Chaski | Blog | Project Himalaya: RUN EVEREST

Project Himalaya: RUN EVEREST - The Big Reveal

March 21, 2025

In May of 2025, I will try to set a new world record for the fastest ascent of Mt. Everest without using supplemental oxygen.

After keeping this project under wraps for months, I'm excited to finally share the details of my biggest mountain challenge yet. In this blog adaptation of our special podcast episode (see the full video-episode below), I break down my upcoming Everest speed record attempt - the culmination of years of progression through increasingly high and challenging mountains across five continents. From the specific records I'm targeting to the unique training approaches I'm using, this represents the pinnacle of mountain running and the ultimate test of everything I've been building toward.

Here’s the full video podcast where we talk through the project in more detail:

And here are some links where you can listen on Apple and Spotify (or just search Tyler C Andrews wherever you get your podcasts!).

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

What's the goal for this expedition?

There are three different records to consider. The first is by French alpinist Marc Batard from 1988, who completed the one-way journey from base camp to summit without supplemental oxygen in 22 hours, 29 minutes. Then, about 10 years later, Kazi Sherpa broke that record by going from base camp to summit in 20 hours, 24 minutes - though there's some controversy because he allegedly used supplemental oxygen on the way down.

For context, the fastest time ever from base camp to summit was done by Lakpa Gelu Sherpa at 10 hours, 56 minutes, but he used supplemental oxygen throughout. Supplemental oxygen can literally cut your time in half - it's that significant!

Will you be doing this by yourself or with a team?

When I go for the speed record, I'll be doing that by myself. However, I'm heading to Nepal with my friend and longtime training partner, Chris Fisher. He'll be there as a training buddy and support person, and he'll do part of the route with me - probably up through the icefall and some of the descent.

Any big project like this takes a village, so we'll have Dawa Stephen Sherpa from Asian Trekking handling logistics. I literally trust him with my life. He'll be on radio during summit day to ensure everything goes well and keeping an eye on the mountain.

How did this come about?

Everest has a bit of a bad reputation now among serious mountaineers. It's become this Instagram bucket list thing, and the fact that it's so crowded, expensive, and has become a checkbox thing has turned me off a bit. If you'd asked me three or five years ago if I wanted to climb Everest, I'd probably say, ‘ehhh, there are a lot of other mountains out there.’

But when it came up as a speed record idea, suddenly I was excited. I'm motivated both by the aesthetic beauty of being in the mountains and by competing on the biggest stage with the highest stakes. It's been a multi-year progression from smaller mountains like Cotopaxi (5,893m), to the Atacama 6,000ers, Aconcagua (nearly 7,000m), Kilimanjaro, and then Manaslu (8,163m). After Aconcagua, the only higher mountains are in the Himalaya and Pakistan, so it's the natural next step. And Everest is that obvious culmination of all of that.

So, it’s been a multi-year process of both getting myself physically and mentally ready for it, as well as the massive logistical and financial hurdles that we needed to clear to make this feasible.

What makes Everest especially challenging? How will you manage the famously crowded slopes?

It's just really, really high - 8,848 meters (29,029 feet). Manaslu is the highest I've ever been at 8,163 meters, so Everest is almost an entire half-mile higher. As you go up, it's very nonlinear - the difference between 7,000 and 8,000 meters is greater than between 6,000 and 7,000, and the difference between 8,000 and 8,848 is even more extreme. The hardest part will be spending so much time in the "death zone" above 8,000 meters.

For the crowds that we see in those famous photos, my pithy answer is: I just won't be there when there are 300 people standing in line. I approach this like a puzzle with my engineer brain. There are pinch points at the Hillary Step, Lhotse Face, and icefall, so I need to figure out how to go through these places when there's no one there. I can do that by timing (time of day or season). Because it's a commercialized mountain, there's group-think among the big expeditions who all target the same days. I'll try to go very quickly at the beginning of the season, essentially completing the climb before the big groups arrive.

How is training for Everest different?

The big difference is the altitude. From a fitness perspective, I haven't been doing anything significantly different - Manaslu went really well, and the last thing you want to do is change everything after a successful buildup. I’m doing about 30-40 hours per week of aerobic training, mostly running and hiking in the mountains, and then another 10 hours a week or so in the gym, working on strength-training, balance, and injury prevention. It’s very much a full-time job!

