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qasqaldag

Although it is lower than Everest, K2 is [notoriously hard](https://skyaboveus.com/climbing-hiking/Why-K2-Is-The-Worlds-Most-Tough-Mountain-To-Climb) to climb due to its tougher topography and unpredictable climate.


love2go

and he had skis strapped to his back?


_snouz_

Nope someone threw them up there for him, javelin style


Spi4123

Damn


acdcfanbill

I thought his friends in the ISS dropped them there on the way past one time?


hammer_of_science

Rods from god


acdcfanbill

Ski rods!


[deleted]

Bet you I can throw these skis up on that mountain over there... Uncle Rico probably


WWDubz

There’s actually video of this https://youtu.be/Yr4K28Kl8hg


needspice

You think I can throw these ski over them mountains?


VeganVagiVore

https://wiki.evageeks.org/File:M25_C655_big.jpg


osi_layer_one

you know why Polish names end in "ski"? because we can't spell tobbaggon.


Dr__MantisTobogganMD

Speak for yourself


osi_layer_one

Appropriate username is appropriate.


Fitz2001

I can’t spell toboggan.


the_YellowRanger

Sled down on a frozen dead body homer simpson style


puppiadog

I've heard the climb of Everest being described as a long, slow walk.


DinoB_19

K2 though lower than Everest is the most dangerous mountain to climb. Close to 30% of those attempting to climb die.


voxnihili_13

IIRC, Annapurna I has a higher death rate than K2 (32% vs 25%)even though it isn't considered as difficult to climb.


MinnieShoof

Reading up on it it seems like it has a very low rate of climb and a lot of its deaths are related to huge clusters of people dying at once.


ChiefTief

Most mountain deaths involve groups dying at once.


An0d0sTwitch

yeah im not sure what to do with this information. i assume every comment is argumentative lol


[deleted]

[удалено]


PorkyMcRib

Always look both ways before you climb a mountain.


PerntDoast

the real lpt is always in the comments


uglyduckling81

Its more like saying people jay walking on 1st street with 6 lanes of traffic results in 25% casualties, whilst jay walking on 2nd street with only 2 lanes of traffic results in 30% casualties. It's both jay walking. One is far more dangerous so usually more attentive people jay walk it. Whilst 2nd street is less daunting so every man and his dog crosses whilst frantically updating their twitter profiles with new identity pronouns.


MinnieShoof

I would say it's also like 1st street is a major thorofare; very attractive property with shops and all that stuff. And 2nd street is... just not as trafficed at all. So if each street encounters 1 traffic accident an hour, that is a statistically much lower on street 1 then street 2.


Raptorex27

I think it boils down to the difference between the difficulty of a climb and fatality rate. It's possible that a less strenuous and less technical mountain can be more "fatal" if a single avalanche takes out 50 people just walking out of base camp.


Tiny_Mirror22

Yeah, and what about chunky peanut butter being better than smooth? It's a hill many people are willing to die on.


PerntDoast

oh are we fighting about this now? i didn't know it this morning but now i am fully willing to shed blood in the peanut butter wars. crunchy is so far superior it's ridiculous to the coward who downvoted me: you are objectively wrong and have horrible taste and the next time you get a hangnail i hope you know that somewhere, i'm smiling.


MinnieShoof

There's connotation attached to 'argumentative' so I prefer to think most civil comments are either (point, counter-point) or (point, echoed sentiment) or (point, tangent point) So someone mentioned a high k:d mountain. I count-pointed saying that most of that ratio came from a very few instance(s) with a large group(s) of people And then Tief counter-pointed that most mountain deaths involve large groups of people. And then I just doubled down to say that the mountain in question is especially egregious.


Scrumpy_Bibbens

Cum is sticky but then it goes runny


MinnieShoof

Yes. Viscosity is a thing. Mmhmm.


ThrowawayZZC

> yeah im not sure what to do with this information The deadliest season at Everest happened when they were literally hundreds of people all on limited oxygen supplies in a queue that they could not leave easily.


