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Climbing Mount Everest has long been a process that requires 6-8 weeks of acclimatization. It’s a process that happens at altitude, which risks not only death by HACE/HAPE and also involves lots of dangerous climbing up and down through risky ice falls and avalanche paths. That is, apparently, until now.

As I wrote about earlier, a climbing group was experimenting with xenon gas therapy. It has long been known that when using the right amounts of xenon gas during medical anesthesia, it can dramatically increase red blood cell count. The mechanism is not understood – but the effect is. So why not use that effect to speed acclimatization?

Well, a group of British men did exactly that and they summited Everest in less than a week. Even casual users of xenon gas reported feeling dramatically better during their climbs.

It’s now causing a real ruckus in the climbing community. Many are saying it is against climbing ethics. The world doping council has xenon on it’s list of banned substances, but personal climbing is an open, unregulated activity. Others bring up the old argument against the use of bottle oxygen, is that ‘unfair’ too?

However all this comes out, it’s going to be an interesting time in the climbing community. The dramatic success of these climbers means the use of xenon is unlikely to disappear soon.

Links:

• https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/world/europe/mount-everest-xenon-gas-nepal-uk-climbers.html
• https://mattfife.com/?p=13268
• https://explorersweb.com/you-can-now-climb-everest-in-a-week-using-xenon-doping-the-implications/

Ride along a full, fastest lap of the Isle of Man motorcycle course. Man – that is just terrifying speed. It’s no wonder this motorcycle race often claims at least one life each year.

polýMATHY tries to speak Latin to a bunch of random religious at the Vatican. He said that out of 12 people he talked with, only 3 were able to speak it.

I think that’s correct. As someone that went to Catholic seminary, he is correct in saying Latin was not required. I took it as an elective since it’s such a good idea to be able to read the original documents in their original language. Latin is such a beautifully poetic and nuanced language, you lose a lot in translation to more simplistic languages like English.

Cactus to Clouds is the toughest hike in California. It’s located near Palm Springs and is a mind-boggling 19.2 mile (one way! you take a tram back down) with 10,629ft of gain. Temperatures in the summer often reach triple digits. Apparently it’s been closed more often due to rescue operations for exhausted and dehydrated hikers.

polýMATHY tried to use his Latin to talk to random priests in the Vatican and it goes pretty well. One of my instructors did Latin translations at the Vatican.

I would would have been a barely functional novice with my Latin verbal skills (even when I was still taking classes and using it regularly). My Latin knowledge was almost exclusively read, not spoken – so it would have been rough times. I could listen to him and understand a good bit of what he was saying, but I would have struggled to respond.

Namibia is absolutely on my list of places I want to visit.

Anton somewhere takes the almost perfect road trip through the country. During his travels, he stops by Etosha National Park and goes animal spotting by visiting several of the numerous watering holes.

You can get a similar experience by watching the 24 hour live webcam of a watering hole from Gondwana Namib Park. There really is quite an amazing amount of animals that come to the water. It’s especially interesting in mornings/evening to see the different kinds of animals that show up at different parts of the day.

Tasting History with Max Miller shares what Oregon trail travelers ate.

First, at around 4am, they’d start fires to get breakfast going: bacon, johny cakes, and coffee. They often would milk the cows that they brought along, put the milk in a pale under the wagon, and the jostling would churn it into butter.

They had all kinds of other foods for their meals, including camas root and other items they found along the way.

I wasn’t alive in 1968 when this accident happened, but I do remember visiting the base during a summer open house when I was quite young (likely around 5-7). I remember seeing all the fighter and bomber planes – even waiting in line to take a ride on one of the planes (but the wait was so long we ended up not doing it).

If this broken arrow accident had resulted in a nuclear detonation, I likely wouldn’t be here today since my parents lived so close.

This accident is also talked about in the absolutely fabulous books Command and Control by Eric Schlosser and might be also mentioned in the book Atomic Accidents by James Mahaffey.

This gentleman in the village of Pyramiden was caught by surprise by a polar bear. He fired off a round from his rifle at the bear, but it still charged him. The man fled on foot until he got onto a snowmobile and just barely escaped (no pun intended).

It was a bold strategy since polar bear can run up to 25 MPH.