Kuntal Joisher, a mountaineer, has been part of over 25 Himalayan climbing expeditions. He has been a vegan for the past 17 years. This year, he used a completely ‘vegan gear’ to summit Mt Everest on 23 May.

After two failed attempts in 2014 and 2015, he finally reached the top of Everest for the first time in May 2016 in a down suit. But he felt guilty using a down suit and mittens with leather palms. It was then that he decided that he would thenceforth climb only in vegan gear.

Joisher grew up as a vegetarian in India. But it was when he went to the United States in 2001 to pursue his Master’s degree that his roommate exposed him to the horrors of the eggs, dairy and leather industries. “After meeting him, I connected the dots that a piece of meat, a cake made with eggs, a glass of milk, a block of cheese, a leather belt, or the down jacket I was wearing all came from abused animals,” he says. When he realized that even as a vegetarian he had contributed to animal abuse and slaughter, he decided to turn vegan.

Going vegan is the bare minimum people can do for animals and the planet, he contends. However, when news spread about his expedition to Everest as a vegan, there was a lot of pushback from his friend and family circles. Joisher says, “They kept telling me that the vegan diet is nutritionally deficient as it lacks protein.” He wanted to dispel that myth, and climb Everest to show vegan products are not only compassionately made but also of the highest quality, for both nutrition and clothing uses.

The difficult part was finding vegan climbing gear, meaning gear without leather, down, and wool. When his climbing journey started, he could find replacements for down, leather and wool while climbing smaller mountains up to 6,500 meters. However, there were two pieces of gear that were a problem for bigger mountains: a one-piece climbing suit, and high-altitude mittens. Every single suit in the market was made from down feathers, he reveals. The mittens that protect fingers from frostbite were made of both down and feather.

In 2014, he had written to several companies including North Face, Mountain Hardwear and Rab, requesting them to create a synthetic vegan one-piece suit for his Everest expedition. All of them said it’s pretty much impossible. “I was dejected. I decided to make my own synthetic suit using synthetic Primaloft material. But I quickly realized that the end product would be so bulky and heavy I would look like a Michelin man. At the end of this exercise, I gave up. Doesn’t happen often, but I did,” he says.

When he was back from Everest in 2016, he again started his search for an animal-free suit because he was “not going to wear a dead animal” on his body again. He wrote to a company in Italy called ‘Save the Duck’. They didn’t have mountaineering gear in their catalog, but agreed to work on one for him, for they shared his vision. After eight months, they came up with the world’s first ever one-piece down-free suit for above 8,000m mountains. Around 50 per cent of the suit is made from recycled materials. For the mittens, he collaborated with Holyland Hiking, a trekking shop in Thamel. Biden Rai, the shop owner, is a climber too and he understood Joisher’s needs, and his animal-free mittens were ready in quick time.

Joisher knew he was risking his life as the suit and the mittens had never been tested in extreme conditions. But he felt ready. He went on to summit Lhotse in May 2018 using his animal-free gear. When he succeeded, he became the first human to summit any of the above-8,000m mountains as a 100 percent vegan.

Then, this year, he decided to climb Everest from the Chinese side, a harsher and tougher challenge than climbing from the Nepali side. He says he took up the challenge to show the world that vegan diets and gear are just as good, if not superior, to the non-vegan options. On 23 May, after 46 days of climbing, he made it to the top of Everest. This time he proudly flew the vegan flag knowing that no animal had to suffer for his dream to come true.

Talking about his gear, he says that the warmth and function are the two most important aspects for him. From his research, he has found that synthetic gear is cheaper than animal gear. As making synthetic vegan gear is more efficient in terms of used resources compared to non-synthetic non-vegan gear, there is significant cost saving.
“I definitely recommend climbers to switch to synthetic gear as it is warm, keeps you safe, and above all is good for the animals and the planet,” says Joisher.