Tyler Andrews breaks Everest speed record with oxygen-assisted ascent
American endurance athlete reaches the summit from Base Camp in under ten hours as a wave of elite climbers tests the limits of speed and no-oxygen mountaineering on the world’s highest peak
American endurance athlete Tyler Andrews has claimed a new speed record on Mount Everest, climbing from Everest Base Camp to the summit in 9 hours and 55 minutes using supplementary oxygen, according to expedition organiser Asian Trekking.
Dawa Steven Sherpa, the company’s managing director, said Andrews reached the 8,849-metre summit at 5:06 a.m. local time on May 28 after departing Base Camp at 7:11 p.m. the previous evening. The ascent eclipsed the previous oxygen-assisted base-camp-to-summit “fastest known time” of 10 hours and 56 minutes, set by Lakpa Gelu Sherpa in 2003.
The record came on Andrews’s sixth attempt over the past two years, underlining both the growing competitiveness of Himalayan speed climbing and the extreme difficulty of sustaining pace at high altitude. Even with bottled oxygen, Everest’s thin air turns sustained exertion into a punishing physiological contest.
Andrews had originally set out to break the longstanding no-oxygen speed mark established by Marc Batard, the French climber who reached Everest’s summit from base camp in 22 hours and 29 minutes in 1988. But, like several elite athletes this season, Andrews ultimately relied on supplemental oxygen in his successful push.
The American is no stranger to rapid ascents. In September 2024 he set a speed record on Manaslu, the world’s eighth-highest mountain, climbing from base camp to the summit in 9 hours and 52 minutes without bottled oxygen, shaving more than two hours off the previous best time.
According to a statement published on his website, Andrews dedicated the Everest climb to Greg Krupa, a friend and supporter of the Chaski Foundation, a non-profit organisation he co-founded to promote social impact through sport. Krupa died in April 2026.
The season has also exposed the risks confronting climbers attempting Everest without oxygen. Ecuadorian mountaineer Karl Egloff abandoned his own no-oxygen summit push after reaching the South Col with fellow climber Nico Miranda. In an Instagram post, Egloff said the pair decided conditions and fatigue made a summit attempt too dangerous.
“Although we may have been able to summit, we knew the descent would have been too risky,” he wrote after returning directly to Base Camp.
Another climber, Lithuanian mountaineer Saulius Damulevicius, required assistance during his descent after a solo no-oxygen attempt. Damulevicius turned around at around 8,400 metres on May 27 before later falling ill between Camps 3 and 2. He was eventually rescued safely.
The contrasting outcomes illustrate Everest’s increasingly divided culture: part endurance laboratory, part commercial expedition industry, and part theatre for increasingly specialised records. The mountain remains unforgiving to those who misjudge the limits of speed, oxygen—or themselves.
