Why Is K2 the World’s Toughest Mountain to Climb?
-Mountain climbing
K2 Mountain: What Is It Like?
K2 mountain is a fascinating place and a dream to accomplish for many mountaineers. With a height of 8611 meters (28,251ft) above sea level, it is the second-highest mountain on planet Earth after Mount Everest.
- Location: Pakistan-China border, Gilgit−Baltistan, Pakistan
- Elevation: 8,610 m (28,250 ft)
- Prominence: 4,020 m (13,190 ft)
- Parent range: Karakoram
- First ascent: 31 July 1954, by Achille Compagnoni & Lino Lacedelli
- Easiest route: Abruzzi Spur
It was discovered in 1856 by Col. T.G Montgomerie as a part of a British survey of India and was given the name K2 because it was the second peak measured in the Karakorum mountain range.
Located within the Karakorum range in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan and the Taxgorkan Tajik Autonomous County region of Xinjiang, China, this majestic mountain is a great tourist attraction for adventurous mountaineers for trekking all around the globe.
K2 is also known as Savage Mountain, and it is a challenge to climb. Many climbers claim that it is a savage mountain that tries to kill you. Out of the five highest mountains on the planet, K2 is the deadliest one. It takes the life of one for every four persons who reach the summit.
“It’s a savage mountain that tries to kill you.”
— US climber, George Bell
Challenges to Face
The mountain is pyramid-shaped, remote, and challenging. It is prone to avalanches, and severe and frequent storms. Its treacherous slopes, extremely difficult topography, and poor weather conditions make it challenging and the world's most difficult mountain to climb.
Its extremely high altitude results in a lack of oxygen. As compared to sea level, there is only one-third of oxygen available to a climber on the summit of K2. Its severe several days' long storms often result in many deaths on the peak.
K2 is about 800 feet lower than Mount Everest, but it is even harder to climb due to its tougher topography. It is very steep, and very little of it flattens off, whereas climbing Everest, there are stretches that are steep, and then it flattens off.
At 24,000 feet, K2 flattened off briefly, but that area is like a death zone, as it is very prone to rockfall and avalanches, and the weather condition there is terrible and totally unpredictable. Compared to Mount Everest, only a small fraction of people successfully made it to reach the top.
The First Ascent
The first attempt to reach the summit was made in 1902 by an Anglo-Swiss expedition that could make it to 18,600 feet. It wasn't until 1954 that an Italian expedition, including one Pakistani, managed to conquer the mountain despite extreme weather conditions.
The Italian climber, Fosco Maraini, argued that while the name of K2 owes its origin to chance, its clipped, impersonal nature is highly appropriate for so remote and challenging a mountain. He concluded that it was,
just the bare bones of a name, all rock and ice and storm and abyss. It makes no attempt to sound human. It is atoms and stars. It has the nakedness of the world before the first man—or of the cindered planet after the last.
— Fosco Maraini