#191 - Tyler Andrews, FKT Holder - Mount Everest

One decision on Everest can erase years of work, and Tyler Andrews knows that better than most. After six failed summit pushes and three straight Everest seasons, he finally threads the needle and sets a blistering speed record, then comes home to the weirdest part of any big win: the emotional comedown and the sudden question of “now what?” We talk about what it’s like to chase a far-out goal for years, hit it on the last possible day, and then step straight into a new level of attention that reaches far beyond the trail running world. 

Tyler breaks down why Mount Everest isn’t a simple fitness contest. The jet stream shrinks the summit window, crowds turn the route into a bottleneck, and the Khumbu Icefall remains a moving hazard that never really feels routine. We get into the real logistics of a speed attempt: waiting for the right weather, positioning for the end-of-season window, and staying ready when so much is outside your control. Tyler also shares how mentors and time in Nepal helped him build the mountain skills he didn’t grow up with, and what he’s learned about the culture clash between traditional mountaineering and modern endurance-driven approaches. 

We also tackle the oxygen vs no oxygen controversy head-on. Tyler explains his original plan, the exact moment safety and wind forced the pivot, and why he thinks both categories are valid but fundamentally different. From there, the conversation goes deep into the performance details that sound like ultrarunning at 29,000 feet: camps as aid stations, fast transitions, fueling around 400 calories per hour with gels and drink mix, and heart rate data that still doesn’t fully make sense. We wrap with his hypoxic training setup, blood testing, whether he’ll return via the north side, and a quick detour into the Mount Elbert FKT that never got submitted. 

If you want more Everest speed record detail, altitude acclimatization tactics, and the mindset behind endurance mountain performance, hit subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a rating and review. What part of Tyler’s approach surprised you most?

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Transcript

Welcome And Subscribe Request

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey now. This is the Steam Stoff Podcast. What's up, guys? Uh hey, before we get started, if you haven't already, whatever platform you're listening to this on, please hit that subscribe or follow button, whether that's Apple, Spotify, or YouTube. Those subscriptions go a super long way in being able to keep the podcast going and allowing me to continue to tell the stories of these amazing athletes and also do some of the race coverage and all the good stuff that we've been doing over the last few years. And also, if you haven't already, please give us a rating and a review if you haven't. Yeah, let us know what you guys think about the podcast and hope you enjoy this episode. Thanks so much for tuning in.

Meeting Tyler And The Home Reset

SPEAKER_00 0:49

All right. Tyler Andrews, welcome to the Steep Stuff Podcast. How's it going, man?

SPEAKER_01 0:53

I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to chat.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Yeah, dude, I'm so stoked. It's funny. Uh you're a member of the Lost Sportiva team. I know we're in group chats together and stuff like that, but never never met you in person. Always been a big admirer. I we have a mutual friend named Chris Christopher Fisher. Uh and uh he always talks about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Chris Fisher.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Yeah, yeah. Legend. Absolute legend.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Legend, yeah, the man, the legend.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Yeah. He's another one I haven't seen in a while either. Um, dude, I I know you just got back from a long, long leg of travel. We have so much to talk about, but uh how how are things feeling? Just kind of getting back into the swing of things, get getting back into routine and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Yeah. Yeah, routine, definitely. That's I feel like the thing I've been missing the most. Um I I think when I'm training a lot, routine is something that I rely on heavily. And so um, you know, I had a lot of routine in Nepal before Everest, which obviously we could talk about. And then kind of the two months after that were very joyful and fun, and also not a lot of routine. It was a lot of being in different places every week and visiting people and vacation, all of which is great. But for me as an athlete, it can be, you know, I I'm a little bit of a creature of habit, I think. And so I I think I enjoy that for a little while, and then after it starts to eat at me a little bit, and I'm like, I just want to get home and like have all my, you know, the places I train and everything be there. So it's I literally got home yesterday and it's really good to be here. And you know, I did my first run on our little local hill here this morning, and it just feels really good to be back.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Amazing. Yeah, dude, as an athlete, yeah, you're you're a creature of habit. You wanna, everything is dialed, right? So when you get out of that routine, it's always crazy. I don't want to bury the lead too much. Obviously, we everybody knows the reason we're having this conversation. A lot of it is to talk about Everest. I'd say first and foremost, the the big question I have is you achieve this great thing, and after that, you kind of go on this, you know, you go, I guess, on this whirlwind of uh of achievement after you've done this. Has it been a come down? Like how has the come down been after doing this great thing?

SPEAKER_01 2:44

I I think so. I think um, you know, you hear about it with athletes after the Olympics or something like that. And I think it there definitely is a piece of that where you have all this energy and you're, you know, you're an athlete too, and you're work you you know the experience of having a really far out goal, especially something like this that has been many years in the making, not just one season. And you kind of have your schedule figured out for the indefinite future. Because like, I'm just gonna keep training for this thing until I get it done. And maybe it's gonna take a year, or maybe it's gonna take five years, but I'm just I know what that I'm gonna keep basically going through this cycle and trying to train and prepare as as hard as I can for this thing. And then you do the thing, and it's like, oh wow, it's amazing. And at the same time, you're like, huh, okay, now what do I do? You know, like I have this big, huge gaping hole in my heart, so to speak, you know, to make it dramatic. But um, so there definitely is some of that, and and I think that's pretty standard for anyone, whether it's you, you know, an athlete accomplishing something, or I have a friend who had a really successful business that he sold about my age, and had a similar kind of moment after that of like, okay, now what do I do? Do I go to another business? Do I pivot and do something completely different? So I think whenever you have really driven people who are super goal-oriented, and then you achieve that goal, there is this, yeah, that's awesome and it's great. And at the same time, there is this sense of, okay, I'm still the same motivated person that I was six months ago before I had set the record on Everest, and now it's like, okay, what are the things that are exciting to me? And it's almost a paradox of choice problem now. Like there's too many flavors of ice cream on the menu that sound exciting, and it's like, I don't know which one to take. So it's a good problem to have. I'm not trying to say it's it's at all a bad thing, but it's definitely a new feeling because it really has been almost my entire professional career as an athlete from basically when I graduated college to now, has been I've known what I'm doing next season season. And this is pretty much the first time, uh, with maybe the exception of COVID, where it's like, okay, I kind of just have an empty calendar and I'm not 100% sure what I want to do, but I do know that I I want to do something exciting.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Dude, yeah, it's it's it's so interesting. How are you dealing with this like level of global fame as well? Because like, you know, you're getting interviewed by CNN. No, I mean this like in all seriousness. Like there's not too many people that have done things in the way you've done them, so everyone learns your name. Is that weird? Like being recognized and getting all these followers and this whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Um a little bit. I mean, I think I'm I I don't know. I I I I think I still think of myself as very niche, and and to me it's it has been weird because Everest, I think, does transcend our kind of little niche world of endurance sport and particularly ultra running or mountain running or whatever bucket I'm in at the moment. But um it it definitely has been a new level of media attention, and that's been again, it's it's a good problem to have, right? You know, I I don't mind, I don't mind it. It's I love it actually. I like sharing my story, and and I always found as someone who's a fan of the sport, before I was, you know, performing myself in the athletic space, I always really appreciated when people would do long, candid interviews, um, when they would do podcasts, when they would share their training logs, whatever it was. And so I've always kind of thought back to okay, when I was you know 19 years old and getting into the sport, what who were the people that really inspired me and that I really appreciated their openness and vulnerability and and kind of tried to give that back. And and so I enjoy that part of it. I enjoy storytelling, I enjoy sharing my journey because I think it's an unusual one. And um yeah, nowadays it's like there's some moments, it's like going on the Today show or something with my whole family in New York City, and like that's so outside my element that it's kind of crazy. But at the same time, you know, you know, this is what it comes with the territory, right? It's like you want to be a successful athlete, you want to be able to do the things that you love to do and support the people in your life, and this is is part of that, you know. And and I think it's something that for me, I've I again it's it's something that I enjoy, honestly. And um the so far it hasn't been too overwhelming. We'll see. We do have maybe another uh kind of step change coming in the next six to twelve months, which maybe I can tease a little bit. But um, yeah, it's it's been it's been a lot, but it's been it's been manageable so far, and it's been something I've had fun with.