The major difference is how I'm approaching training for that super high altitude. I've been using a hypoxic generator (altitude tent with mask setup) here in Quito to simulate altitudes up to 7,200 meters (23,000 feet), even over 8,000 meters (25,000 feet) recently..

Last year I was just based in Quito at 3,000 meters, training on mountains at 4,600-4,700 meters, and didn't touch anything higher until Nepal. This year, I've been proactively and gradually moving up the acclimatization with hypoxic training, so hopefully I'll be feeling good up to 7,000-8,000 meters before even arriving in Nepal. There's so little information about high-altitude hypoxic intermittent training, and it's been fun experimenting.

How do you approach risk management for Everest?

My risk calculus doesn't change whether I'm on Cotopaxi, Manaslu, or Everest. I don't want to get killed on any mountain, so I try hard not to let the Everest stage impact how I make risk decisions. There are two specific risks I focus on: the death zone (above 8,000 meters) and the Khumbu Icefall.

In the death zone, there's not enough oxygen for sustained life - if you just sit there, you'll eventually die even without other factors. For the Khumbu Icefall, you're navigating around massive, precariously-balanced ice blocks that move about one meter per day, hoping they don't fall when you're underneath. For both risks, moving quickly is my best defense - it minimizes exposure time in these dangerous areas. The fitness preparation I'm doing now isn't just for speed records but also for safety.

I'll have specific cutoff points all over the mountain - not just "be at the summit by 2pm" but precise times for each section. If I'm not hitting those windows, I'll turn around and try another day. Having these predetermined cutoffs makes it much easier to make those hard decisions in the moment.

What about evidence for the record?

There’s been a lot of controversy about some big mountain speed records, so I’m trying to do everything possible to make this as transparent and well-document as possible. I'll have multiple devices: a Garmin Enduro watch (40-hour battery in GPS mode), a backup watch, and a Garmin InReach GPS beacon that sends a ping every 10 minutes for live tracking. I'll also have my phone to take summit photos with metadata. Having these redundancies allows for device failures, which are likely given that most consumer electronics aren't designed for -40°F at 8,800 meters.

We'll also have people on the mountain who can vouch for seeing me at specific points. One benefit of Everest being crowded is having more witnesses.

Additionally, we've arranged for drug testing, which adds another layer of legitimacy that other attempts might not have had.

What's the timeline?

I've already completed almost three months of training in Quito with four big three-week blocks. I have about two more weeks here, then I'll relocate to Nepal in early April. I'll spend about a month acclimatizing on a different mountain in the same region, away from the Everest Base Camp circus. At the last possible minute, I'll head to EBC, do one big day up to about 8,000 meters to check the route, come down, rest, and then go for the record at the first possible weather window.

What are you most looking forward to and most nervous about?

I'm looking forward to just being in the Khumbu Valley - it's one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. The scale, the mountains, it's just spectacular. And to compete for what I see as the pinnacle of the sport - running up the tallest mountain in the world - is mind-blowing. I keep thinking of the mantra "the pressure is a privilege." I'm unbelievably grateful to even have this opportunity.

What keeps me up at night is the logistical side. There's so much that has to go right - from weather windows to traveling from Quito to the States to Nepal without losing my gear. The bigger the mountain, the more the mountain itself impacts your success, and so much is outside my control. I'm a control freak who tries to prepare for everything, but ultimately I just have to roll with whatever happens and solve problems as they arise.

You have a unique background, as you weren’t a star athlete as a kid. Could you ever have seen something like this when you were younger?

The short answer is no. I was not an athletic kid and never thought of myself as a jock or r athlete. I always saw my brother as the more athletic one, while I was the more free-spirited, artsy kid. But there's an interesting side to this question.

I think the through-line in my life has been finding something I'm really passionate about – almost obsessive – and doing it with others who share that passion. When I've really hit my stride in something, it wasn't necessarily that I had some innate talent. It was that I was passionate about it, showed some promise, and genuinely loved the day-to-day process of getting better. Whether that was practicing music, running 150 miles a week, or doing absurd amounts of vert up and down the same trail every day – it's that daily grind, the less sexy behind-the-scenes work, that sets you up for the big moments.

If you had told young me, "You're going to be doing something in 20 or 30 years that you're unbelievably passionate about, obsessed with, doing at a high level, and surrounded by people who love it too," that wouldn't surprise me. If you said it would be Everest, I'd think, "Wait, what?" But the idea of chasing something I'm passionate about and putting in enough effort to do it at a high level – that I would understand.

Thanks for reading! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.