Almost three long months of climbing, clinical research, highs and lows came to an end for the Xtreme Everest 2 team last Thursday.  The celebration party in Kathmandu, Nepal, was held six years to the day of the successful summit by the 2007 Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition team, which involved many of the group who were part of this crew.

The Xtreme Everest 2 team explored the well-known ability of Sherpas to tolerate hypoxia – reduced oxygen – at high altitude.  64 Sherpas and more than 100 lowlanders, mainly from the UK, were studied over two months.  The scientific agenda focused on microcirculatory and mitochondrial function, nitrogen oxide biology and epigenetics.

A slideshow of pictures from this year’s expedition appears at the end of this blog post (photos copyright Xtreme Everest 2).

This week sees another Everest milestone: tomorrow, May 29, marks 60 years since the first successful Everest summit by Sir Edmund Hillary.

Xtreme Everest 2 expedition leader, and Extreme Physiology & Medicine Deputy Section Editor, Dan Martin applauded the teamwork and dedication of more than 40 scientists who have been in the field for nearly three months:

“This is a unique and extraordinary project. We could not have completed the field data collection without the exceptional performance of a large team spread across three field laboratories.”

Celebrating last Thursday, Caudwell Xtreme Everest Hypoxia Research Consortium chair, and Extreme Physiology & Medicine Editor-in-Chief, Mike Grocott remarked:

“It is wonderful to be able to celebrate the success of Xtreme Everest 2 under Dan Martin’s leadership on the anniversary of the historic measurement of arterial oxygen levels high on Mount Everest.”

The two leaders took samples from each other and two other colleagues at 8,400 meters on Mount Everest, Nepal, on the 23^rd May 2007 as part of the Caudwell Xtreme Everest expedition, which studied human physiology at high altitude.

Read more in a previous post about Xtreme Everest 2.