They want to climb Everest in a week using an anesthetic gas. Critics warn it’s dangerous

CNN
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It started in the pub, over a couple of beers. Four ex-military friends had been speaking about taking on an adventurous trip to raise money for a veterans’ charity, when one brought up the prospect of summiting Everest.

“We’re all busy people. My response was, ‘No way I can spend four to six, maybe even eight weeks out climbing Everest — it’s just almost impossible,” Al Carns, a British lawmaker told CNN.

But one of his friends had a counter challenge: he had heard about a novel way of altering the acclimatization process that could allow them to summit the 8,849-meter (29,032 feet) peak in under a week — by inhaling a noble gas called xenon…