47 Fun Facts About K2

K2 is Earth's second-highest mountain, so which peak ranks third?

Kangchenjunga, at 8,586 m, stands just 25 m lower than K2; its first climbers in 1955 stopped short of the top to honour a promise that the sacred summit would stay untrodden.

In which mountain range does K2 stand?

The Karakoram gave K2 its name: the K stands for the range, and K2 was the second of its peaks that a British surveyor logged in 1856.

Which Norwegian climber finished all fourteen eight-thousanders in a then-record 92 days by summiting K2 in July 2023?

Kristin Harila and her guide Tenjen Sherpa topped out on 27 July 2023, the season's one good weather window, alongside more than a hundred other climbers; the old record had stood at just over six months.

Which climber's remark that 'it's a savage mountain that tries to kill you' gave K2 its famous nickname?

George Bell said it after the 1953 American retreat, in which he fell on the ice, froze his feet and lost a teammate; the expedition's own account came out the next year as K2: The Savage Mountain.

Before 2021, K2 had claimed roughly one life for every how many climbers who reached its summit?

4: about one climber had died for every four who summited before 2021, a far higher proportion than on Everest, because K2 is steeper, lies further north and is prone to storms that last for days.

Balti speakers near K2 now call the mountain Ketu, a name borrowed from which language?

English: Ketu, or Kechu, is simply the surveyor's label 'K two' as local Balti speakers say it, and the word has even begun to be used for any high mountain.

Why did K2 keep its survey label as a permanent name?

The mountain appeared to have no local name: it is barely visible from any inhabited place, so the survey label was kept, whereas K1 took the name locals already used.

What alternative name for K2, honouring an early explorer, did the Royal Geographical Society reject though some maps use it?

Mount Godwin-Austen honours Henry Godwin-Austen, who surveyed the glaciers below K2 in 1861 and first fixed its position; the society turned the name down, but one of those glaciers still carries it.

K2's suggested local name, Chogori, derives from Balti words meaning what?

Big peak: Chogori joins the Balti words chhogo, big, and ri, mountain, but there is scant evidence that locals ever used it, and it may have been coined by Western explorers.

The K3 surface, named partly after 'the beautiful mountain K2', is an object in which field?

Mathematics: André Weil coined the name in 1958, saying it honoured the geometers Kummer, Kähler and Kodaira as well as the beautiful mountain K2 in Kashmir.

What mistaken claim about K2 followed George Wallerstein's 1986 satellite measurement?

That it was taller than Everest: Wallerstein's preliminary reading suggested K2 might stand above 8,850 m, but an Italian survey under Ardito Desio re-measured both peaks in 1987 and Everest kept its crown.

K2's Pakistani side lies in which territory, known until 2009 as the Northern Areas?

Gilgit-Baltistan is administered by Pakistan as part of the wider Kashmir region, which India also claims, so K2 sits on some of the most disputed ground on any map.

As of 2025, which side of K2 has never been climbed, largely because of unstable ice and snow?

The east side of K2 has never been climbed: its snow and ice formations are judged too unstable, whereas the equally feared West Face finally fell to a Russian team in 2007.

Which occultist joined the first serious attempt to climb K2, in 1902?

Aleister Crowley, a skilled climber still weak from malaria, joined Oscar Eckenstein's 1902 expedition, which spent 68 days on K2 and had only eight of clear weather.

The standard route up K2 is named after which nobleman who first attempted it in 1909?

The Duke of the Abruzzi, Luigi Amedeo of Savoy, gave up on the spur that now bears his name in 1909 and turned to nearby Chogolisa, where his party set a world altitude record of about 7,500 m.

K2 is Pakistan's highest peak; which mountain, nicknamed the Killer Mountain, is its second-highest?

Nanga Parbat, at 8,126 m, had already claimed 31 lives when Hermann Buhl made its first ascent in 1953, pushing on alone to the summit after his companions turned back.

Which feature just below K2's summit forces climbers to pass beneath a wall of overhanging seracs?

The Bottleneck is the last big obstacle on the standard route: climbers hurry up the gully and across a traverse right under an ice cliff, trying to spend as little time there as they can.

Which American led the 1938 reconnaissance and the 1953 expedition on which Art Gilkey died?

Charles Houston, a physician, led both American attempts; after the 1953 retreat he never took part in a serious climb again and turned to research on altitude sickness.

Who saved almost the entire 1953 American team during a mass fall, an act known simply as The Belay?

Pete Schoening jammed his ice axe behind a boulder and held five falling teammates as well as the stricken Art Gilkey on one rope; the axe is now on show in a Colorado mountaineering museum.

Which two Italians made the first ascent of K2 on 31 July 1954?

Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni reached the top at about 6 pm on 31 July 1954, so late that they had to climb down in the dark, and both came home with frostbitten hands.

Which pair bivouacked in the open above 8,000 m after carrying oxygen for K2's first ascent?

Walter Bonatti and Amir Mehdi hauled the oxygen sets to about 8,100 m, found no tent waiting and survived a night in the open; Mehdi spent months in hospital and lost his toes to frostbite.

What finally became of the long-disputed dissenting account of K2's 1954 summit day?

The Italian Alpine Club accepted it: a 2004 inquiry by three experts backed the oxygen carriers' story that the top camp had been moved out of their reach, and the club published the corrected history in 2007.

Climbers from which country led the second ascent of K2 in 1977, 23 years after the first?

Japan's 1977 team, led by Ichiro Yoshizawa, repeated the first-ascent route with the help of more than 1,500 porters, and took Ashraf Aman to the top as the first Pakistani summiter.

Who was the first woman to summit K2, on 23 June 1986?