The Emotional Comedown After Success

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Would you when you say step change, I would guess documentary, something like that kind of coming out?

SPEAKER_01 6:55

There could be, yeah. I mean, I can't I can't talk too much about it, but I will say it's very public knowledge that there was a big film crew following us around actually last year on Everest in 2025. Um so your audience and you could make what you think about contractually obliged basically not to say anything more than that. But I'm excited about it.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Fair enough. Dude, when you when you got the when I because um let me backtrack here. I remember I think it was Chris Fisher that shared on Instagram your tracking. And uh I was following it. I think a lot of people were. And when you did it, I just like felt this sense of like uh like he did it. He finally did it. I was so excited for you. And I feel like a lot of people felt the same way because dude, uh it's not like you just went and and took a crack at this thing and got it. Like it's this has been a long time coming and a lot of work and a lot of sacrifice. Maybe that's how we can kind of pave the way for people to learn more about this record and things like that. Um talk about how long it took you to get to this point. And some of just give me some of the background. I think it was what three seasons, seven years or six years, seven attempts, something like that.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

So on Everest specifically, there, yes, I was on Everest for three seasons in a row, which was spring 2025, fall 2025, and then spring 2026. Across those three seasons, which was you know, whatever that is, 15 months or something, I made seven attempts. All of them failed except the last one, um, to even get to the summit, regardless of timing. Uh so I was 0 for six going into the final attempt, which was the very last day of the spring 2026 season, by the way. So down to the wire. Um, and really before that, I would say starting in about 2020, um all everything that I was doing was leading up to that. Um, that was really kind of when I started to think of myself more as a mountain athlete and less of a full-time runner. I think I still think of myself as a runner, that's my core. But at the same time, that was where there was definitely a hard pivot during COVID where I started doing a lot more stuff in the mountains and started finding some success there and really wanted to just pursue that and see where it would take me. So I would say, yeah, it was six, seven years of working towards this thing. The first half of that was very much just learning and developing the skills. I think I came with a pretty solid engine from running professionally for you know, whatever that it was, uh, you know, seven, eight years. And still there's quite a bit of a learning curve going from an ultra runner, even a you know, ultra trail runner, mountain runner, to running up you know, really big, complicated, high-altitude mountains. There, there's just a lot of things you have to learn, and in a lot of expeditions, you just have to go on and make mistakes and mess up and then learn from that and try again a year later or whatever. And then finally there's the okay, now we're actually talking about Everest. And really, that was the last two years basically, was um actually going there. And like you said, I kind of thought, because I was coming off a really great season in the Himalaya in the fall of 2024, where I set a record on a mountain called Manosalu, which is the sixth highest mountain in the world. Um, and that went really well. I felt great. I did a bunch of other records that same season. I was like, okay, there's gonna be no problem. I'm gonna knock it out of the park, one and done. And then, you know, that first season I made three attempts and none of them even were that close. So it was just, okay, this is a whole different scale and level of complexity and difficulty than I expected. And that's been the story of the last 18 months for me, has just been figuring out, okay, what how do how do I how do I do this? Because it's way harder than I thought it was going to be.

The Long Road To Everest

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Can you explain that like what goes into it? Because it's not just fitness. It's not just like it's not like a race where the fittest dude who shows up is you know has a great shot of winning. This is so much goes into uh and a lot of luck too, I would imagine, with the weather and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 10:39

So there's like a a joke in in this world that, and I've heard other people say it about me, and it's true, it's like the fittest is almost the easy part. You know, you can get yourself really fit. We all know how to do that. And if you happen to you know have the time and dedication and you know, some amount of genetic predisposition to doing this kind of thing, you just go work really hard for six months and you're gonna be fit. Like that part's easy. We know how to do that. But then there's so much once you get to the mountain that has to go right. Um, you know, Everest, and this was one of the things I learned in that first season, is that Everest is complex in a unique way, even among really big mountains, because of A, just how high it is, um the fact that it's 80,900 meters almost instead of you know 8,200 meters. Um sorry, I'm doing everything in meters for all you all feet people, but whatever. You know, it's it's only uh, you know, whatever that is, a couple thousand feet higher than the mountains next to it. But because of that extra couple thousand feet, it drastically reduces the amount of days that you can climb the mountain because the jet stream winds, which is one of the biggest barriers to going to the summit, will often be not an issue on Lotse, which is literally right next to Everest and is only a thousand feet lower. And on Everest, you'll have 80 mile-an-hour winds and it's a complete no-go. So there might be, you know, let's say anywhere from six to 15 days in a season where you can climb Everest, and there might be 45 days on these other 8,000 meter mountains where you can climb. And so it just makes this much narrower window that you can work with. And not only do you have this fewer amount of days, but you have a thousand people who are trying to get up the mountain, um, as opposed to maybe a hundred. So you have 10 times as many people and you know, a third of the time or a fifth of the time that you're working with, and it just makes this really consolidated window that you can you actually have as an athlete. So this is what you were saying about luck. There is a lot of it that just is luck. You know, if you have a season like I think it was 2019, for example, where literally there were only three summit days of the entire season that anyone went to the summit in 2019, if we had that, 0% chance that I go. Because every single one of those days is gonna be a Congo line. It's gonna be that those crowds that you've seen in the viral photos where you have 300 people online on the summit ridge, and for a speed record, you just absolutely can't have that. Like we, there's not enough room. We don't have any special privileges on the mountain or anything. So those days are just complete non-starters. So the only way that we can work with it is either we have to go at the very beginning of the season before everyone else is ready, or at the very end of the season, after everyone has gone home. And that was what we ended up doing this year, was we waited until the end of the season. But it the point being, and this is part of why um, you know, this project was really uh kind of like got, you know, like lit a fire up in me because it just felt like I know I can do this thing, but the logistics of it, and there's so much outside of your control that is so hard and complicated. You know, it felt like this impossible puzzle. And and that was a big part of it for me was okay, what are the things that I can control that can influence the things outside of my control? Because obviously I can't control the weather, I can't control the crowds, but it's like, okay, I can just be ready to go any day of the season. You know, that was something that we talked about this year. It's like, okay, May 1st, we're just 100% ready to go every single day. Um, we're not trying to peek for a certain window, we're just like ready to go, we've got our logistics dialed, so that when that thing opens, if it's early, if it's late, then we're just ready. You know, so there are things like that where you can kind of try to influence it the best you can. Um, but at the end of the day, there's you know, if there's just like wind all season, you're completely hosed, and or you know, there's a giant earthquake like there was in 2015, like there's no season, you know, there's just a lot outside your control.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

