Is it possible to climb Everest in three weeks or Manaslu in a fortnight under acceptable margins of safety? The short answer is yes, it is, as long as climbers find the right way to pre-acclimatize while at home. The use of hypoxic tents and masks is granting some impressive results. But – here comes the “but” – DIY solutions and standard programs may or may not work and, in the latter case, you will only find out when it’s too late and the air is too thin.
Training in conditions of hypoxia is not new for elite athletes. The method has been used for decades, mainly aiming to enhance performance by increasing the hematocrit levels (number of red blood-cells), which results on a more efficient transportation of oxygen though the human body’s tissues and a better ventilatory response. The same process occurs naturally when the human body