Everest 2025: Fast Everest Summits 3 or 5 Days?

The 2025 Spring Everest season continues to bring surprises, with summits claimed after leaving home for three and five days, using supplemental oxygen. Meanwhile, others continue to summit the traditional way and enjoy the overall experience, as the season winds down. A cyclone may impact Everest in a few days.

Weather Warning– Better Summit by 27^th!!!

Meteorologist Chris Tomer tells me action is heating in the Bay of Bengal and will probably shut the season down around May 27:

Yes.  It really represents the start of the monsoon season. What’s really unique is that we could have that cyclone in the Bay of Bengal and a cyclone on the west side of India in the Indian Ocean at the same time.

Traditional Summits

On Wednesday, May 21, 2025, Everest Expeditions Nepal announced that a group of clients, supported by eleven support climbers, had reached the summit of Everest. Pioneer Adventure claimed four summits on what was said to be a windy day.

Eva Steinwald became the oldest American woman to summit Everest at age 62. She was with Climbing the Seven Summits, which had a successful season, including setting an American female youth record by taking 17-year-old Emma Schwerin to the summit. Overall, CTSS saw 58 summits this season, including members and support climbers.

Willie Benegas reached his 14th Everest summit today, May 21, 2025.

Cleaning the Mountain

The Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee reported that the Nepal Army helped carry down 100 bags of recyclable waste from Pangboche to Lukla.  Climber Paul Adler told me he saw drone after drone flying rice bags filled with trash down from Camp 1. By the way, Paul and his daughter, Bianca,  summited 18 years after Paul summited in 2007.

No PR, Only Oxygen and Hypox Pre-Acclimatization

Note: I have been unable to verify this claim independently; it’s being widely reported across multiple media outlets. I became aware of this yesterday after being alerted by the Washington Post.

We were all aware of the UK xenon-powered climbers due to the widespread publicity campaign. Nevertheless, there was an under-the-radar climb that usurped them, which didn’t use the noble gas. Andrew Ushakov of the U.S. made it from New York City to the summit of Everest in 3 days, 23 hours, and 7 minutes, assisted by five Sherpa with Elite Exped. You can read his version of how and why at his site. Elite issued this statement:

Huge Congratulations to Andrew Ushakov (@ushakov343 )who has just become the fastest person to go from sea-level to the summit of Everest in just 3 days, 23 hours and 7 minutes.

Normally, Everest climbs take 50+days, largely because of the acclimatisation period. Andrew did hypoxic training beforehand as part of his mission preparation – spending 400+hours in a hypoxic tent to help acclimatisation. Andrew started his challenge from Sea Level, starting at New York on May 15th at 00.30am and flying to Kathmandu, and then flying to Everest Base Camp. Then he and his team climbed from Base Camp and stood on the summit of Everest on May 19th date at 9.22am – meaning he completed the incredible feat in 3 days, 23 hours and 7 minutes – this sets a new benchmark in what is possible for humans to achieve. Huge Congratulations Andrew – we are proud to have helped you realise your dream! (*Andrew used traditional bottled oxygen for the climb from Base Camp to the Summit.)

This is a triumph, not just for Andrew, but for everyone who believes in their dreams. Andrew only started climbing in 2020, he is a father and multiple business owner. He is not a full-time athlete, which makes this feat even more impressive.

Andrew’s Sea to Summit journey saw many challenges along the way, including breaking his shoulder in an avalanche just months before this epic challenge. Working closely with Andrew and his doctors, our team, including guide @tejan.g, were able to put extra safety precautions in place to ensure he could climb with us in the safest way possible.

Andrew is now safely down the mountain and on his way he and the team removed waste from the Camps as they went. Truly inspirational.

Shout out to the @eliteexped team who supported Andrew’s record including – ⁠Tejan Gurung (TJ), Pur Bahadur Gurung (Yukta), Bidhan Shrestha, Sujal Gurung, KiTemba Sherpa, Pemba Chhewang Sherpa, our porters and Base Camp crew! You should all be very proud!

“Powered by Xenon”

Garth Miller, Alastair Carns, Anthony Stazicker, and Kev Godlington left the UK on Friday, May 16 and summited on May 21, five days later, supported by eight Sherpas, of whom five summited. On May 5, the four climbers underwent 30-minute xenon therapy at a hospital in Germany to increase their red blood cell count. They also spent more than 500 hours of hypoxic training, including sleeping in a hypoxic tent and training with a mask, according to Miller in media interviews.

The four are all former UK military personnel, and Miller had summited Everest twice before, in 2004 and 2022. The program was the brainchild of Dr. Michael Fries, head physician for anesthesia and intensive care medicine at St. Vincenz Hospital in the German town of Limburg an der Lahn and Lukas Furtenbach of Furtenbach Adventures.

Noted high-altitude physician and Everest summiteer, Dr. Peter Hackett, said in a podcast with Steve House, “…while noble gas may briefly stimulate erythropoietin (EPO), the few studies done so far lack solid evidence of improving red blood cell count or performance and explained the risks of unsupervised xenon use and stressed the importance of controlled research before drawing conclusions.”

Click on these links to listen to the House Podcast and Furtenbach’s interview on the use of xenon gas. Hacket was interviewed on NPR on May 18th and said:

Well, I think there are other things that are being used by this group that are probably more important. For example, they did hypoxic pre-acclimatization. That means that they slept in tents over their beds at night that contained air that had less oxygen in it, in order to simulate high altitude. And they did that for 6 to 8 weeks, is my understanding. So that pre-acclimatizes the body, gets the body ready to go to high altitude. Secondly, and most importantly, they’re using oxygen on the climb. And that’s the most helpful thing that any Everest climber can have, is to use oxygen. So it’s so hard to tell if there’s any additional benefit from xenon.

In any event, whether it was the pre-acclimatization, the use of supplemental oxygen starting from unknown altitudes and flow rate or the xenon protocol, all involved have changed the way the world thinks of climbing Everest. For some, who face time constraints when considering climbing Everest, it may be viewed in the same light as a climb of Mont Blanc or Ama Dablam, provided they have $150,000.

In addition to the climb, they aim to highlight the veterans’ community and their welfare, and to raise £1 million for many Armed Forces and Veterans’ charities, including those that support bereaved military families. You can donate at this link.

Potpourri

French climber Marc Batard is said to have abandoned his effort to create an alternative route to the Khumbu Icefall by installing a via ferrata-style route on the flanks of Nuptse due to a lack of support and funding from the Nepalese government.

Also, many of my readers have asked about International Mountain Guides. Eric Simonson told me:

“IMG did the Lobuche Peak trip and several Everest trekking groups, but I decided to take a sabbatical in 2025 from climbing Everest, so we sent our Everest climbers with another guide service. I must say, after conducting at least one Everest trip every spring since 1997 (and four more in the 80’s and early 90’s), I had forgotten what it was like to actually spend April and May without the lurking dread of the 2 am phone call from the Himalayas!”

Winds to return

It is still windy on Everest, but these are the remaining teams to watch (I may have missed a few).