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Daily Mountain
47 years, Australia
This article first appeared on ExplorersWeb. The original can be read here.
Polish ski mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel has become the first person in history to ski down from the summit of the second highest mountain in the world. This follows a busy few days on K2, as 31 climbers summited on July 21. No word on whether Bargiel had to dodge any of those climbers as he hurtled downhill.
Within each generation of high-altitude alpinism, there are exceptional moments: Reinhold Messner’s solo climb of Everest in the 1980s, or House and Anderson’s alpine-style ascent of Nanga Parbat’s Rupal Face in the noughties, for example. Given the notoriously harsh weather on K2, its extreme altitude, the exposure and the technical difficulty of the route, Bargiel’s descent must rank as one of those moments. That some of the world’s best extreme skiers have tried and failed only strengthens his achievement.
On July 19 Bargiel left Base Camp for Camp 2, where his climbing partner, Janusz Golab, was waiting. After a night at Camp 3, the pair hurried on to Camp 5. Here, they spent the night before pushing on to the summit. They reached it early on Sunday morning (July 22).
Bargiel left the summit by the Abruzzi route, the voie normale, then traversed right to follow a series of lines that culminated in the Polish route down the steep and imposing south face.
Source: https://explorersweb.com
Photo credit: Marek Ogien
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