Some of the strongest climbers in history understood the difference. Using O2 is fine, but don’t ever say it is “almost the same”. You don’t eliminate lactic acid, your blood thickens and cannot circulate properly, you’re cold and confused, you suffer from ataxia, you must be extremely careful when changing your jumar from one rope to another not to do something really dangerous…It’s like facing a tough uphill with a bicycle or with a scooter. You get younger, stronger, more powerful. In my experience, switching to O2 is like entering a hyperbaric chamber. So climbing with supplementary O2 is not really climbing?Ĭlimbing with O2 is something you do for fun: to enjoy the landscape, the surroundings, the atmosphere…But from a sporting point of view, an O2 climb is not valid. When he put on the mask and switched the flow to 1L/minute, his oxygen saturation rose to 97%. On Makalu this spring, Topo climbed without oxygen until 7,500m, and his blood oxygen level sat at 75-78%. The most difficult part of the entire climb was just reaching that point.įourth, it boosts O2 saturation immediately. On Everest, I used O2 from Camp 1 at 7,100m. Third, your mind is clear, you are well-coordinated, you think properly. You push, and the muscles work, they are not overloaded. Second, you don’t feel lactic acid accumulating in your muscles. I mean, if you start with O2 at 6,500m, that is what you have climbed: a 6,500m mountain. I believe that when you start using O2, that is as high as you ever get. I can speak from experience since I climbed Everest both without oxygen and then with oxygen when guiding for Alpenglow last year. How different is it to climb above 8,300m with or without O2? The final steps before the summit of Makalu. He didn’t do it for work or money, just for friendship. And so they came – it was awesome! Pemba’s support was important. Also Pemba, a very dear friend of mine, said that he would really like to try and climb an 8,000’er without O2 and that he would come if he had time after guiding on Everest. In addition, my partner Topito said he would return from Kathmandu to climb with me. So I was strong, patient, and ready for a second try. The strategy includes choosing the right moment to begin the push, who to climb with, and the conditions. What was your strategy for the second summit push? This is not a criticism of others choosing to climb in different ways. Don’t let yourself be tempted to hurry or feel down because others are summiting and going home. I can’t just show up in Base Camp and go up. That means three things: patience, a good strategy, and enough physical strength. And if you go without O2, you need more time, you need to climb as people climbed 20 years ago. All this support makes things happen very fast. These days, most mountaineers go with huge support: O2, fixed ropes (which I also used), help pitching and supplying camps. It must have been frustrating to see so many climbers heading down with the summit under their belts while you stayed in BC hoping for another window to open. Soul mates: Carla Perez with Pemba Sherpa and Topo Mena (in red). It was that previous experience that helped me to decide to turn around. It wasn’t that I was already freezing or exhausted, which did happen to me on my first Everest attempt. The most difficult thing is to know when to take that decision, to avoid serious consequences. But several factors were clear, starting with the weather. How hard was it to turn back during your first summit bid, then find the strength and motivation to try again? “I’ll try to be objective, but I will probably get driven by feelings, as I always do,” she warned. She spoke to ExplorersWeb about her climbs, projects, mountain ethics, and the power of love and friendship in the thin air. Raised on the outskirts of the Andes, Carla Perez is currently one of the strongest female Himalayan climbers, according to guides and fellow alpinists. If you turn it on at 6,000m, that is the height of the mountain you climb. As she knows from experience, the altitude counter stops the moment the bottled oxygen starts flowing. That is the mountain’s actual altitude, only reachable without supplementary oxygen. Last week, Carla Perez climbed a different Makalu from most people. The Ecuadorian admits that she only begins to struggle on no-O2 climbs above 8,300m - which is why she wants to do all five peaks above that altitude.
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