So crazy. I I I I want to take this back a little bit because this is just out of pure curiosity. When I think of Mount Everest, to me as someone that's never been to the Himalaya, it seems it's just an extremely daunting task, right? And I think for most listeners, that's the way they think of it. It's this big, bad, looming thing. For you, how did you conceptualize it at first? Like, was it scary to you in the beginning before you even stepped foot on it but realized that this is something you might want to take a crack at? I'd say this with the first part of the question. And then the second part of the question is with every time that you went up there and took a crack at it, does it get a little bit easier? Do you start to understand, like, oh, this thing isn't so bad after all?

SPEAKER_01 14:45

Um, two good questions. So the the first part of did I feel intimidated by the mountain? Honestly, not really. And and some of that was just arrogance on my part because, like I said, I had climbed to 8,000, almost 8,200 meters, which is you know, 2,000 feet below the top of Everest, a really tall mountain, um, and felt great that day. So that to me was the kind of like the green light of oh, this is gonna be, you're gonna smash this, this is gonna be no problem. And 100% that was overconfidence, that was arrogance on my part. I didn't realize how the difference that that that difference in altitude makes, and also what we're just talking about, the difference in complexity. So, you know, it it definitely is a little bit of a slippery slope, or you know, just kind of you don't watch the grass growing or whatever, whatever metaphor you want to use. That when you go to the Himalaya or you get into mountaineering, you start doing higher and higher mountains. So I, you know, started mountaineering here in the Andes, and so the highest mountains here are you know 6,000-ish meters, 20,000 feet. And then we can go down to the Atacama towards like Aconcagua and Ojos del Salado, and those are you know 22, 23,000 feet. And then those are the biggest mountains outside of Asia. So now you have to go to the Himalaya and you do 23, 24, 25, 26,000 foot mountains, and you just kind of keep going up. And as you get closer in these concentric circles towards Everest, you also just meet people who do this stuff. And you know, it's kind of like running 100 miles, where to a normal person who's never who isn't plugged into ultra running or anything, they might be like, that's impossible. What do you mean you run 100 miles? And then when you're a runner, you hang around with other people who run 100 miles all the time. You're like, oh yeah, of course I could, of course, someone can do that. Like all these, all my friends do it, you know? And so it's less intimidating. And I think there was a lot of that for me of just I spent so much time in the Himalaya from like 2022 to 2026 that it just became normal. Everyone I knew was climbing Everest, everyone I knew was climbing K2, everyone I knew was, you know, doing all of this stuff in the mountains, and it just felt like, oh, they did this and then they did that. So I'm gonna do this and then I'm gonna do that, you know. It it didn't seem outside of anything, you know, in the realm of reason or anything like that. So I think that kind of set me up for uh a little bit of a rude awakening when I finally got there. Like I said, I think I definitely got humbled that first season and and went back with a lot more humility and just respect for the mountain. And I think that's a good thing in the end. And um, but but yeah, I think going into it the first time, I don't I I I didn't yeah, I definitely didn't feel enough intimidation, I guess I'll say. Um and then sorry, I I lost the thread.

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SPEAKER_01 17:14

The second part of the question was was Guys, how's your feet?

SPEAKER_00 17:17

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Khumbu Icefall Fear And Familiarity

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Just every time you go up there. So I think about it in terms of like a daunting course, right? Like every time you go race this course, it you get a little more familiar. It feels a little bit easier. Is that the way I kind of went for you? To where that aspect you almost um kind of you start to figure out uh all the aspects of the actual uh route, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 19:39

Yeah, it's an interesting question. I'm not sure Yeah, I'm not sure. It's yeah, uh uh I'm not sure I've ever really thought about it exactly with that meta or with that analogy to like rate running the same race course. I think in some ways, yes, there's some things where literally just for me as an athlete, I'm very data-driven and I like thinking about pacing and stuff like that. So just having data and say, okay, I've done this lower two-thirds of the mountain like 20 times at this point. So I know exactly the pace that I need to be in these places. I know what my effort level should be, I know where the camps are, I know what the terrain is like. So that from that sense, yes. But in another sense, like especially the lower, the very low, low part of the mountain to me is actually the scariest part, which is called the Kumbu Ice Fall. And that's a big, basically a big broken piece of glacier that you have to navigate through. And it's very dynamic. There's things moving, there's things falling, it's really not cool, it's super scary. And to me, that it almost got worse every time because it felt like it kind of feels like you're just running across a highway blindfolded. And every time you do it, you're like, oh my god, thank God I never have to do that again. And then you're like, oh shit, I actually do have to go do it again. And you just kind of feel like every time you go through, it's for me at least, the way that I felt was every time I got through, I'd be like, okay, I made it this time. And you know, it's like a cat with nine lives or something. It's like, okay, I burned that one. And um, so that so there's some parts of it where it's almost the opposite, where it's like, oh man, every time I went up, I just felt like, man, I'm just accumulating more risk up here, and I don't love that. But at the same time, like you said, there it there's a little bit of familiarity. But I for me, like the ice fall, for example, I it never felt better. And if anything, it felt easier or like less scary, maybe the first or second time I went through, because again, I went in overconfident and didn't know as much about it and hadn't been in there personally. And I just heard from you know my friends who were super experienced, and we're like, it's not that big a deal, you'll be fine, you'll go through really quick. And then it was really, really scary the first time Chris Fish and I went through. We were like, oh man, this is really not cool. So it just got worse from there.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

That's crazy. On the thread of the Kumbu Ice Fall, this is actually a question I had for you later on. Um, I wanted to get into understanding like how much did it take you? I because I think about like Tyler running Pyrrhic Carbon X2, this ultra runner, different type of a different version of you, right? And then I think about you now. Now, you know, going through the Kumbu Ice Ball setting this Everest record, there's a lot of skills that need to be acquired along the way. And there's not a lot of time in between both of those. So how much effort and and just knowledge growth did you have in that time where you just, you know, I guess immersed yourself into trying to gain all these skills and work on all these different skills like glacier travel and things like that?

