Among the hundreds of climbers hoping to scale Everest this season, 27-year-old Australian Oliver Foran began his journey far away, cycling and then walking all the way from the sea.
Foran is seeking to break the 67-day "sea-to-summit" record, first pedaling 1,150 kilometers (715 miles) from the warm waves of the Bay of Bengal in India to Nepal and now trekking to the icy 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) peak.
"I always wanted to climb Mount Everest, but I wanted to do it in a special way," Foran told AFP by telephone on a break from his long hike upwards to Everest Base Camp, and then to the highest place on Earth.
It is also a deeply personal journey, with Foran raising funds for youth mental health.
The former real estate agent climbed his first major mountain, Nepal's 6,189-meter (20,305-foot) Island Peak, in 2024.
He then summited 6,812-meter (22,349-foot) Ama Dablam last year.
He hopes Everest will be his first 8,000-meter mountain.
He has been training -- cycling, exercising and working on his breathing -- for the past six months to build endurance for the altitude.
The sea-to-summit is a rare feat, first completed by another Australian, Tim Macartney-Snape, in 1990. Macartney-Snape spent three months walking from sea level to the Everest summit, and it was his documentary that sparked the idea for Foran.
The current record is held by South Korean climber Kim Chang-ho, who walked and then kayaked the Ganges river, cycled to Nepal and then trekked up to the base camp in 2013, five years before his death on another mountain.
Foran aims to slash a week off that record and reach the summit in 60 days.
"It is a challenging task and a unique one," said Gelje Sherpa, his lead guide and expedition organizer at AGA Adventures.
"There are so many facilities and options to summit Everest in a record time now, but he is using only his own human power. That is big."
Foran cycled across India and Nepal in the first 16 days, navigating sweltering hot plains before steep, relentless hills.
He said he is driven by "something bigger" than himself, the memory of his teenage grief when his mother died of brain cancer.
"I didn't know how to process it... Life on the outside looked pretty good, but inside I was just emptier than ever," he said.
The unresolved grief reached a breaking point seven years later.
Foran said he had "made up my mind that that was it" -- but a call to a friend proved life-saving.
"I made the decision then that... if I ever got the opportunity to stop somebody else from getting to that point or to give them another way, I would," he said.
That commitment underlines his Everest expedition.
Foran is partnering with Australian organization Youturn with a target to raise $200,000 to build a youth mental health support center back home.
Aaron Minton, a director at Youturn, said it would be a "youth-focused mental health and well-being hub".
Foran hopes his journey can offer both awareness and inspiration, sharing the good parts and the struggles of his journey through his social media.
"What's really motivating me is, hopefully, having an inspiration on some of these younger people -- that might be a little bit stuck with where they are right now in their lives," he said.
"Also, I'm doing it for my mum, because she can't, and I want to make her proud."
As he continues his ascent, an unexpected source of comfort that accompanies him is the Madonna song "Like a Prayer".
"My mum used to listen to it. And it now holds a special place in my heart," he said.
"So that's what I'm going to be whistling to myself when I'm walking up to the summit."
