These predetermined cutoffs make making those hard decisions in the moment much easier.”

Swiss-Ecuadorian Karl Egloff, 44, is well known for setting records on the 7 Summits in the speed climbing business. Thus far, he claims round-trip records on Kilimanjaro, 6:42, Aconcagua, 7:57, Denali, 11:44, and Elbrus, 4:20. He also has records for Makalu, 25:00,  and Cotopaxi, 1:26. This spring, he will be on Everest at the same time as Andrews making the round trip run without O’s.

Not leaving the female climbers out, in 2018, Nepali Phunjo Jhangmu Lama set a female record on Everest with a 39:06 hour ascent. However, Ada Tsang Yin-hung of Hong Kong broke it in 2021, cutting 14 hours off Phunjo’s time. In 2024, she reclaimed her record with a 14:31-hour ascent. This is a nice interview with her on Climbing the Seven Summits‘ site.

Causes

Len Forkas is climbing Everest as part of the Mountain Professional team led by  Ryan Waters. Len is an endurance athlete, having climbed six of the Seven Summits, completed the Last Degree Ski Expedition to the South Pole, finished Race Across America twice as a solo competitor, completed the 3,000-mile coast-to-coast cycling race in just 11 days, and is a member of the 50 States Marathon Club, having run a marathon in every U.S. state.

Len is the Chairman and Founder of Hopecam, a national nonprofit that uses technology to help children with cancer overcome social isolation. Since 2002, Hopecam has connected over 5,500 children to their classmates in all 50 states by improving the quality of life for children with cancer by virtually connecting them with their classmates and peers. They provide families with tablets, laptops, WIFI access, and Hopecam resources at no cost to make these connections. With modern technology and coordination through families, teachers and healthcare providers, Hopecam links children with cancer to the lives they had before their diagnosis, acting as a bridge toward recovery.

Also, climbing for a cause, Tashi Gyalzen Sherpa is attempting to summit Everest four times in twenty days, supported by and promoting The Little Sherpa Foundation (see more below).

Mitch Hutchcraft is attempting to complete Mount Everest’s longest climb, raising awareness of animal conservation projects and money for the non-profit animal conservation organization SAVISM (see more below).

Distance

Mitch Hutchcraft is attempting to complete Mount Everest’s longest climb. He’s on Everest now after swimming the English Channel, cycling to India, and running and hiking to the mountain, where he intends to summit. He’s raising awareness of animal conservation projects and money for the non-profit animal conservation organization  SAVISM.

The Swim Phase involved a 34-kilometre swim across the English Channel from Shakespeare’s Cliff near Dover to Cap Gris Nez near Calais in France. During the project’s longest phase, he cycled over 10,000 kilometres from Calais in France, East across Europe and Asia, into eastern India. In the third phase, he hiked over 900 kilometres from sea level at Digha beach in West Bengal, India, to Nepal.

In the fourth and final phase, he walked over 350 kilometers from Kathmandu to the foot of Mt. Everest, where he is currently on his acclimatization rotations before his summit attempt in mid-May.

Hutchcraft is building on the 1996 famous journey by Göran Kropp, a Swedish mountaineer who became the first Scandinavian to climb Mount Everest solo, without oxygen or Sherpa support, after traveling there from Sweden by bicycle and foot.

Summit Records

Kami Rita Sherpa, 55,  is attempting his 31st Everest summit in 2025. He holds the current record of 30 summits and is the Sidar for an Indian Army team this spring.

Tashi Gyalzen Sherpa is attempting to summit Everest four times in twenty days, a feat that has never been achieved before. Gyalzen’s goal is to highlight the role that Sherpas have played in the history of Nepal mountaineering and the fragility of their culture.