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Quite a bit is the short answer. Um I mean, I had probably five or six years between whenever that was and and when I was growing up at risk. So there is a decent amount of time in there, but like you said, I, you know, I'm not like Killian Jordanette. I was not born in the mountains and running around on, you know, technical peaks when I was three years old in the dark or something, you know. So like I grew up in rural Massachusetts and which is very flat and at sea level. So it's kind of funny in retrospect, you know, that here I am. And at the end of the day, for me, it was about just going in kind of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I was really excited about it. I really loved it. I had actually done a decent amount of casual mountaineering, I would call it, like guided stuff for fun, hiking trips with friends, things like that. So I'd been up to you know, 20,000 feet before on glaciers, but in the company of guides, people who knew what they were doing. And it was very much something I did in my off season from running. I never really thought about combining those two things together until uh until COVID and kind of dipping my toe into the FKT world a bit more. And didn't even realize that that was something you could do, you know, with any remote amount of safety. And once I found that, I was like, oh, this is so cool. It's like a whole new world. And for me, it almost brought me back to that feeling of being a teenager again and just discovering running. And when you're new to something, you see gains really quickly, right? So you, you know, when I started running, it's like I think I ran when I took like two or three minutes off my 5K time in the first season. And it's like I wasn't fast. I went from like 22 minutes to 18 minutes, but still, it's that when you see that kind of progression and you see suddenly going from being the back of the pack to, you know, oh, I'm on varsity now, that's really exciting and motivating, at least it was for me at the time. And I think it's the same thing for me whenever I start some new skill that I'm excited about, whether it's mountaineering or even just last year, I started doing a lot more in the gym to prepare for Everest and seeing those gains that are really objective and tangible and allow you to do cool things, to me, that was huge. So it was a little bit daunting at first. I remember some of my first trips up onto Bigger Mountains just being really freaked out. And, you know, honestly, being with people like Chris Fisher was really helpful because when you're with someone who has more experience than you on this side and is totally calm, and you know, Chris, he's like the calmest guy in the world. He's like, whatever, it's all fine. Don't worry about it. Like that was huge for me to have people like that who I could key off of and be like, all right, well, Chris says it's fine, so it's probably fine, you know. So that was that was really my journey was both embracing these gains that you see quickly, and then also finding mentors in the space who would show me the ropes, literally and figuratively, you know, like how to actually make it work up there. And that was super important

Learning Curve Mentors And Mountain Skills

SPEAKER_01 25:04

for me.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Who were like who do you look up to in the space, like as far as like mentors and and just people like that that have helped just kind of guide you? Like, did you reach out to like people like Killian or just I don't know, like giants in the space or things like that?

SPEAKER_01 25:17

For sure. I mean, I definitely met a lot of people in Nepal. Um, I mean, Chris has honestly been a huge, huge uh partner for me. And um, I think Chris and I worked really well because we both kind of pushed each other in our own ways. You know, I think I came from more of a running background and I was able to move a little bit quicker on certain kinds of terrain. And he obviously is just such a he's an amazing skier, he's an amazing winter mountaineer, he's amazing on technical, like scrambly terrain. And that was where I really struggled. So he would push me on that side, and I would kind of push him on the other, and I think it balanced out really, really well. And that's why we did, we did a lot of climbing and projects together from I don't know, like 2023 to 2026, basically, um, because of that that you know that balance there. Um, but other people, yeah, for sure. I mean, Conrad Anchor is another big one who I connected with in Nepal maybe like four or five years ago. Honestly, completely by coincidence, it was um, I was just having coffee with a Nepali friend, and he was like, Oh, my you should stick around. My friend Conrad is coming. I'm like, give me the Conrad? Like, like saying Killian, right? It's like a this is a one one name kind of you know person here. And and so then he he became someone who I really I already knew who he was and looked up to him. You know, I saw the movie Meru about um, you know, him and Renan and Jimmy Chin back in like whenever that came out, must have been like 2012 or something. And that like blew my mind. But I remember really relating to those guys, not because I saw myself as a mountain athlete, but just because I I kind of identified with their you know single-minded obsession of this project. And I could see that in myself already as a runner. And so, anyways, he he was really helpful for me um as well. Less, less like skills practicing, but more just kind of guidance of navigating the world and the sport and stuff like that. Um, but yeah, there were, and then honestly, a lot of people in Nepal who I met um in the Sherpa community and stuff like that, who were able to basically just show me how to how to climb out there because it is a very different style of climbing, I would say, even than you know, climbing here in the Andes or or in the Rockies or in Europe or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

How has it been? I guess just the difference in navigating the space. Like trail running, for instance, is such a niche little thing. So everybody kind of knows everybody. It's it's just a different space. How is the mountaineering space? Like is it is it as um and this is not a gotcha question. I'm just very curious. Like, is it as like accepting as trail and ultra running, or is it is it more rigid, is it more competitive? Like what is that space kind of like in comparison to the trail world?

SPEAKER_01 27:46

I think mountaineering, uh honestly, like m or like mountain sport, mountaineering, whatever you want to call it, it's a really big category. And it almost feels more like an apt comparison would be just running. Because in running, we have everything from you know Josh Kerr setting the world record in the mile to you know Pete Kostelnik running across the United States to you know Killian and Jim at the 100-mile distance. Like you have everything. And I think that it's actually a pretty apt comparison in my mind because I do think there is an element of pearl clutching, for lack of a better word, of these people, because track and field like mountaineering is a very it's a very historied sport, right? There's a lot of history in track and field. Um, and there's a lot of people who basically think running should just be track and field. And I think there's a lot of people who similarly think mountaineering should just be mountaineering the way that it was, you know, 70 years ago when you know people were climbing like the 8000ers for the first time or something. And I think, you know, I I'm not here to judge. I personally don't agree with that. I think that all sport expands and and you get branches, and I think that's really cool, and you see different people doing different things. Um, but I think it's similar in both sides. I think you know, there's a lot of you know, let's run.com guys who will shit on anyone in the ultra world. And there's a lot of people, you know, similarly in mountaineering who are gonna shit on what I do, who are gonna shit on um, you know, honestly, even what some of Killian's stuff, you know, you know, it's the thing about that I've found about the mountaineering community is like, first off, I would say, you know, 99% of the feedback that I get is really positive. Um, and people are super stoked, and I think it's it's great. I think there's a small loud cohort that sees the sport moving in a direction that they don't like or is pretty different from where it's been historically, and they don't like that, and that's that's their choice. Like I respect that. That's fine. Like I'm happy to have a conversation with them about it. Um, but in the same way that I think uh, you know, people who are you know running a 100-mile trail race, that people who read Let's Run.com probably don't understand what that's like or how serious those athletes are, or how competitive it is, or how hard it is. You know, they just see, oh, this guy ran 100 miles and he averaged like 15-minute mile pace. That doesn't sound very hard, you know? Like, really, like they're they're it's pretty hard. Like, you should go try and do it, you know. Um, but but I guess that the point of this all is, you know, I think the mountaineering community to me, I think is is honestly mostly amazing. And 99% of the people who I've met have been fantastic and amazing. And and honestly, it's it's it is a pretty similar parallel because I think between Free Solo, the film about Alex Ronald, um, and then 14 Peaks, the film about Nims Perja, who who passed away recently, um, between those two, I think you have a lot more people who are engaging in rock climbing and mountaineering nowadays than they were 20 years ago. And to me, I think that's a great thing. I think with whenever you have growth, especially in the niche sport, you're gonna have problems that arise. You're gonna have like crowding of places that we love, you're gonna have questions about equity and um access and things like that that are all fair and they're all conversations that we should have. But I think to say that any sport is going to remain static in the way that we compete and perform while technology and and what people want to do, all those things, while those things advance, I I I don't know. I don't think that's realistic. And to me, it's you know, I'm excited about pushing the limits of of what we do in these different sports.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

