Tim Howell of the UK is preparing for his third consecutive expedition to the Everest massif in order to wingsuit from higher than anyone has — or ever will. He has identified a rocky point on the ridge of Lhotse, overlooking the 3,300m South Face as the highest possible exit point in the world for such a flight.
Howell just needs the right weather and wind conditions, which may happen just once a season, if at all. To bring it off, he must be in place when this happens. Howell, a mountain guide and ex-Royal Marines Commando, has made two previous attempts, in 2024 and 2025. No stranger to wingsuiting, he has also completed over 1,200 flights around the world.
British climber and wingsuit pilot Tim Howell. Photo: Stirling Time Pieces
Last year, the team traversed Lhotse, and Howell had three possible exit points, but the weather never cooperated. Photo: Jon Gupta
Howell and his team endure a stormy spell at nearly 8,300m on Lhotse. Photo: Jon Gupta
Change of strategy
“I think we’ll spend more time waiting at Camp 2 rather than at Base Camp this time, to take quicker advantage of last-minute weather windows,” Howell told ExplorersWeb.
To implement this strategy, the team will head directly up the mountain, acclimatizing as they go. “Altitude has never been an issue for me before,” Howell noted. “We waited at Camp 3 for four days last time, and it was manageable.”
The entire team, which will include John Thornton as cameraman, Namgal Sherpa as lead Sherpa, and possibly a drone pilot, will use supplementary oxygen on the final push.
As Howell sees it, the key to success this year is knowing exactly where to go and how to get there. “We have now stood on the exit point and have ropes in place for it, so we know the route, timings, etc.,” he said.
Howell in Everest Base Camp in 2025, demonstrating his wingsuit. Photo: Tim Howell/Instagram
A rival expedition?
As we post this story, we are waiting for confirmation from a second British team with a similar objective: to BASE jump from above 8,000m on Everest. “The highest point on Planet Earth,” Joshua Bregmen, also an ex-military man, says in the video teaser below. We have asked the team for details.
The current record on Everest is 7,220m, set by Russian Valery Rozov in 2013 on the North Side. He jumped toward the Tibetan side of the mountain, which will remain closed this spring. Rozov died in 2017 while wingsuiting from Ama Dablam.
The announcement raises an interesting question: What is the highest point on Earth from which a pilot may BASE jump? Howell thoroughly studied all 14 8,000’ers and their potential exit points, looking for the highest accessible launch spot.
Before his death, Rozov also set the overall wingsuit record during his 2016 jump from Cho Oyu, at 7,700m.
“I wanted to break his record, so I had to look for higher exit points, with a cliff long and vertical enough to launch a wingsuit jump from,” Howell said. “That only left Lhotse.”
We will ask the second team whether a BASE jump (vs a wingsuit jump) will allow them to exit from a different and possibly higher point on Everest. Note that the North and East sides of the mountain both lie in Tibetan territory and so are closed this season.
