K2
K2, also known as Mount Godwin-Austen, at above sea level, is the second-highest mountain on Earth, after Mount Everest at. It lies in the Karakoram range, partially in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan-administered Kashmir and partially in the China-administered Trans-Karakoram Tract in the Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County of Xinjiang.
K2 became known as the Savage Mountain after George Bell—a climber on the 1953 American expedition—said, "It's a savage mountain that tries to kill you." Of the five highest mountains in the world, K2 has long been the deadliest: prior to 2021, approximately one person had died on the mountain for every four who reached the summit. After an increase in successful attempts, as of 2023, an estimated 800 people have summited K2, with 96 deaths during attempted climbs.
K2 is nicknamed "The King of Mountains" and "The Mountaineers' Mountain", as well as "The Mountain of Mountains", a phrase popularized by Italian climber Reinhold Messner in his book on K2. Although the summit of Everest is at a higher altitude, K2 is a more difficult and dangerous climb. This is in part due to its more northern location, where inclement weather is more common, as well as its steep and exposed faces. The summit was reached for the first time by the Italian climbers Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni on a 1954 Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio.
Most ascents are made during July and August, typically the warmest times of the year. In January 2021 K2 became the final eight-thousander to be summited in the winter by a team of Nepalese climbers led by Nirmal Purja and Mingma Gyalje Sherpa.
K2's eastern face remains un-climbed, partly because of the hazards associated with the instability of its ice and snow formations.
Name
The name K2 is derived from the notation used by the Great Trigonometrical Survey of British India. Thomas Montgomerie made the first survey of the Karakoram from Mount Haramukh, some to the south, and sketched the two most prominent peaks, labeling them K1 and K2, where the K stands for Karakoram.The policy of the Great Trigonometrical Survey was to use local names for mountains wherever possible and K1 was found to be known locally as Masherbrum. K2, however, appeared not to have acquired a local name—possibly due to its remoteness. The mountain is not visible from Askole, one of the highest settlements on the way to the mountain, nor from the nearest habitation to the north. K2 is only fleetingly glimpsed from the end of the Baltoro Glacier, beyond which few local people would have ventured. The name Chogori, derived from two Balti words, chhogo ཆོ་གྷའོ་ and ri རི has been suggested as a local name, but evidence for its widespread use is scant. It may have been a compound name invented by Western explorers or simply a bemused reply to the question "What's that called?" It does, however, form the basis for the name Qogir by which Chinese authorities officially refer to the peak. Other local names have been suggested including Lamba Pahar and Dapsang, but these are not widely used.
With the mountain lacking a local name, the name Mount Godwin-Austen was suggested in honour of Henry Godwin-Austen, an early explorer of the area. While the name was rejected by the Royal Geographical Society, it was used on several maps and continues to be used occasionally.
The surveyor's mark, K2, therefore continues to be the name by which the mountain is commonly known. It is now also used in the Balti language, rendered as Kechu or Ketu. The Italian climber Fosco Maraini argued in his account of the ascent of Gasherbrum IV that while the name of K2 owes its origin to chance, its clipped, impersonal nature is highly appropriate for such a remote and challenging mountain. He concluded that it was:
André Weil named K3 surfaces in mathematics partly after the beauty of the mountain K2.
Geographical setting
K2 lies in the northwestern Karakoram Range. It is located in the Baltistan region of Gilgit–Baltistan, Pakistan, and the Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County of Xinjiang, China. The Tarim sedimentary basin borders the range on the north and the Lesser Himalayas on the south. Melt waters from glaciers, such as those south and east of K2, feed agriculture in the valleys and contribute significantly to the regional fresh-water supply.K2 is ranked 22nd by topographic prominence, a measure of a mountain's independent stature. It is a part of the same extended area of uplift as Mount Everest, and it is possible to follow a path from K2 to Everest that goes no lower than, at the Kora La on the Nepal/China border in the Mustang Lo. Many other peaks far lower than K2 are more independent in this sense. It is, however, the most prominent peak within the Karakoram range.
K2 is notable for its local relief as well as its total height. It stands over above much of the glacial valley bottoms at its base. It is a consistently steep pyramid, dropping quickly in almost all directions. The north side is the steepest: there it rises over above the K2 Glacier in only of horizontal distance. In most directions, it achieves over of vertical relief in less than.
A 1986 expedition led by George Wallerstein made an inaccurate measurement showing that K2 was taller than Mount Everest, and therefore the tallest mountain on Earth. A corrected measurement was made in 1987, but by then the claim that K2 was the tallest mountain in the world had already made it into many news reports and reference works.
