Tyler Andrews Was Running to the Top of Mount Everest When a Crucial Piece of Gear Broke

It recently took me 25 minutes to walk a across Mount Everest Base Camp to the edge of the Khumbu Glacier to meet American ultrarunner Tyler Andrews.

I had to stop frequently along the rocky path—which is at 17,500 feet above sea level—to cough and catch my breath. During the stroll I often thought about Andrews’ upcoming attempt to run from Base Camp to the summit of Mount Everest and back without using supplemental oxygen. Andrews’ goal is to break the current speed record for ascending the world’s highest peak without oxygen, which currently stands at 20 hours and 24 minutes.

The whole thing seemed crazy.

When I found Andrews, he and his pacing partner and close friend Chris Fisher were both sitting cross-legged on the floor of a large yellow tent on ether side of a large black exercise bike. Next to the bike stood a mini-fridge-sized medical device. Two plastic hoses snaked out from the base of the machine, across the tent floor, underneath the exercise bike, and up to two large masks attached to both men’s faces.

“One hose puts out the hypoxic air, and the other one is basically the vent for the hyperoxic air,” Andrews said through the mask. He was inhaling oxygen-rich air, recovering from one of his daily training sessions on the exercise bike. Fisher, meanwhile, was breathing in oxygen-deficient air to help with his acclimatization.

These devices are part of the infrastructure that Andrews has brought to Mount Everest to help him with his record. In addition to the machine, Andrews is going to need strong legs and, admittedly, better luck.

An Aborted Ascent at 21,000 Feet

On May 10, Andrews made his first attempt at the record, but the ascent ended prematurely. Andrews and Fisher left late at night, sped through the Khumbu Icefall, and reached Camp I at 19,900 feet elevation in just 1 hour, 56 minutes. Less than an hour later, the duo reached Camp II at 21,000 feet.

“I was actually much warmer than I expected,” Andrews said. “I wore running shoes with MICROspikes and that was totally fine.”

A fit Mount Everest climber takes two full days of hiking to reach Camp III at 23,600 feet. But Andrews reached the camp, at the top of the Lhotse Face, just 4 hours and 32 minutes after beginning his run. He was well on pace to break the record.

And that’s when calamity struck.

Andrews told me that, several months ago, he recorded a podcast with his father, who asked him what he worried about ahead of the Everest ascent.

“A month ago, my response was, ‘The thing I’m most stressed out about is that some weird little thing that has nothing to do with my fitness is gonna screw me up,'” Andrews said. “And that’s pretty much what happened.”

At Camp III, Andrews changed his footwear, removing his running shoes and putting on heavy climbing boots for the remainder of the ascent. These boots, rated for 6,000 meters and above, have a hard plastic shell with an integrated gaiter that goes over the knee. Most boots of this style are either secured with buckles or zippers.

“It’s my big-mountain boot, and in the cold metal gets brittle,” Andrews said. “You know how those zippers can be super stiff. So, I was really yanking on it and the whole piece, the whole track broke right in half.”

A broken boot at extreme altitude could lead to frostbite. Andrews and a member of his crew at Camp III attempted to fix the problem.

“Luckily, the boot had a Velcro attachment at the top, so that was closed, but the rest was wide open,” he said. Andrews and his crew member then improvised another solution. “We took one of those Hyperlite bags—you know, the super thin Teflon kind of bags—and wrapped that around the gaiter,” he said. “I put my crampon over that, but the boot wasn’t closed. It was wide open.”

Stopping to try and fix the boot cost Andrews valuable energy and time. He set off for Camp IV, but the ad-hoc repair didn’t last for very long.

“Once I got up, I could feel my foot was getting wet,” Andrews said. To him, the chasing the record wasn’t worth, “Losing all my toes.”

At 7 A.M. Andrews made the tough call to abandon the attempt. He shuffled down from 25,000 feet to Camp III and then on to Base Camp.

A Second Attempt in Late May

Andrews said his May 10 attempt gave him plenty of time to try it again. Andrews said he’s targeting Friday, May 23 for his next attempt at the Mount Everest record. You can follow his live tracking here.

“That’s why I tried in this early window, so that we would have time for something weird and unexpected to happen,” he said.

We sat in the late morning sun, chatting as Andrews and Fischer pulled deep lungfuls of air through their masks. Andrews told me about a few future projects, and some of the pressure he’s been under after he launched his very public attempt to set the record on Mount Everest. The announcement set off an ultrarunning duel with one of his friends and mentors, Swiss-Equadorian athlete Karl Egloff, who is chasing the same record this season.

“I’ve felt a lot of pressure for a lot of things in my career,” Andrews said. “Obviously, this is probably the biggest stage I’ve ever been on. But the last six months of training have gone so well that I know I can have a c-minus day and still take the record.”

He’s continuing his daily training regimen at Base Camp: two hours of running plus two hours of riding the stationary bike while wearing the hypoxic mask.

He said the machine simulates the oxygen level at 36,000 feet—well above the top of Mount Everest. That’s about the cruising altitude of a commercial jet.

I recently texted Andrews to see how his body was feeling after all of this preparation. “Fantastic, much better than before attempt 1,” he replied.

Let’s hope his boots can keep up.