First Update from Xtreme Everest

NOTE: As we promised in our earlier posting, here's the first dispatch from the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition taking place now, as covered by MacGillivray Freeman Films for their forthcoming "Return to Everest 3D." For the complete story, download the PDF.


NAMCHE BAZAR, Nepal – “I am sitting in the Sherwi Khangba Lodge in Namche Bazaar,” writes Kay Mitchell of Caudwell Xtreme Everest from Nepal. “Almost the whole team has walked up from Monjo today. It was a beautiful walk, with lots of trees, butterflies, birds singing – the sun was out! I took lots of photos, which is always a good excuse to have a breather, and the mountains look fantastic – we even got our first glimpse of Everest.”

At least a dozen expeditions set out this month from Kathmandu to Everest Base Camp, with the goal of reaching the 8,850-foot summit of the world’s highest mountain. But this expedition is different: the ultimate goal is not just simply to reach the top, but to conduct “the largest human biology study ever performed at high altitude,” in the words Dr. Michael Grocott, director of the expedition.

A project of the University of London’s Centre for Altitude, Space and Extreme environment medicine (CASE), the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition will measure human response to low oxygen levels through a series of medical tests over the course of the journey from Kathmandu to Base Camp and on up to the summit.

In addition to the 24 members of the expedition itself, over 200 volunteers have signed up to take part in the Xtreme Everest Medical Research Trek this spring, and will undergo voluntary testing along the way. The large scale of this study group makes it possible to achieve important statistical information about how the human body responds to low oxygen levels – an understanding that could have impact not just on mountaineers, but on the treatment of patients undergoing life-threatening pulmonary illness at any altitude.

“One in six people are admitted to an intensive care unit in the United Kingdom each year,” correspondent Kay Mitchell reports. “Despite very different reasons for admission nearly all of them will suffer from low oxygen levels, and 20% of them will die. The main aim of the our study is to measure how the human body changes as we are exposed to lower and lower levels of oxygen – and how to improve treatment, and increase survival.”


But that's not all... download the PDF for the complete dispatch from Xtreme Everest 2007.