Stories
Explore Stories That Inspire Climbs
One Man, One Mountain, One Unthinkable Descent
In the summer of 2018, high above the Karakoram in Pakistan, a Polish climber set his sights on something that had never been done: to ski down K2 from summit to the Godwin-Austen Glacier. It was July 22, just before 11:30 a.m., when 29-year-old Andrzej Bargiel stood on the summit of the world’s second-highest mountain, 8,611 meters above sea level. He was alone, without using supplementary oxygen, and guide, with only skis strapped to his back and a mountain beneath his feet. The idea had taken root years earlier, when he stood on nearby Broad Peak in 2015 and looked […]
Beyond the Summit: The Life and Legacy of Sir Edmund Hillary
In the summer of 1935, in the shadow of Mt Ruapehu, a boy from flat New Zealand laid eyes on his first mountain. It changed everything. It was sixteen-year-old Edmund Hillary, a shy, gangly boy; unsure of his place in the world, but something in the high, frozen wilds spoke to him. The ridgelines were silent, unflinching. That silence would become his compass. He returned home changed. Mountains became his escape, then his training ground, and his calling. By 1939, he climbed his first peak, Mt Olivier. “The happiest day of my life,” he later wrote. In the post world […]
The Shining Wall: A Climb into Madness, Beauty, and Survival
In July 1985, in the heart of the Karakoram, two climbers, Wojciech Kurtyka of Poland and Robert Schauer of Austria, set out to confront a face that was long whispered about in the mountaineering world, the untouched, 2,500-meter-high west face of Gasherbrum IV. The mountain was legendary. Gasherbrum IV, 7,925 meters, stood like a sentinel in the Baltoro, its west face dubbed the “Shining Wall”, a name spoken with equal parts reverence and fear. It had defeated five major expeditions: American, British, Japanese. Each came strong, each retreated. Kurtyka and Schauer would try in alpine style. No fixed camps. No […]
Three Summits, One Line: The Polish Vision on Broad Peak
In the summer of 1984, beneath the endless ridgelines of the Karakoram, two men set out on a route no one had dared. Jerzy Kukuczka and Wojciech Kurtyka, top Polish alpinists, visionaries of the high and cold style turned their eyes toward Broad Peak’s unclimbed northwest ridge. The mountain was familiar. Broad Peak, 8,047 meters, stood in the shadow of its famous neighbor, K2. But few had truly explored its vastness. Since its first ascent 27 years earlier, only one route had ever been established. What Kukuczka and Kurtyka envisioned wasn’t just a climb it was a traverse of its […]
Four Lives, One Rope: The Day the Matterhorn Took Its Toll
In the summer of 1865, Edward Whymper stood beneath the east face of the Matterhorn, a pyramid of snow and shattered rock rising nearly 4,500 meters above Zermatt. Sheer. Seductive. Untouched. The last great Alpine summit. For five years, Whymper had tried and failed to climb it. This time, he returned with a team, hungry, hopeful, and trusting. They were seven: Whymper himself, driven and experienced. Michel Croz, the strongest guide in Chamonix. Reverend Charles Hudson, calm and capable. Lord Francis Douglas, a young aristocrat with natural athleticism. Douglas Hadow, only nineteen, was promising but inexperienced. Then there was Peter […]
Beyond the Summit: A Story of Survival, Friendship, and the Descent from The Ogre
In the summer of 1977, deep in the wild granite of the Karakoram, a small British team set their sights on Baintha Brakk, The Ogre (7,285 meters). Remote. Technical. Unforgiving. But the real story wasn’t the summit. It was the descent. Chris Bonington, Doug Scott, Mo Anthoine, Clive Rowland, Nick Estcourt, and Tut Braithwaite came for a clean, bold alpine-style climb. No siege. No high-altitude porters. No fixed camps. Just light packs, fast movement, and total commitment. The plan was simple, to split into smaller teams, chase different routes, and trust each other to move as the mountain allowed. Doug […]
On This Day in 1986: The South Face of K2 Was Climbed—At a Devastating Cost
