Everest 2004: Mallory and Irvine The Final Chapter: Summitoxygen

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"Mallory and Irvine The Final Chapter: Our "private" group—the B-Team used re-filled Poisk bottles, Tom's A-team, the "public team"  used exclusively "SummitOxygen" on Everest in the Spring of 2004.

The SummitOxygen overall worked great for us! We did have to make an adjustment to the equipment at ABC, which was easy and basic for the climbers to do. At ABC we also checked the pressure in each tank BEFORE taking the bottles up the mountain. One bottle was empty, or more likely had a bad valve. The others bottles had varying amounts of pressure, which we noted.

The oxygen once up on the mountain worked excellent, one climber reported getting 21 hours out of a bottle! It is unclear what his flow rate was.

Caution to others: You should remember that this oxygen is highly flammable, smoking should be avoided around it. We would recommend people spend time using it before summit day, to get to know the equipment, and check your bottles before you go high!.

Caution using other oxygen: We would recommend people spend time using it before summit day, to get to know the equipment, and check your bottles before you go high!

Year after year we hear of people with bad valves on bottles that appear empty, check it before you go high! Of course, there are a few who blame the equipment when maybe that was not the real issue.

SummitOxygen, again worked great for us! Over time it could be a  significant change in Mt Everest climbing. Many commercial expeditions have much invested in the old system, therefore don't expect a quick change. Time also should be taken to learn the new system. For much more on SummitOxygen and the advantages see here for their web site.

Next:  An old fashioned Q&A. With hundreds of e-mails a day it is tough to keep up with the everestnews.com e-mail, so submit your questions to  and we will try to answer them as a group to be more effective.

We went to Mount Everest in search of an answer.

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