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Saturday, September 20, 2025

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A group of climbers recently made headlines when they summited Mt. Everest with the help of xenon gas, making it easier to adapt to the extreme altitude. Does this kind of physical enhancement spoil the adventure? Plus:

• The Administration is seeing enemies everywhere
• What Trump wants from a TikTok deal
• Raul Lopez wants to be American fashion

What It’s Like to Get Really, Really High

Climbers are often chasing a rush. Was I cheating by using help to get there?

By Charles Bethea

Illustration by Arina Kokoreva

Ojos del Salado rises more than twenty-two thousand feet above sea level, on Chile’s northeastern border. It is the world’s tallest volcano, towering over the world’s highest desert: an ash-and-scree-covered behemoth that exceeds Elbrus, Kilimanjaro, and Denali in size, if not renown. Its name means “sources of the salty river,” or, possibly, “eyes of salt,” which is what the brackish lagoons on its lower reaches resemble when your brain is starved of oxygen. The wind and cold are trouble, too. Hypothermia and high-altitude pulmonary edema invisibly patrol the peak, which a pair of Poles were the first to reach, in 1937. Nonetheless, Ojos is what mountaineers call a “walk-up.” There are no crevasses or technical features on its standard route, just a relatively simple rock scramble beneath the summit block.

I gathered this much from reading trip reports, back in 2016, while planning an Ojos expedition of my own. One particularly memorable account of failure there described temperatures of twenty degrees below zero and winds that drove “head-high icy particles which cut our faces like sandpaper.” At the time I encountered that chilling sentence, I was a thirty-five-year-old freelance writer living in Atlanta. When asked why I wanted to climb this volcano—rather than a slighter one, or maybe a ski hill—I sometimes lazily cited George Mallory. “Because it’s there,” the English mountaineering legend said, before one of his pioneering attempts at Mt. Everest, where he would die in 1924.

I did not want to die. I just wanted to kick my tires a bit, to let nature throttle me again.

Keep reading

Editor’s Pick

Trump with hands pointing in different directions

Comment

Seeing Enemies Everywhere

The government’s working definition of “hate speech” now seems to include anything that offends Donald Trump personally—including late-night comedy.

By Jonathan Blitzer

More from The New Yorker

The Lede

What Trump Wants from a TikTok Deal with China

The Chinese-owned social-media app was banned by Congress because of national-security concerns, but the President seems more interested in leveraging its future for his personal gain.

By Clare Malone

A photo of Raul Lopez, wearing an all-white suit while looking straight at camera with arms outstretched, against a black background.

On and Off the Avenue

Raul Lopez Wants to Be American Fashion

In the first decade of his career, the Brooklyn-born designer retired three times. Now everything seems to be clicking.

By Ana Karina Zatarain

A teenage girl staring at the camera, half covered by a mirrored door with her brother in the reflection.

Photo Booth

Picturing a Chinatown Family Across Twenty-Two Years

More than two decades ago, the Lams invited Thomas Holton, a photographer, to their apartment for dinner. He’s been part of the family ever since.

By Qian Julie Wang

Today’s Podcast

With the midterms more than a year away, Donald Trump is calling for a nationwide prohibition on mail-in voting and restrictions on voting machines, and the Justice Department is demanding sensitive voter information from at least thirty-four states. On The New Yorker Radio Hour, the election lawyer Marc Elias joins David Remnick to discuss the potential consequences of these efforts. Listen and follow »

In Case You Missed It

Letter from Barcelona

Is the Sagrada Família a Masterpiece or Kitsch?

In the century since Antoni Gaudí died, his wild design has been obsessively realized, creating the world’s tallest church—and an endlessly debated icon.

By D. T. Max

The face of Charlie Kirk is visible in the distance on a board set against a wall. The wall is lit in a red light, and in front of the portrait and the wall, black silhouettes of figures are visible.

Infinite Scroll

Charlie Kirk and Tyler Robinson Came from the Same Warped Online Worlds

The right-wing activist and his alleged assassin were both creatures of a digital ecosystem that rewards viral engagement at all costs.

By Kyle Chayka

An illustrated GIF of three figures reading while walking.

Under Review

The Best Books We Read This Week

Our editors and critics choose the most captivating, notable, brilliant, surprising, absorbing, weird, thought-provoking, and talked-about reads.

Crossword

Play This Week’s Challenging Puzzle

Instruction to one getting a back tattoo, say: eight letters.

By Anna Shechtman

Get ready for 2026! Order the New Yorker Desk Diary, a customizable day planner featuring cartoons from the magazine. See colors and buy »

Cartoon by Daniel Kanhai

“Can you not talk to me until dinner? I don’t want to burn through any good conversation at home.”

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P.S. Billie Jean King defeated Bobby Riggs, in the famed “battle of the sexes” tennis match, on this day in 1973. “One thing I want to stress,” King once told our sports reporter, “when a woman leads, she leads for everyone.”