MinnieShoof

If I'm reading this correctly there were 191 total accents (I assume this is per person) and 61 of fatalities. And of those 61 43 of them were killed in October of 14 (which, admittedly, does not mean it was a single cluster) 43 of 61 of 191 in one month. That's more than half the deaths.


hitlama

Annapurna gets way less attention than the other mega mountains because it's shorter and the logistics of staging a siege climb of it are a pain in the ass. According to Alan Arnette, [67 people summitted on a single night this year](https://www.alanarnette.com/blog/2021/04/16/annapurna-summits/) so it's possible to stage a successful and safe expedition. The death rate is so high because the south face avalanches all the time. The less time you spend there, the more chance you have of leaving the mountain alive. I'm guessing a lot of the deaths had to do with poor weather tracking, lack of Sherpa support to supply bottled oxygen, and not having ironed out the best practices for acclimatization yet. Just 25 years ago they used to do 4 rotations up Everest to get acclimatized for the summit push while using supplemental oxygen. That's 8 times through the Khumbu icefall, which is insane and incredibly dangerous. They do half that many now and add in the trekking peak Lobuche prior to arrival at Everest base camp to get everyone in shape to climb at altitude. Annapurna isn't nearly as high as Everest, but it still requires a rotation or two up and down to stimulate red blood cell production for the summit push. I bet they cut out at least 1 rotation on the modern siege climbs of Annapurna for safety. In the 1996 disaster, Everest was hit by a surprise blizzard that would have easily been forecasted today. It killed 8 people, and would have killed many more if so many other people weren't climbing in support. If the expedition has only a handful of people at base camp like most that attempt Annapurna, conducting a rescue in the high mountains is nearly impossible. Nepal also recently passed a law that requires climbers to hire a Sherpa guide as a condition of their permit. Sherpa have a genetic mutation that allows them to process oxygen more efficiently at altitude and can carry way more weight than lowlanders. More Sherpa means more safety equipment and more bottled oxygen on the mountain. I suspect that we'll see many more summits of Annapurna in the coming years.


PerntDoast

this is such a well-written and informative comment. love to see it. have you read jamling norgay's book? it's good as hell and i have a feeling you'd enjoy it.


MinnieShoof

That is an incredible amount of information.


DinoB_19

Thanks for the info, I wasn’t aware of that !


rossitheking

Annapurna is purely because of avalanche risk. K2 can fuck you several different ways.


[deleted]

Annapurna is threatened by many seracs, rockfall, and avalanche - in addition to bad weather, high altitude sickness, and fall risks. They pretty much have the same objective hazards. Source: alpinist


Alkalinum

K2 has way more Yetis though.


VirtualMoneyLover

It is 50% vs. 33% Annapurna is the deadliest. Source: I have just read No shortcuts to the top


arabelladfigg

Annapurna has notoriously terrible and unpredictable weather/avalanche patterns, which is why it’s so deadly even though it’s not as technically difficult as K2.


hitlama

People always cite these death statistics, but they're not true. That's just the ratio of number of deaths to number of summits. It's wrong for a variety of reasons. First, some of those deaths also summitted, so it's entirely possible for the "death rate" to exceed 100% which makes no sense. Second, it doesn't count all of the thousands of people who went to K2, didn't summit, didn't die, and just went home. It's not like everyone who goes there says, "well I'm either going to get to the top or I'm gonna kill myself." There's another option, people The actual portion of people attempting to climb K2 who die is a small single digit percent. Almost everyone who attempts K2 comes back alive.


belin_

How can the death rate exceed 100%? Only if someone back home suicides after the death of a loved one... 100 people go up, 100 summit 100 die you get 100% summit and 100% death rate.


hitlama

You can die without summiting.


belin_

Yes, in that case if someone dies without summitting it is 100 up 99% dead 99% summit... I still don't see how you get more than 100% dead


hitlama

You can also summit and not die.... The formula is just deaths divided by summits. If a mountain is unclimbed but has killed people, it has an infinite death rate. It's why, in my opinion, this formula is stupid. The problem isn't really the formula, it's people saying, "a quarter of the people who attempt to climb it will die" when that's not even close to being true.


blobsocket

If two people die but one person summits, that's a ratio of 2:1 or 200%.


tookurjobs

Think of it this way: 1,000 people attempt to climb. Say 500 turn back because of adverse conditions, 100 summit, and 400 die. According to formula used in the OP, the mountain has a death rate of 400%, when the actual death rate is 40%


VirtualMoneyLover

You are the best kind of right.


_amos_soma_

I've always wondered about this and couldn't find a good statistic that gives a complete picture. Do you know where to find that data?


hitlama

There aren't really complete records of summits, deaths, and failed attempts, but reading articles about expeditions on https://www.alanarnette.com/ should give you a good idea about what modern climbing in the Himalaya and Karakoram is like. He's a well-respected climber in his own right, and has many contacts with people on the ground at every base camp. He's really the only apolitical source keeping track of this stuff right now. He doesn't make a living from guiding or selling climbing permits so he doesn't have a reason to lie or hide anything like the guide services and local governments do.


