Nick Symmonds Makes it To Top of Mt. Everest- 1st Sub 4 Minute Miler to Do So

Thankfully the post mentions he's safely back at the South Col, though that's still at 8,000m so not out of the woods yet.

Yes.

Lhotse face can be difficult to descend, and they still need to go through the Icefall again.

Now this is something to boast about. Congrats!

I was 13 when I conquered Everest.

Curious why more teams don’t use the north side? I’d want to avoid the ice fall at all costs.

Is it a permit thing?

He was back of the pack the entire way and then sprinted by everyone the last 100 meters.

I think it's a logistics thing and the Chinese Government is a pain to deal with.
On the Nepal side you have the Sherpa culture and now plenty of helicopter to get you up and down the valley all the time.

SYMMONDS IS BACK BABY!

It would have taken him about 12 hours to go 800 meters on the final summit push.

He has slowed down a lot!

Is he the first person to run sub-4:00 and summit Everest?

Nothing more than a wealthy tourist trip. Congrats for sticking with the training and handling the altitude, I guess. We need to be honest though, none of these people are mountain climbers. They are not setting ropes or carrying their gear. What is next an Ironman so he can get a tatoo?

That is a pretty rare club to be in! Now just swim the English Channel and he'd be a group of one!

Hats off to him for doing something so freaking hard. To all the negative people on this thread, they need to go be really sick at altitude and then come back and post again.

Climbing high is just miserable. Just sitting there is miserable. Not everyone who does climbs like this is going to be the "lead climber" or the Sherpa with 25 years experience or whatever, but they still did climb freakin' Everest and that is impressive no matter what.

Already is group of 1.

Got it. Thanks for the reply.