A fit Brit with a dream of hiking the Himalayas has smashed world records by climbing and descending the height of Mount Everest in one solitary day — all without leaving the comforts of his suburban home.
With the interior steps of the house his blank canvas, Sean Gee, 37, put in an artful performance, climbing 11.8 miles in 22 hours and 57 minutes — the equivalent of more than 32 Empire State Buildings.
Gee always had his eyes on the real deal, but couldn’t cover the cost of a climbing permit — around $10,000 now, going up to $15,000 next year.
Undeterred, the content creator instead decided to reimagine the painful, dangerous journey — right inside his Las Vegas residence.
“At the time I was going through a divorce, so I needed to take my mind off the situation — [I] thought, what better way to climb Everest,” he told SWNS.
“It was a rollercoaster, there were moments I was really happy and moments I was really down. You have so many different thoughts and feelings, what you’re feeling on the start line is very different to how you feel at the end,” he recalled.
“After 14 hours I went into one of the rooms upstairs and cried for 10 mins then carried on,” Gee admitted.
“The one thing I focused on was, if I stop right now, what will I be doing instead? I’d rather be pushing to do something I’ll remember for years to come,” he said.
“I actually miscalculated and didn’t allow for time coming down the stairs — I thought it was going to take me 10 or 11 hours, but it ended up taking nearly 24 hours.
Gee, a YouTuber posting under the handle s34ntravels, performed the stunt for charity, benefiting a suicide prevention hotline.
He has demonstrated a knack for pushing his own boundaries, completing ultramarathons and even snagging another Guinness World record for the longest time playing an arcade dance game — 40 hours on the mat.
“I’ve been doing endurance challenges for a long time – I always wanted to climb Mount Everest but the problem is it’s really expensive,” he said. “It’s one of those things only people with a lot of money and time can attain and achieve.”
Gee didn’t go out of his way to train before attempting the 91,784-step climb, which burned 10,000 calories. And while he’s aware that he had the benefit of normal oxygen levels the entire time, he’s been happy with the positive attention and the small amount of money he was able to raise for charity.
“People couldn’t really process the magnitude of it until I made the video and sped it up, you can see the sun go down and up again in the background, I think that’s when it clicked,” Gee said.
“It was funny when people had gone to bed and woken up again and I was still climbing the stairs,” he laughed.
Gee completed the challenge in 2021 but is now going public after receiving the good news from Guinness.
“For my next challenge I was thinking of climbing Olympus Mons, Mars’ highest volcano on the stairs with a friend — so we’d do the equivalent of one-and-a-half Everests each,” he said.