The reason

Oxygen Choice Purists And Transparency

SPEAKER_00 31:18

I ask in um this kind of just threads into this c this aspect of the conversation was because and I'll let you tell this story. You climbed your record with oxygen versus uh without oxygen. But there's a there's a backstory to this. Um and I'll let you tell that in a second. But the the first aspect of this is I saw uh like uh some people hating on that. And I was just like, what the what the fuck? Uh like can't we just be can't we just celebrate and like be like the fact that he just accomplished this amazing thing? Well obviously with anything there's gonna be some haters, right? That's that's part of achieving great things. Um but yeah, I just was curious to get your take on that because I I thought there was some just unfair, some purists that are just like we're being a little unfair about that.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

I mean, again, everyone is totally entitled to their opinion. And I think one of the issues is that mountaineering does not have a governing body. So there's no world athletics, which is the governing body of track and field, there's no itra, there's no, there's nothing like that that says, here's what you can do and here's what you can't do, right? We have FastFix Known Time, which kind of has its own rules. In the Himalaya, we have the Himalayan database, which tracks a lot of these things. Um and up until like other than those things, a lot of it is basically just people go and do cool stuff that they're interested in. And that's kind of how it's always been. And for me, uh and I guess I I'll I'll give a little bit of context about the whole oxygen thing as well. Um, you know, my original goal was to climb the mountain and set the record without oxygen. And the comparison I would make is, you know, on Fastest Known Time, for example, we have supported and unsupported records, right? And similarly on Everest, you have a record with oxygen and a record without oxygen. They're completely different categories. Um and there are there's history in both of those uh categories. For me, the no oxygen climb was what I was interested in. It was what I'd trained for for basically my entire life uh up to that point. Um I felt like it played to my strengths. I was really excited about it. I felt like I was very physically capable of it. My other climbs on 8000ers had all been without oxygen. Um even my my probably my closest attempt um was the back in May 2025. Uh I there I got to within like, I don't know, a thousand feet of the summit um without oxygen on pace and turned around just because like I was basically just completely hosed and hallucinating and whatever. That's a whole other story. The point being, going way back to what we were talking about earlier in the conversation about logistics, to me, it felt that I, you know, I kind of had a decision point this season where the season in 2026 was really delayed. Like it made national news. There was this huge Sirac blocking the ice fall. Season was super delayed. So now we're working with a condensed season, like we talked about before. And we knew because of the way that things had played out, there was no early window, so we were gonna have a late window. We knew that going in. And I actually made two attempts in the spring of 2026. One was on May 23rd, and one the successful one was on May 27th, so only four days apart. On May 23rd, my plan was to go up without gas and try and call in that day. Um, because I knew I'd have another shot on the 27th, 28th. And we also knew that that was gonna be the very last day of the season. Like we already knew that that was the scheduling based on weather, based on people who were gonna start basically taking the ropes and stuff off the mountain. So May 23rd, we go up. We had also planned that if the winds were too high, you know, when when they make weather forecasts, and so there's like a lot of context here. The reason that wind matters is because, and that's I learned recently, like in the last couple of years, climbing without oxygen, it's not just slower and harder from a hypoxia standpoint, but the hypoxia causes your body to circulate blood worse. And so what that means is it's way easier to get frostbite, especially in your extremities, on your hands and feet, on a day where you're climbing without oxygen if the wind is the same versus climbing with oxygen. The oxygen keeps you warmer, is an easier way to say that. And so what that means is there are fewer days you can climb without oxygen. So that day was borderline. And so what we said and what I said publicly, and for some reason I got pushback on this afterwards. I'm not sure if people just didn't understand or they thought I was trying to be sneaky, but I actually recorded a video before I left and it said something like, Hey, if you're watching this, it means we pivoted and we're actually climbing with oxygen. And because I wanted to be 100% transparent and upfront about that, I didn't post that until we knew that we were gonna have to make that call. And that was based on the weather on the day. Because we had a we had kind of a questionable forecast. It's like, okay, if it's light, we'll go without gas. If it's on the heavier side, we're gonna have to climb with oxygen. And we so we yeah, I climbed without oxygen to camp two. At camp two, we had people on the mountain live. They said, Hey, the winds are way too high up high on the mountain. Do not climb without gas, it's not safe, you're gonna lose all your fingers. I said, Cool, I don't want to lose all my fingers. We're gonna climb with gas. They, my team posted that video, and then everyone was like, Oh, now he's climbing with gas, but he was like trying to make it all sneaky. I'm like, it's no, it's the opposite, man. I was like just trying to be transparent with you guys. So they because I think it's really important to stress which category you're in, right? Going back to the very beginning. You don't want to say, I'm climbing without oxygen, and then go up in nine hours, and everyone's like, What? That doesn't make any sense. So that was the point of that. So we go up. Long story, it ended up being too windy. We had some logistical problems. I turned around like 400 meters from the summit, really close, the closest I'd ever been. Come back down. Now we have one final day. We know I have to rest for three days, go back up. You know, the analogy I made to Let's Run was like, you know, it's like running 24 miles at marathon pace, and three days before your marathon, it's not ideal. And for the final attempt, we had a decision again because we basically had a window that was wide enough in terms of weather to climb with oxygen, because climbing with oxygen is more than twice as fast. The record was you know 11 hours instead of 22 hours. Um we we basically thought, okay, we have, I think it was 18 hours of decent weather, which is what you need round trip to do climbing with oxygen. We did not have 30 hours, which is what you would need to do round trip climbing without oxygen. And so that time we made the call from Basecamp before we even went up and said, okay, we're gonna climb with gas, we're gonna go to just like for the you know overall record, fastest ever. Um, and that's what we did. And to me, you know, sure, like I would love to do an unsupported FKT every time. I think there is something in that purity of style. But at the end of the day, I think these two things are hard in their own ways, and they're different kinds of hard. In the same way that you know, an unsupported or a supported FKT are are different kinds of hard. And a supported FKT, you go a lot faster because you can be lighter, you can have quick gear exchanges, um, you know, all those things. But it means you have to be fitter, you have to be able to move quicker and and you know have those transitions styled. If you're unsupported, okay, that's more pure, it's less support, but you're carrying more stuff, you're gonna go slower, et cetera, et cetera. So they're both really hard and they're both different categories. And I think that's the thing for me that where I differ from the purists is I think that there's a lot of people who would say, well, I would just rather not climb the mountain at all than climb it with oxygen. And that's completely fair, and I respect that. That's and honestly, if you'd asked me that like three years ago, I probably would have said the same thing. But I think that after having gone at it for two years on the mountain, my opinion changed. And part of that was this was seeing that there was so much outside of my control to whether the record would be successful without oxygen. Because literally, the biggest thing is it's just twice as much time for something to go wrong. You know, you have to have a 30, 36-hour window where nothing goes wrong and the weather is good, and the crowds are good, and the ropes are good, and like your condition is good, and your stomach, like all these things basically that don't have anything to do with your fitness, all these things have to be in line for a much longer time. And for me, it just felt like I could come back here for 10 years in a row and keep throwing myself at this project, and something could go wrong every single time. And I just didn't want to do that. It just didn't seem exciting to me. Like, I, as an athlete, it was more for me always about can I do this thing athletically? Is this something that I I can make my body do? And and less about, okay, is there gonna be an avalanche that buries me alive or you know, am I gonna, my boot's gonna break or something stupid? Like that was really what it was about to me. It's like this is an athletic test. And, you know, for me, the kind of danger and safety and and stuff like that, I think there are some athletes who are motivated by that. And in the mountaineering community, there's a lot of respect for that. There's a lot of this sense of, oh man, this guy took mega risk and he pulled it off, and that's so cool. And I agree, like to an extent, I agree. I think that's great, but I also don't like like it's not for me personally. Like, I if I could know with 100% certainty that everything was going to be safe and I wasn't gonna be buried alive or anything, like that would be a huge bonus, and that would make me feel way better. So the added danger to me doesn't add anything. The thing that was most important to me about this whole project was that I went up and did something on the mountain that I felt I was proud of, and that to me felt like I got the most out of my myself as an athlete, as a person. And to me, I realized after having made a lot of attempts on the mountain, it didn't matter to me whether that was with oxygen or without. It was gonna be just as hard for me. It was just gonna be hard in different ways.