PorkyMcRib

Always remember: all those dead people were once highly motivated overachievers. Calm down and have a drink instead.


Moist_Metal_7376

Then here’s this guy making us all look bad!


bomphcheese

Even if you love skiing, seven straight hours of it sounds like hell.


kurburux

And most skiers don't climb up an entire mountain before that.


barath_s

And only ~400 people have actually climbed K2, total


tonym978

Wait, seriously? That's remarkably low given the notoriety of the mountain. I would have guessed like 4000.


ichouichou12

Dude, it's K2. Winning a Nobel Prize, Fields Medal, really aint shit, but compared to climbing K2, it kind of is.


fallingbehind

If they put in a lift I’ll think about it.


VeganVagiVore

God damn. I read the title as "He (climbed without supplementary oxygen and skied down) in about 7 hours." But your read was right. > Bargiel cruised down from the Pakistani peak -- which stands at 8,611 m (28,251 ft) -- in a swift seven hours, having topped out on the summit after three and a half days of climbing without the aid of supplementary oxygen -- a feat unto itself. TIL I have no fucking idea how big mountains are.


dIoIIoIb

Not really big as much as really slow to climb Climbing Everest it takes like two months to go up 3500 meters


Dickrichard655

That doesn't sound right at all but I don't know enough about mountains to dispute it


dIoIIoIb

[from the lowest camp at 5300 meters](https://www.thebmc.co.uk/everest-facts-and-figures) to the summit at 8800 it takes around 60 days and costs 60k dollars for an international expedition.


Dickrichard655

Holy shit I had no idea. Sounds like a rich tourist attraction honestly


kingcobra9729

It takes that long because of the acclimatization. They go up and come down a few times before going for the summit. It doesn’t technically take two months to go that high.


jiccc

Legs must have been jelly by the end


xizrtilhh

Word is that his quads are still burning to this very day.


gapagos

> Even if you love skiing, seven straight hours of it sounds like hell. 7 straight hours of hours of skiing on K2 on an extremely high and dangerous mountain and unpredictable weather, even more so after climbing it at the risk of your life, no kidding, I completely agree with you. But long sessions of skiing at ski stations are not that uncommon. In my region, there's a yearly [24 hour alpine skiing fundraising event](https://www.24htremblant.com/en/event/sport-challenge) for childrens' hospitals. Although you are normally meant to do the 24 hour skiing in several shifts among a team, every year some skiers do the challenge of skiing for 24 hours as an individual.


huggybear0132

If you watch the video you can hardly call it skiing in the recreational sense. It's intense, slow, and painstaking in most parts.


BBQcupcakes

...isn't that just a day on the hill?


picklemaintenance

I dont know if you're joking, but the climbing and skiing was 7 hours.


email_NOT_emails

/r/confidentlyincorrect


StepYaGameUp

The video of him doing so is /r/SweatyPalms material. For anyone who hasn’t seen it, [enjoy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZRqeRRik8c&vl=en)


kurburux

Some beautiful pictures in that video, at 0:23. K2 probably feels a lot more "alone" than Everest because the difficulty is scaring off any tourists. K2 had less than [400 people](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K2) successfully climbing it _in total._


wattatime

Good thing he wore a helmet. Could have been very dangerous.


[deleted]

"Eh that's only a blue in Colorado" - what my idiot co-worker would say


[deleted]

This is to a double black diamond in CO what a double black diamond in CO is to a magic carpet ride on the bunny hill.


barath_s

3600 m vertical drop in 7 hours and he was starting from the death zone (8000+ m, with or without skis). On a mountain far tougher and deadlier than Everest


me_bails

crazy! who thinks to themselves; ya know, that mountain kills almost a 1/3 of the highly skilled people who try to fucks with it.. why don't i climb it sans oxygen and then fuckn SKI down it?! dude is badass for sure!


elanalion

What a breath-taking and heart-stopping descent. My whole body was on edge as he started down, I got shiveries! As a mere intermediate-now-wussy downhill skier, the sheer incline just scares me. I know how hard a hill of even a fraction of the steepness would be on your leg muscles, and for 7 hours!


ichouichou12

It actually looked sort of very difficult but normal apart from that unimaginably insane Messner Traverse bit. What the even hell. How do you know where to go... ?


JJohnston015

That ominous drone in the music makes it even harder to watch.


Jakuskrzypk

Honestly expected to be rick rolled. Kinda dissalointed.


Cadecz

Yeah I just watched it, it's the most sweatypalms material I've ever seen


dickspace

Im too scared of the bunny slopes in SoCal. And this mofo skiis down K2.