Height
K2's height given on maps and encyclopedias is. In the summer of 2014, a Pakistani-Italian expedition to K2, named "K2 60 Years Later", was organized to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of K2. One of the goals of the expedition was to accurately measure the height of the mountain using satellite navigation. The height of K2 measured during this expedition was.Geology
The mountains of K2 and Broad Peak, and the area westward to the lower reaches of Sarpo Laggo glacier, consist of metamorphic rocks, known as the K2 Gneiss and part of the Karakoram Metamorphic Complex. The K2 Gneiss consists of a mixture of orthogneiss and biotite-rich paragneiss. On the south and southeast face of K2, the orthogneiss consists of a mixture of a strongly foliated plagioclase-hornblende gneiss and a biotite-hornblende-K-feldspar orthogneiss, which has been intruded by garnet-mica leucogranitic dikes. In places, the paragneisses include clinopyroxene-hornblende-bearing psammites, garnet -diopside marbles, and biotite-graphite phyllites. Near the memorial to the climbers who have died on K2, above Base Camp on the south spur, thin impure marbles with quartzites and mica schists, called the Gilkey-Puchoz sequence, are interbanded within the orthogneisses. On the west face of Broad Peak and the south spur of K2, lamprophyre dikes, which consist of clinopyroxene and biotite-porphyritic vogesites and minettes, have intruded the K2 gneiss. The K2 Gneiss is separated from the surrounding sedimentary and metasedimentary rocks of the surrounding Karakoram Metamorphic Complex by normal faults. For example, a fault separates the K2 gneiss of the east face of K2 from limestones and slates comprising nearby Skyang Kangri.40Ar/39Ar ages of 115 to 120 million years ago obtained from and geochemical analyses of the K2 Gneiss demonstrate that it is an older, metamorphosed, pre-collisional Cretaceous granite. The granitic precursor to the K2 Gneiss originated as the result of the production of large bodies of magma by a northward-dipping subduction zone along what was the continental margin of Asia at that time and their intrusion as batholiths into its lower continental crust. During the initial collision of the Asia and Indian plates, this granitic batholith was buried to depths of about or more, highly metamorphosed, highly deformed, and partially remelted during the Eocene Period to form gneiss. Later, the K2 Gneiss was then intruded by leucogranite dikes and finally exhumed and uplifted along major breakback thrust faults during post-Miocene time. The K2 Gneiss was exposed as the entire K2-Broad Peak-Gasherbrum range experienced rapid uplift with which erosion rates have been unable to keep pace.
Climbing history
Early attempts
The mountain was first surveyed by a British team in 1856. Team member Thomas Montgomerie designated the mountain "K2" for being the second peak of the Karakoram range. The other peaks were originally named K1, K3, K4, and K5, but were eventually renamed Masherbrum, Gasherbrum IV, Gasherbrum II, and Gasherbrum I, respectively. In 1892, Martin Conway led a British expedition that reached "Concordia" on the Baltoro Glacier.The first serious attempt to climb K2 was undertaken in 1902 by Oscar Eckenstein, Aleister Crowley, Jules Jacot-Guillarmod, Heinrich Pfannl, Victor Wessely, and Guy Knowles via the Northeast Ridge. In the early 1900s, modern transportation did not exist in the region: it took "fourteen days just to reach the foot of the mountain". After five serious and costly attempts, the team reached —although considering the difficulty of the challenge, and the lack of modern climbing equipment or weatherproof fabrics, Crowley's statement that "neither man nor beast was injured" highlights the relative skill of the ascent. The failures were also attributed to sickness, a combination of questionable physical training, personality conflicts, and poor weather conditions—of 68 days spent on K2 only eight provided clear weather.
The next expedition to K2, in 1909, led by Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi, reached an elevation of around on the South East Spur, now known as the Abruzzi Spur. This would eventually become part of the standard route, but was abandoned at the time due to its steepness and difficulty. After trying and failing to find a feasible alternative route on the West Ridge or the North East Ridge, the Duke declared that K2 would never be climbed, and the team switched its attention to Chogolisa, where the Duke came within of the summit before being driven back by a storm.
The next attempt on K2 was not made until 1938, when the First American Karakoram expedition, led by Charles Houston, made a reconnaissance of the mountain. They concluded that the Abruzzi Spur was the most practical route and reached a height of around before turning back due to diminishing supplies and the threat of bad weather.
The following year, the 1939 American expedition led by Fritz Wiessner came within of the summit but ended in disaster when Dudley Wolfe, Pasang Kikuli, Pasang Kitar, and Pintso disappeared high on the mountain.
Charles Houston returned to K2 to lead the 1953 American expedition. The attempt failed after a storm pinned down the team for 10 days at, during which time climber Art Gilkey became critically ill. A desperate retreat followed, during which Pete Schoening saved almost the entire team during a mass fall, and Gilkey was killed, either in an avalanche or in a deliberate attempt to avoid burdening his companions. Despite the retreat and tragic end, the expedition has been given iconic status in mountaineering history. The Gilkey Memorial was built in his memory at the mountain's foot.