“Everest Ski Challenge” is a project during which Andrzej Bargiel wants to conquer Mount Everest without the use of oxygen and descend the mountain on skis. The expedition to the highest peak of the globe begins today, August 25.
“I will try not to use supplementary oxygen, which will be a great challenge, because it is almost nine thousand meters, and it is still necessary to preserve strength for the ski descent,” Andrzej Bargiel said during Wednesday’s conference on social media. He added that while reaching the summit is about 30 per cent of the goal, the ski descent itself will certainly provide a powerful dose of adrenaline.
“The first difficulty awaits already approx. 60 m below the summit. This is located at an altitude of about 8790 m, the so-called Hillary Step, which will have to be toured somehow,” he noted.
This is the second attempt. Three years ago, weather and snow conditions did not allow the challenge to be completed safely. Rain fell in the Everest region and a powerful serac over the Khumbu Glacier, which was heavily inclined and threatened to fall. Eventually, the expedition ended five weeks after it began.
The team, which in addition to him includes a drone operator, his brother Bartłomiej, alpine and Himalayan mountaineer Janusz Goląb, photographer Bartłomiej Pawlikowski and cinematographer Carlos Llerandi.
If the expedition reaches its goal, Bargiel would be the first to reach the summit and ski descend from it without the use of supplemental oxygen. Close to this was 22 years ago Slovenian Davo Karničar, who, although he was the only person to ski down from Mount Everest, used an oxygen tank during the entire expedition
Andrzej Bargiel is a Polish ski mountaineer, backcountry skier, mountain runner and climber. Raised in Łętownia, he is a three-time Polish ski mountaineering champion and held third place in the overall World Cup. He is the current record holder in taking the least amount of time to achieve the Snow Leopard award. He is also the current record holder in the Elbrus Race. Since 2013, he has been running his original HIC SUNT LEONES (“here are lions” in Latin) project, the goal of which are speedy, oxygenless ascents and ski descents from the highest mountain peaks on Earth.
In 2010, he improved the world record in the Elbrus Race with a result of 3:23.37. Three years later, he became the first Pole to descend from the summit of Shishapangma Central. In 2014, he set two records on Manaslu – he climbed to the top in 14 hours and 5 minutes and covered the entire route in 21 hours and 14 minutes. In 2015, he became the first person in the world to ski down Broad Peak (8051m).
A year later, he conquered the so-called Snow Leopard – in less than 30 days he climbed five seven-thousand-metre peaks of the former Soviet Union and skied down from them to base camp: Lenin’s Peak (7134m), Korzhenevskaya (7105m), Ismoil Somoni Peak (7495m), Khan Tengri (7010m) and Jengish Chokusu Peak (7439m). In doing so, he broke Denis Urubko and Andrei Molotov’s 42-day record set in 1999.
In 2018 he became the first man in history to ski down K2, and a year ago he pioneered the ascent and descent of Yawash Sar II in the Karakorum, a dozen days later he and Jędrzej Baranowski summited Laila Peak also covering the return route on skis.
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The historic moment of the Polish Himalaism. Bargiel reached the virgin Yawash SAR II and ski down