Fueling Pacing And The Mind Game

SPEAKER_00 40:24

When you're doing something like this, like for the ascent, I mean, nine hours to ten pretty much just under 10 hours for to go up this thing. That's a really long time to be working, man. And then, I mean, obviously you've you've run 100 milers before, like you get it. Yeah. Um, I mean, 16 hours, 32 minutes overall for this thing. What are you thinking about? Like, do you does your mind drift off or are you in the zone? There, I find it like damn near impossible to be in the zone the entire time, but I feel like you have to be super dialed too with all the technical components. What is going through your head when you're doing something like this?

SPEAKER_01 40:55

There are definitely moments where I try to let my mind zone out a little bit, and I'll I'll put music on. You know, I'll I think I even put an audio book on at some point where I was trying to kind of keep it really chill. Um but but uh but a lot of it, you know, I it's funny. I remember I have a friend, Patrick Reagan, who used to run for Hoka and was a very, very good hundred-mile runner. And I remember him answering this question at some point, and he was like, Well, it's like every 15 minutes I am doing something. I'm like eating or I'm drinking or I'm taking salt tablets or I'm doing this or this other. So it's like basically all the time, I'm either doing something or I'm finishing doing something or I'm about to do something. And there is a lot of it like that. You know, I really approached this project like an ultra race. And I think that was one of the things that to me was exciting. And I going back to what we were just talking about, I think to some of the mountaineering purists was upsetting because it's like, oh, this guy's not a mountaineer. And for what it's worth, I've never claimed to be an elite mountaineer. Like I always say that. I'm like, I'm not, I'm not like gonna go win the Piolet d'Or. Like those guys are doing insane stuff. Like, I'm a runner who has just enough skills to like be dangerous on a mountain, you know, and like get myself up and down in one piece. And that's really like that's where I come from. Like I'm a mountain athlete, skyrunner, mountain runner, whatever you want to call it, but like I would never consider myself an elite alpinist. And I think that's one of the things that like I bring to the sport that might be new is this I like some of these ideas from ultrarunning, like, you know, how do we manage fueling? How do we manage gear, like making stuff super light, all these things I think that I did that were were fairly unique. And they I was really like thinking about it as okay, if this is gonna be, you know, without oxygen, it was gonna be a 20-hour thing, without oxygen, it's gonna be a 10-hour thing. It's basically a hundred miler. It's either a really fast or slower hundred miler. And so I'm gonna train for this like a hundred miler, and I'm gonna treat it like a hundred miler, and I'm gonna fuel like it's a hundred miler, you know, like all that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

What was uh I have like five questions in my head that would ask you at the same time. What was the fueling like for something like this? Uh like what what are you yeah, what are you eating during this effort? It's not like you're you're sipping goose or like taking jelly.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

Oh yeah, I was interested. Yeah, I everything I ate, I had one bowl of hot soup at Camp Four. Everything else was was sports nutrition. It was gels and drink mix and gummies, and that was it.

SPEAKER_00 43:06

Dude, what is your heart rate zone in? Are you in like zone four of the zone three, zone four the whole time? Or like what how are you and are you looking at heart rate a bunch?

SPEAKER_01 43:15

So that's a really interesting question. And I don't know how into the weeds you want to go because I use heart rate a lot in training. And when I was preparing for this, I was like, this is basic, this should be like a zone, a high zone two effort the entire time, is how I would think about a 10 to 20 hour effort. And in practice, what happened was it was way higher than that, and it was also fine, which made no sense to me. The heart rate data, and I was using a chest strap, so it's good data. And the data just did not make any sense to me in retrospect. And it's funny because, like I said before, I went up first on May 23rd, and I was really paying attention to the data because I I had I wanted to use it as a way to make sure I didn't go out too fast and it was staying in the right air effort level and metallic. Metabolic rate. And after like an hour or two, I was like, this is useless. I'm either going to completely destroy myself or these numbers don't make any sense and I should ignore them. And the only silver lining to having that day and going up so high, and then having that as basically the dress rehearsal for the actual record a few days later was the second time when I went up, I did not look at my heart rate once. But it was like close to max heart rate when I was basically at the summit, like the last hour. And it just doesn't make sense. I don't understand, I really don't understand it. And I I'm so curious to talk to someone who knows more about this than me because the heart rate that I was sustaining at that altitude just does not seem like it should make sense. Yeah. Like when I was I was there for you know eight weeks before I went up the mountain at and I was training at pretty high altitudes. You know, I was staying living at 16,000 feet, going up to 22,000 feet like every day. And I could barely get my heart rate above like 145, let's say, working really hard doing intervals. And my average heart rate on the way up was like 152 or something. I was like, wow. That should that was like that's high.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

If I was going all out for like a minute, maybe I could get it over 150 in training. And then it was like that was the baseline. It's just yeah, it made no sense. So I'm it that that still baffles me a couple months later. I haven't figured it out.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

So with that glycogenic debt then, with the just burning all of that uh in those higher heart rate zones, were you trying to get like a hundred and hundred and twenty grams of carbs? Like how much could you eat while you're doing this?

