50 Fun Facts About K2

How high is K2?

That makes it the second-highest mountain on Earth after Everest.

In which mountain range does K2 stand?

The range is generally considered separate from the Himalayas.

K2 sits on the border between which two countries?

It lies partly in Gilgit-Baltistan and partly in China's Xinjiang region.

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

He was a member of the 1953 American expedition.

Before 2021, roughly how many people died on K2 for every four who reached the top?

By August 2023 an estimated 800 people had summited, with 96 deaths.

Surveyor Thomas Montgomerie labelled two peaks K1 and K2. What became of K1?

The K stood for the range being surveyed.

From which mountain did Thomas Montgomerie make his first survey of the Karakoram in 1856?

K2 apparently had no local name at all.

Why did the surveyor's label K2 stick, unlike K1, which became Masherbrum?

It is barely visible from any settlement, so few locals would have needed to name it.

What alternative name for K2, honouring an early explorer, was rejected by the RGS but appears on some maps?

Chinese authorities officially call the peak Qogir.

The suggested local name Chogori derives from Balti words meaning what?

It underlies the Chinese official name Qogir, though evidence of local use is scant.

Which mathematician named K3 surfaces partly after the beauty of K2?

Fosco Maraini praised the name K2 as just the bare bones of a name, all rock and ice and storm and abyss.

A 1986 expedition led by George Wallerstein made what erroneous claim about K2?

A corrected measurement came in 1987, but the claim had already spread through reference works.

What height did the 2014 'K2 60 Years Later' expedition measure using satellite navigation?

Maps and encyclopaedias still give the traditional slightly higher figure.

Which side of K2 has never been climbed, largely because of unstable ice and snow?

The North Face has not been climbed either.

Which notorious occultist was part of the first serious attempt on K2 in 1902?

The team spent 68 days on the mountain, of which only eight had clear weather.

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

After trying the spur, the Duke declared that K2 would never be climbed.

Roughly what share of K2 climbers use the Abruzzi Spur?

It follows the south-east ridge above the glacier at the mountain's foot.

What is the name of the narrow couloir below K2's summit that runs beneath a wall of seracs?

House's Chimney and the Black Pyramid are the technical rock sections lower on the Abruzzi Spur.

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

The 1953 team was pinned down by a storm for ten days at 7,800 metres.

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

The Gilkey Memorial at the mountain's foot honours the climber who did not survive.

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

The expedition was led by geologist Ardito Desio.

Which two men carried oxygen to 8,100 metres for the 1954 summit pair and bivouacked in the open above 8,000 m?

Mehdi spent months in hospital and lost his toes to frostbite.

What became of Bonatti's long-disputed version of the 1954 climb?

The original 1954 official account had been discredited after prolonged controversy.

Which member of the 1954 Italian team died of pneumonia at Camp II in June, before the summit push?

A rock sequence near the climbers' memorial is named the Gilkey-Puchoz sequence.

How many years passed between the first ascent of K2 and the second, by a Japanese expedition?

The 1977 team used more than 1,500 porters; Ashraf Aman became the first Pakistani on top.

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

The Polish climber had also been the first European woman up Everest.

The first woman up K2 summited Everest in 1978 on the day which fellow Pole was elected Pope?

She met Karol Wojtyla the following year.

How many climbers died on K2 during the 1986 season?

Five died in a single storm between 6 and 10 August, including expedition leader Alan Rouse.

How many climbers died in the 2008 K2 disaster of 1 August?

An ice avalanche high on the route swept away the fixed ropes.

Which Irish climber, the first from his country to summit K2, died in the 2008 disaster?

Pakistani climber Meherban Karim was among the other victims.

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

Nick Ryan's 2012 documentary The Summit covers the real 2008 disaster.

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

Jim Wickwire bivouacked overnight about 150 metres below the summit.

Which route, first climbed by Kukuczka and Piotrowski in 1986, did Reinhold Messner call suicidal?

Piotrowski fell to his death on the descent and no one has repeated the climb.

Which nickname for K2 was popularised by Reinhold Messner in his book about it?

It is also called The King of Mountains and The Mountaineers' Mountain.

K2 was the last of the eight-thousanders to be climbed in winter. In what year was it finally done?

The summit temperature was minus 40 degrees.

How many climbers made the first winter summit of K2 together in January 2021?

All were indigenous climbers from Nepal; only one went without bottled oxygen.

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

Spanish climber Sergi Mingote died on the descent from Camp III that same day.

Which Polish climber led the 2002-03 and 2017-18 winter attempts on K2?

Andrzej Zawada led the 1987-88 attempt; Wielicki led the later two.

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

Swede Fredrik Ericsson had died attempting a summit ski descent in 2010.

What record was set on 22 July 2022?

The 2022 season saw 200 summits, smashing the 2018 record of 62.

Which Spanish climber became the oldest person to summit K2, at 65, in 2004?

That season saw a jump in oxygen use: 28 of 47 summiteers used it.

Who was the first woman to climb all fourteen eight-thousanders without oxygen, finishing in 2011?

Kazakhs Maxut Zhumayev and Vassiliy Pivtsov finished their own quests the same day.

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

Above 8,000 metres climbers enter the death zone.

Which ice stream meets the Baltoro at Concordia, a famous trekking destination below K2?

K2 Base Camp lies further up the same glacier.

What does the Turkic name of K2's mountain range mean?

Early travellers also used the term Muztagh, meaning ice mountain, for the range.

What were K3, K4 and K5 in the original survey eventually renamed?

K1 became Masherbrum.

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

Camp IV on that route is the Eagle's Nest at 7,900 metres.

Which Czech climber was the first person to summit K2 twice?

He climbed the North Ridge in 1983 and the Abruzzi Spur in 1986.

How much does K2 rise above the K2 Glacier on its steepest, northern side?

It does so in only 3,000 metres of horizontal distance.

Which 1991 film, adapted from a play, was loosely based on the first Americans to summit K2?

Franc Roddam directed it from Patrick Meyers' play.