Fox News' Mike Tobin completes risky Everest climb and shares details of high-stakes summit

Along with a team, Tobin hiked the mountain in the Himalayas, reaching the highest point on Earth. 

Tobin was back on the channel, joining "America's Newsroom" on Friday from China to share the details of his experience. 

"And you compare that to the other people who climbed Everest this season - most of them got beat up on the summit."

He said that his team saw people going down the mountain with "big black mittens on," indicating that "they were covering up frostbite damage."

"I'm very well aware that 90% of the accidents happen on the way down and so you're tired, you're a little hypoxic, and it was a moment of concentration for me," said Tobin. 

"I wanted to make sure that I didn't let up because we still had a long way to get down to advanced base camp."

In 2023, 12 climbers were reported dead while five went missing following 478 hiking permits issued by Nepal, according to Reuters. 

"I was just trying to think, 'Keep your head about yourself. Don't make any mistakes, don't turn what's otherwise going to be a celebration into a tragedy.'"

Tobin said he "certainly was spooked at different times on the climb," sharing that it hit him when he came back down on the second step.

He said it was a bit "odd" as he "was pretty enthused on the way up," but added that other team members shared the moment was spooky for them, too. 

"The only way you survive the death zone is to get in and out of there as fast as you can before the sand runs out of your hourglass or before the oxygen runs out of your bottle," said Tobin.

The "death zone" is an area above 26,247 ft. on the mountain; the air is too thin to support human life without supplemental oxygen.

"I hope that a troubled guy out there somewhere who was looking at suicide as a reasonable response to his troubles will realize that someone took the time to do that in a perilous situation and reconsider before he hurts himself," he added.

He shared that the training process was pretty "arduous."

"I did crazy kinds of training, like I'd take the sandbags that our cameramen use, and I put them in a backpack, and I ran up and down the Indiana Sand Dunes for hours at a time," said Tobin.