SPEAKER_01 45:24

Oh yeah. I think I averaged over 400 calories an hour, so 100 grams of carbohydrate, because it was all carbohydrate pretty much for basically the entire time.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

Holy crap. That's crazy, dude. That's interesting. It's like a it's like an ultra. There you go.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

It's just like an I don't, it's you know, people, people are like, wow, that's so revolutionary. It's like, why would I why would you do anything differently? Like to me, it blows my mind that people who are really amazing mountain athletes, I I see really experienced, fit people, and it's like, you know, they go out for a 12-hour summit day, and they have they're like, Yeah, I have a Snickers bar and this one energy gel and a Coca-Cola. And I'm like, what? Like, I'm gonna be taking 400, I'm gonna be taking like 4,000 calories on the way up. What are you talking about? Like, this is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 46:10

With uh with your ability, because you're so unique to come to a space like this and and and do this, do you think that record will stand for a really long time? Do you think anybody, like unless it comes from someone from the running world, like do you think a mountaineer has the obviously they have the skill level, but the fitness level is a little harder to crack coming? I feel like it would take someone maybe from your background to really lower it.

SPEAKER_01 46:35

It's it definitely requires a unique skill set, and it also does require an element of luck. So is it the hardest record I've ever set? Honestly, probably not. I think it's one of the hardest things I've ever done, if not the hardest thing I've ever done. But but you know, is there more meat on that bone than some others? Actually, probably, but you would you really need a pretty unique skill set because you need training-wise, you need someone who is aerobically really strong, who tolerates altitude really well. Um, and then, like you said, who has enough experience at least to get themselves up and down the mountain by themselves safely. Um, you know, you need a certain amount of just practice and experience, and then you need all these other things to go right, like that didn't go right for me the first six times I went up the mountain. You know, you need all your gear to work, you need the weather to be perfect, you can't run into any bottlenecks. You know, that the thing about that record, and again, going back to like the no gas versus gas, it's like there's way less margin for error now because you know, even at 10 hours 56, which was the previous record, um there's still not a ton of time to mess around. You know, I think I had probably like 40-ish minutes of stoppage time on that route, which sounds like a lot, but like almost the majority of that was there's kind of one bigger gear change we did at BitCamp 4, where we kind of put on like the real high mountain um, you know, clothes and and and stuff like that. But you know, there's so so yeah, there's there's there is meat on the bone, but like it's not trivial. Like, you know, I think you need the right person and the right circumstances. Um, and you know, it takes a lot of motivation to to do that. And you know, we'll see. I I think there are a lot of people that are capable of it, and it's whether they're gonna go and do it. I

Hypoxic Training Acclimation And Blood Tests

SPEAKER_01 48:18

I don't know. I you know, a lot has to come together, right? I'm like trying to like thread this needle between like I think it's really hard and I'm really proud of it, but also like I don't want to come off as like being totally arrogant about it. Like, you know, I I I I'm sure that it can and will be broken, but like I think it will be pretty hard to do um because it's hard to do, and also because like I said, you just need a very specific person for it.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

Yeah. I I mean, dude, I think 100% you should be proud of what you did. And there's no arrogance there. Like that's no pun intended. It's kind of rare air, you know? Um did you treat uh and I'm sorry I'm like kind of throwing 5,000 questions at I just went for the sake of time, I'm just kind of getting all the interesting stuff out of the way. Did you kind of treat the um the camps, like camp one through camp four as like aid stations at all? Like you conceptualize it that way.

SPEAKER_01 49:06

Exactly. Yeah, it's both a nice way to mentally break up the route. And also also, um, you know, we had uh camp one and camp four were really the big stops. Camp three, I stopped briefly just to like pick up a bag of gels. Um and then camp two is so close to camp one that doesn't matter. But but they were they're both nice landmarks, and then also, you know, I was able to have some guys stationed there um to help with transitions. And like we just said, you really need to kind of be a NASCAR pit stop on these record, on the gas record because it's so much shorter and faster. But yeah, it's it's a really helpful way to think of it. And I think that's another thing where I kind of brought in the ultra-running mentality of okay, I'm gonna get in and out of here as quickly as possible. I'm not gonna get in a tent, I'm not gonna, you know, eat a plate of fried rice and noodles or whatever. I'm just gonna grab a Ziploc bag with a bunch of gels in it and like whatever else I need, and then I'm out the door as quickly as possible.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

And then before, um, this was another question I had when it comes to altitude. You live in obviously Quito, Ecuador, which is what, 9,500 feet somewhere in that range. Uh did you have a hard time like what is your altitude acclimatization schedule like? Especially because you you're already super fit, and then you already have this altitude um adaptation. So how did you adapt uh or did you have a much narrower window of adaptation before?

SPEAKER_01 50:20

This is another thing that I definitely did some things differently than you know the kind of prevailing wisdom might suggest, and and and just that other people have done in the past. So, you know, when I look at preparation for this, you've got the training side, which lets you could divide that into like aerobic training and strength training. And then I think the third pillar is altitude and acclimatization because you need to be prepared for the um, you know, being at 29,000 feet. And so, like you said, I live in keto, that's my home base. We're just about 10,000 feet. So every day I run up to somewhere, let's say, between 12 and 15,000-ish feet. That's my kind of normal training run. Um, but my true hypoxic altitude prep training that I did while I was in keto was I would use the altitude generator, which is the same, it's the machine you would use with an altitude tent, which a lot of people use to sleep in. So I actually never slept in that machine with that machine, but I would use it on a stationary bike road treadmill and simulate much higher altitudes. And so I would start, um I'll try and do fee in my head real quick. So I would start like the season. So in January, let's say, is when I started the buildup, and I would do my excuse me, my training with that, which would be another, let's say 10 hours a week on the bike. That's at uh you know 19,000 feet. And then every couple weeks I'm upping that, you know, a thousand feet or so till the point when I'm leaving Ecuador to go to Nepal, which is at the beginning of April, I'm doing 10 to 15 hours a week, and now it's at Everest altitude, so it's 29,000 feet, breathing that air. Then I go to Nepal, so now I'm based at 5,000 meters, which is 16,000 feet. Um, and there you bring the altitude machine, and the altitude machine stacks on the altitude that you're at. So now the altitude machine can go up to like 36,000 feet, which is like where jet edges fly. And so now I'm doing the last like six weeks basically, where I was training before I got to before I actually went to Everest up in Nepal, we're I'm doing, I think 14 hours a week, like two hours a day, at 34, 35,000 feet, like 12, 11 and a half thousand meters or something of simulated hypoxia. Um, so the uh the idea is you're actually trying to acclimate a little bit higher. All of this, again, in mind that I was preparing to climb without oxygen. And the idea is now, okay, 29,000 feet maybe doesn't feel so bad. And so normally a way that the way that a climber would prep for the altitude side is they would make a whole bunch of trips higher and higher up on the mountain, right? They go to camp two and then they sleep there, and then they go to camp three, and then they come back down, and maybe they go a little bit higher and then they come back down. And for me, I didn't do any of that. So I literally just got to Everest Base Camp after training in this on this other mountain with the altitude machine, also going up on the mountain there, which but that was much lower. It was only 22,000 feet or something. Um, doing that, doing the altitude machine. So I was able to get to Everest and then you know go up immediately. Like, you know, the first day we're there was the first attempt basically, going up to 26,000 feet back, no problem with the altitude or anything. So I think for me, this is one of those like do as I say, not as I do, maybe. Like, I wouldn't recommend it. I don't know if it'll work for everyone. There's no science behind it, but it has worked for me for three or four different expeditions now in terms of the altitude acclimatization side. And it's definitely something that is different and and weird and unique that we've kind of been experimenting with um over the last couple of years. But so far it's it's worked really well.