The Little Sherpa Foundation supports Sherpas, and Gyalzen promotes their work in Nepal. The foundation raises funds and promotes initiatives to help Sherpa communities and families. A few of their projects included rebuilding projects in Phortse for homes, the nursery school, the Monastery, the Stupa, and the watermill, after the 2015 earthquake. In 2019, they rebuilt a health clinic providing local families access to full-time nursing care, medicines and visiting doctors. They have also rebuilt a new primary school in Phortse, initially built by Sir Edmund Hillary. In 2022, they completed an ambitious project to bring running water to Phortse.

Dawa Finjhok Sherpa wants to set a new record after summiting Everest three times within a week on oxygen while guiding clients in 2024. This year, he aims to summit Everest, Lhotse, and Makalu within 24 hours.

Lhakpa Sherpa, with a female record of 10 Everest summits, is seeking her 11th.

No O’s

Valery Babanov, 59, specializing in very technical routes on the highest peaks, has summited five 8,000ers, two of which were by new routes. In 2025, he aims to become the oldest climber to summit Everest sans Os. As mentioned under “speed”, Karl Egloff and Tyler Andrews also will not use oxygen from a bottle.

Flying

B.A.S.E jumper  Tim Howell and mountain guide Jon Gupta are at EBC now to attempt what Tim calls the highest wingsuit flight in history. With Gupta as his guide and support, he will climb Lhotse and fly off on one of the highest ridges. He expects the flight to take around four minutes. The pair made a similar effort in 2024, but cloud cover stopped the attempt.

The record holder is the late Valery Rozov, who jumped 7,700m (25,300ft) from Cho Oyu in 2016 and died in a base jumping accident in the Himalayas in 2017.

New Route

French alpinist Marc Batard, 70, is back to establish a route to bypass the Khumbu Icefall by climbing on the flanks of Nuptse, the peak to the climber’s right as they ascend the Icefall. In 2021 and 2022, with a team of four French climbers and two Sherpas, they scouted and built some of the route using permanent belays, steps, and a via-ferrata-style cable. He hopes to finish the route through what he calls “the traverse” to the Western Cwm and Camp 1 this spring.

The Benegas Brothers advocated for this for many years, but could never make it a reality because of the objective dangers and climbing difficulty. When Batard returned in 2022 to test his new route and set an age record for a no-Os summit, he accomplished neither.  I believe the hope of climbing Nuptse’s flanks to bypass the Icefall may never happen or be used commercially, as the route is too difficult for an average Everest climber’s skill level.

Xenon

Once everything is prepared for a summit push, a Furtenbach Adventures group will fly directly from the UK to Everest Base Camp in May. The group, which includes Alastair Carns, Anthony Stazicker, Garth Miller, and Kevin Godlington, all former U.K. military,  has been breathing xenon at home to increase their EPO levels. They plan to go to the summit immediately and complete the entire trip in a week.

If you are interested in xenon use, this is an outstanding, objective podcast with Steve House, one of America’s premier high-altitude technical climbers and co-founder of Uphill Athlete,  and Dr. Peter Hackett, a pioneer in high-altitude medicine and Everest summiter. They discuss the potential use of xenon gas as a performance enhancer for mountaineers.

Xenon, once used as an anesthetic, is a noble gas that may briefly stimulate erythropoietin (EPO), but the few studies done so far lack solid evidence of improving red blood cell count or performance. Dr. Hackett explains the risks of unsupervised xenon use and stresses the importance of controlled research before drawing conclusions. Hackett shares skepticism around current anecdotal claims, especially without peer-reviewed data. The episode emphasizes safety, science, and honesty in altitude medicine, without judgment.

Lukas Furtenbach, founder of Furtenbach Adventures, and Steve House discuss Lukas’s work in high-altitude expedition mountaineering. They discuss the development of hypoxic pre-acclimatization techniques and how technologies like xenon gas are being used to reduce expedition durations. The conversation addresses the ethical debates around these technologies, the commercialization of Everest, and the reasons behind Lukas’ decision to utilize xenon gas in a groundbreaking expedition beginning in May.