Lewis Pugh recently completed a swim beneath the icy summit of Mount Everest to raise awareness of glacial melt.
There’s a lot of record-breaking happening at Mount Everest lately. 13-year-old Jordan Romero recently became the youngest person to complete the climb—but the newest Everest record isn’t about climbing to the top of the mountain, but going beneath it.
That’s right: 40-year-old Lewis Gordon Pugh, a British endurance swimmer, just completed a swim beneath the summit of Mount Everest, battling icy waters to complete the kilometer-long swim across Pumori Lake. Although the swim’s distance was short, the water temperature and altitude made it one of the most difficult feats he’d ever accomplished—particularly because he wore nothing but a pair of Speedos, a cap, and goggles to protect himself against the 34-degree water. He completed the swim in 22 minutes and 51 seconds.
“Because of the altitude you need to swim very slowly and deliberately,” Pugh told Sky News. “Swimming 20m at full speed in the test swim, I felt I was going to drown.”
So Pugh adapted his stroke, making sure to swim slowly enough to stay afloat, but fast enough that he didn’t freeze to death. A team of doctors were on hand to supervise his stunt and help out if he got into any trouble.
Pugh, who’s been nicknamed “the Human Polar Bear” didn’t do the swim purely for shock value, though: he did it as a way to raise awareness of the melting glaciers in the Himalayas, and the problems that declining water supplies are causing for the area.
“Most glaciers are melting away,” he said. “The glaciers in the Himalayas are not just ice. They are a lifeline - they provide water to approximately two billion people.”