SPEAKER_00 53:35

I know this is kind of out of left field question. I'm just so curious. Like long-term, like does that mess with like your hemocrit levels or like iron levels and shit like that? Like do you get like blood tests to like make sure you're good on all that stuff?

SPEAKER_01 53:45

Or yeah, so I actually worked with so Dr. Ben Clark is our, he's a British physician who is the high mountain physician for Asian trekking, which is the logistics company that I work with. So he and I have been in constant touch over the last couple of years, kind of from the medical side. Um, and one of the things that's great about keto is like just the low cost, it's a lower cost of living. So I was actually getting hematica and hemoglobin and stuff like that tested maybe like every two weeks during that training, basically to make sure that it's not going to a dangerously high level because that's where you can have a stroke or something like that. And my body responded pretty well. It never got into a zone that would have been problematic, which is great. Um, but it is definitely something I was concerned about. I was like, damn, I'm gonna like just like stroke out up here. Yeah, oh my god. No, that that that we were keeping an eye on that, and that was that was super uh it was a good thing to be um aware of for sure. And again, this is like a very, you know, I am not a doctor, don't do this stuff at home, please.

Will He Return To Everest

SPEAKER_00 54:45

This is yeah, this is yeah, I always ask the bro science question just because I'm so curious. Um for the sake of time, I know we don't have much time left. I got two last questions for you, and I'll make them short. First one is dude, are you gonna go back to Everest? Are you uh are you done with it or you you think you'll go back?

SPEAKER_01 55:01

Um I'm done climbing above base camp on the south side for sure. Um that one I can answer easily. I just I don't want to go through the icefall again. It's too I've just done it too many times, and there's no reason. Um, I do still very much want to try and climb the mountain in record time without gas. So the option there would be to go from the north side, which is in Tibet. Um I that was actually my plan in 2026, and I had signed up to go on Tibet and started putting in all the paperwork for permits and stuff. Um, and then unfortunately they closed the mountain um for everyone that spring, and it's still closed this fall. Um there's a whole whole that's a whole other story. But um, long story short, the permitting process on the North um Tibetanslash Chinese side is much more complicated. So we'll see. I would love to do it, um, but it's gonna depend on that.

SPEAKER_00 55:45

All right, we'll see if we do this one in like two or three minutes. This was a question about um Mount Elbert. I know you took a crack at the Mount Albert FKT a while ago. And it was never I I've been dying to ask you, and we can cut this out if uh I don't know if there's a Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 55:59

It's okay. It's okay. I'll tell the story. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 56:00

What happened? I'm so curious.

SPEAKER_01 56:03

Okay, so the story with that is that I don't know if you followed this story, but there was a guy who climbed who did an FKT on Grand Tedon, I think. Because he cut a switch back and it was off trail and blah blah. This happened at like exactly it was like literally that day or that week or something. And so I did this, it was it was a good effort. Um, but it wasn't like, oh, this is really important to me. So I had a pretty good run. I cut a couple of switchbacks, and then this happened, and I I was actually with Chris Fisher in Colorado in Leadville, and I was like, Yeah, I'm just not gonna submit this because like I don't want a headache, basically is what it came down to. So I don't know, I think I might have even privated the activity because I was like, I just don't want this to become like that guy, like had to go to court and stuff because he was cutting switchbacks.

SPEAKER_00 56:51

It's one of my good friends, dude. It's Michelino, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:54

Yeah, and I was like, I do not need that. Like, I don't, yeah, I'm not that interested. So, anyways, I was actually hoping to go back. I was in Leadville um like a few weeks ago, and I was like, oh, it'd be really fun to go and try and do that again, and then it's on fire. So now it's uh it wasn't an option right now. But I'd love to go give it another shot and like actually make sure I run the whole thing. But you I don't know if you've been on Albert, but it's you know, there's like super obvious social trails. So for me, especially coming from Nepal at the time, I was like, you just take the freaking direct line, why not? Like there's obviously a trail here, and it's not the like maybe highway trail that's this big long zigzag, but whatever. It it's it's neither here nor there.

SPEAKER_00 57:30

So you technically do you do you I'm just curious. Like, so you technically do have technically have the record then. I'm just kind of curious.

SPEAKER_01 57:37

I don't think so. Well, it's up to you. I didn't follow the route the right way. Isn't that true?

SPEAKER_00 57:41

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 57:42

Well, I think like if I submitted it to FKT, I don't know if I I don't know. Is this true? The short answer is I don't know. And uh it's not worth the headache for me. Yeah um because I I think if I looked at the track, and I maybe I did this at some point of the person who did it first, um, they had done all the switchbacks, and so it's like I probably cut off like 200 or 300 horizontal meters. So to me, it's like if I was comparing those, I'd be like, no, that doesn't count. Like it doesn't matter that you're faster, like you gotta run the route the way it was run before. That's my take. So again, I'm not gonna get banned out of shape out of it. I don't really care about it. But um, like that that it it came in conjunction with that other thing, and that was like such a huge scandal. I was like, Jesus, I do not want anything to do with this. I don't care. This is totally fine.

Mount Elbert Switchbacks And Wrap

SPEAKER_00 58:27

Fair enough. Well, dude, I don't want to uh hold you any longer. I know we're gonna say we got a hard drop off. Tyler, thank you so much for coming on. Amazing conversation. Uh genuinely appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 58:36

Thanks, man. I appreciate all the great questions. It's been fun.

SPEAKER_00 58:39

Thank you.