Wanda Rutkiewicz reached the top on 23 June 1986 without bottled oxygen; Liliane Barrard, who followed her up half an hour later, died with her husband on the way down.

Which pope was elected on the day the first woman up K2 summited Everest, in 1978?

John Paul II was elected on 16 October 1978, the day she stood on Everest; when they met the following year he reportedly said the good Lord had wanted them both to rise so high on the same day.

Which British climber summited Everest without bottled oxygen or Sherpa support in May 1995, then died descending K2 that August?

Alison Hargreaves reached K2's summit on 13 August 1995 and was blown off the mountain by a violent storm on the way down; she had set out to climb the world's three highest peaks unaided in a single year.

What triggered the 2008 K2 disaster, which killed 11?

Falling ice: a serac broke off above the summit gully after dark on 1 August and swept away the fixed ropes, stranding climbers who had topped out late; most of the deaths came on the descent that followed.

Ger McDonnell, who died in the 2008 disaster hours after summiting, was the first climber from which country atop K2?

Ireland: the Limerick-born engineer summited on 1 August 2008; survivors said he then stayed high on the mountain trying to free injured climbers, and he was killed during the descent.

Which 2000 survival thriller directed by Martin Campbell is set on K2?

Vertical Limit, released in December 2000, stars Chris O'Donnell as a climber racing to rescue his sister from a crevasse high on K2.

The 1978 American ascent, the third of K2, opened which new route?

The Northeast Ridge was the line of Jim Whittaker's 1978 expedition; Jim Wickwire and Louis Reichardt reached the summit on 6 September, and Wickwire survived a bivouac about 150 m below the top.

Which K2 route, first climbed by Jerzy Kukuczka and a partner in 1986, did Reinhold Messner call suicidal?

The South Face was climbed in July 1986 by Jerzy Kukuczka and Tadeusz Piotrowski; Piotrowski fell to his death on the way down, and as of 2025 nobody has repeated the route.

Which nickname for K2 did Reinhold Messner popularise after climbing it in 1979?

The Mountain of Mountains is the title Reinhold Messner gave his book on K2; he had come in 1979 to climb a new line he called the Magic Line, but gave it up and summited by the standard route.

Climbers from which country made the first winter ascent of K2, in January 2021?

Nepal: ten Nepali climbers who had arrived in rival expeditions joined forces and stepped onto the summit together on 16 January 2021, completing the last winter first among the eight-thousanders.

Which Pakistani climber vanished on K2 in February 2021 while attempting a winter ascent with two foreign partners?

Ali Sadpara set out for the summit on 4 February 2021 with Iceland's John Snorri and Chile's Juan Pablo Mohr; none of them returned, and that July his son Sajid climbed back up and buried his father's body near Camp 4.

Who was the only member of the first winter summit team to climb without supplemental oxygen?

Nirmal Purja went without bottled oxygen while his nine companions used it; the ten had started out in rival expeditions and merged into a single team for the summit push.

Which country's mountaineers led three failed winter expeditions to K2, in 1987-88, 2002-03 and 2017-18?

Poland: Andrzej Zawada led the first attempt and Krzysztof Wielicki the next two; on the last, Denis Urubko broke away for an unauthorised solo push and drew fire from his own teammates.

Who became the first person to ski from K2's summit to base camp, in July 2018?

Andrzej Bargiel skied the whole way from the summit to base camp on 22 July 2018 without removing his skis; Swede Fredrik Ericsson had died attempting such a descent in 2010.

Which K2 record was broken on 22 July 2022?

Most summits in a single day: 145 were recorded on 22 July 2022, on a mountain where barely a dozen years earlier two whole seasons had passed without anyone reaching the top.

Which town on the upper Indus is the usual gateway for expeditions heading to K2?

Skardu is where expeditions gather before the road to the last village, Askole; the 1954 Italian team flew in from Rawalpindi by DC-3 and surveyed the snow conditions from the air on the way.

Who became the first woman to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders without bottled oxygen by summiting K2 in 2011?

Gerlinde Kaltenbrunner finished her fourteen on K2 at the seventh attempt; a year earlier she had turned back after watching her climbing partner Fredrik Ericsson fall to his death.

Roughly how much oxygen is available at K2's summit compared with sea level?

One-third: air pressure at about 8,600 m is roughly a third of that at sea level, so each breath delivers about a third of the oxygen, which is why the summit lies deep in the death zone.

Up which great glacier do K2 expeditions trek from the village of Askole to Concordia?

The Baltoro leads to Concordia, where it meets the glacier flowing down from K2; the junction, with four eight-thousanders in view, has become a trekking goal in its own right.

What is the Turkic name of K2's mountain range usually taken to mean?

Black gravel is the usual reading of the Turkic name, though some render it 'black rock'; Central Asian traders first applied it to a high pass, and European travellers later stretched it to the whole range.

The survey's K3, K4 and K5 were all later renamed as peaks of which massif near K2?

Gasherbrum IV, II and I were the surveyor's K3, K4 and K5; of all his labels only K2 is still in use, K1 having become Masherbrum.

The rarely climbed North Ridge on the Chinese side requires crossing which hazardous river?

The Shaksgam, a glacial river on the Chinese side, must be forded, often by camel, to reach the North Ridge; the route's top camp, the Eagle's Nest, sits at about 7,900 m.

Which eight-thousander is K2's nearest neighbour, only a few kilometres away?

Broad Peak was named in 1892 by the explorer Martin Conway, who borrowed it from the Breithorn in the Alps; its summit ridge runs for more than a kilometre and a half.

Meltwater from K2's southern glaciers drains into the Indus and on to which sea?

The Arabian Sea: K2's southern ice feeds the Braldu and Shigar rivers and then the Indus, while meltwater from the northern side runs the other way, into the closed desert basin of the Tarim.