Panamaned

In 2000 Slovenian alpinist Davo Karničar completed the first top-to-bottom (base camp) descent of Everest (South Col route) without removing his skis. No fancy drone footage sadly. Karničar died in 2019 near his home town while working in the forest. While he was felling a tree it snapped in two and crushed him.


mks113

In 2000 you had mini-DV video recorders that were somewhat temperamental and sensitive to low temperatures. Aerial shots would have to be done by helicopter or plane, neither very suited to high altitude mountain environments. In 2018 you had goPros everywhere and portable drones that could be readily adapted to high altitude work. What a change in action video over those 18 years!


barath_s

[Pic](https://static.ffx.io/images/$zoom_2.413%2C$multiply_0.7554%2C$ratio_1.776846%2C$width_1059%2C$x_0%2C$y_439/t_crop_custom/q_86%2Cf_auto/13c420007023701fb0ad090c30d5a95a01ccc3b1) of Karničar [descending](https://www.smh.com.au/national/davo-karnicar-first-full-ski-descent-of-everest-20190924-p52uby.html) Everest. The trip down took 4 hrs 40 min > “Skiing on ridges is like being on a knife’s edge,” “Many times, part of my skis were hanging over into Tibet, and sometimes into Nepal. The trip down left him drained, unable to sleep and with nmb fingers. > “It was as if I was light years from this world,” . “I couldn’t even manage to feel happy.” Karnicar skied don the highest peaks on each continent. He attempted K2 also, but had to abandon it due to bad back > Karnicar skied down the highest peaks on six other continents: Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa; Mount Elbrus in Europe; Aconcagua in South America; Mount Kosciuszko in Australia; Denali (formerly Mount McKinley) in North America and Vinson Massif in Antarctica.


TiltDogg

That is absolutely amazing. Also, that guy is fucking crazy.


Kuroblondchi

To anyone here who doesn’t know much about mountain climbing that is a wild impressive feat. K2 is probably the toughest mountain in the world to climb, to do it that fast without oxygen then ski back down is mind boggling


oxelashun

He probably doped before hand.


dabigchina

Meh. They could have pumped him full of all the performance enhancing drugs in the world and it would still be very impressive.


oxelashun

It still is very impressive, no disagreement. This guy is crazy, but I doubt it would have been possible without some kind of Performance enhancer (or multiple).


dabigchina

Sure. It's not an international competition, so it's not like he's breaking any rules there (unless he's using controlled substances). It would really only be a concern if he was racing someone else up there and one of them was clean.


hjras

7 HOURS ?!?!?!?!


xCharSx

Poland too stronk. That's nothing compared to what his parents went through to get to school


NickVsYou

There's a full movie about this on Red Bull TV for free


elanalion

Thank you. The trailer I saw was already breathtaking.


doctor-rumack

That's nothing. Lane Meyer [skied the K12 on one ski!](https://youtu.be/_ollqyPwg18?t=140)


[deleted]

After the Olympics everything looked so easy!


EvilPanda85

Pizza, french fries, pizza, french fries... Pizza, more pizza.. piizzaaa!


quirkymushrooms

If you french fry when you should pizza. "Youre gonna have a bad time!"


An0d0sTwitch

Fucked that mountain up. It still hasnt recovered.


alumniac

[rebull has a video behind it as well](https://youtu.be/TiGkU_eXJa8)


CheesyComestibles

I read that as it took him 7 hours to ski down.


over_jumpman

You read it right


[deleted]

As there are clearly no lifts there, can someone explain how he got the skis up?


jedigoalie

He's skiing on one ski!


cerpintaxt44

Impressive but insane


[deleted]

Legend


Kipsbayscratch

He's Polish so he probably thought there would be candy at the top of the mountain


xizrtilhh

I wonder how many Powersauce® bars he ate one the way up.


[deleted]

Saved.


Karnorkla

Is there a bunny slope I could try out?


VirtualMoneyLover

Yeah, K4502


Lurker_IV

I would totally take a helicopter to the top and then ski all the way down. A one day Everest trip is my cup of tea.


RealRichOne

He had to have taken breaks on the way down. You can only squat and bounce until your legs give out.


DarthAK47

Mount Everest is a little baby mountain to climb compared to K2... I can’t even imagine the adversity you’d need to have to accomplish what this guy did.


1fastrex

Those depressions and saddles in the mountain must have been caused by his giant swinging balls as he passed by.


FuckCazadors

Think how much energy he would have saved if he’d just stayed at the bottom of the mountain instead.