In the summer of 1986, beneath the sweeping flanks of K2’s South Face, two men moved toward the unknown. Jerzy Kukuczka and Tadeusz Piotrowski, Polish alpinists, seasoned in hardship, fueled by something deeper than ambition. The mountain needs no introduction. K2, the “Savage Mountain,” had defeated many. But the south face? It remained untamed. Steeper. Wilder. With a reputation sharpened by icefalls and avalanche gullies. The invitation came from Karl Herrligkoffer. An international expedition, large in size but split in will. Kukuczka was relieved, he didn’t have to organize it. They had permits for Broad Peak and K2. But most […]
Sea to Summit: Ikramul Hasan Shakil’s Historic Human-Powered Ascent to Everest
In the spring of 2025, 🇧🇩 Ikramul Hasan Shakil stood at the very top of the world the summit of Mount Everest as dawn broke over the Himalayas. 31 years old. Breathing thin air 8,848.86 meters above sea level. But this was not just a summit. This was the final step of a journey that began far, far below at sea level, where waves lapped at the shores of Inani Beach in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. Eighty-four days earlier, on February 25, Shakil dipped his feet into the Bay of Bengal and began walking. Walking toward the roof of the world. […]
The Silent Farewell: Günther Messner’s Final Climb
In the summer of 1970, beneath the vast, glaciated walls of Nanga Parbat, two brothers stood together, facing the void. A mountain standing 8,126 meters above sea level, towering, terrifying, and unfinished. Reinhold and Günther Messner, sons of the South Tyrolean Alps, forged in shared ambition. together. Wild, stubborn, and inseparable. Reinhold was already a legend in the making, bold, intense, relentless. Günther, quieter but no less determined, followed not in his shadow, but beside him, step for step. Their goal: the Rupal Face. The highest mountain wall on Earth. Over 4,600 meters of vertical ice, snow, and stone. A […]
Into the Mist: Hermann Buhl’s Final Climb, June 27, 1957
In the summer of 1953, beneath the vast, avalanche-scarred walls of Nanga Parbat, one man moved alone toward history. His name was Hermann Buhl. The mountain was already infamous not for its height, but for its fury. Nanga Parbat: the “Naked Mountain,” the “Killer Mountain.” Thirty-one had died there already. Among them, legends. Willi Merkl, Welzenbach, Wieland. Many porters swept into crevasses. Entire camps were buried under ice. Storms that lasted weeks. The Rakhiot Face had become synonymous with national tragedy, especially in Germany, where its failed climbs were mourned like war losses. But the story went further back. In […]
The Nanga Parbat Massacre: Terror on the Mountain
On this day, 22 June in the summer of 2013, beneath the vast, icy walls of Nanga Parbat, Pakistan’s second-highest peak, a storm gathered. But this was not the kind that climbers feared. It was neither wind nor snow. It was terrorism. On the night of June 22, the mountain’s base camp, a place of rest, became the site of a massacre. Gunmen dressed in paramilitary uniforms reportedly disguised as Gilgit Scouts stormed the camp under the cover of darkness. Ten foreign climbers and a local Pakistani cook were executed in cold blood. It was the first time in Pakistan’s […]
Davo Karničar: The Man Who Skied Everest
In the autumn of 2000, while the world looked up in awe at Everest’s gleaming crown, a man stood on its summit — not just to climb it, but to descend it. Davo Karničar, a Slovenian alpinist and extreme skier, clipped into his skis at 8,848.86 meters — the highest point on Earth. Around him, the jet stream howled. The snow was bullet-hard. The mountain loomed in its most unforgiving form. But Davo wasn’t afraid. He was ready. On October 7, after four days of climbing, he reached the summit between 6:00 and 7:00 am, alongside his teammates Franc Oderlap, […]
Sungdare Sherpa – The First Man Who Climbed Mt Everest Five Times
From the village of Pangboche, off the beaten path in the higher Everest region and home to several legendary climbers, born in 1956, Sungdare Sherpa was the first man to have climbed Mt Everest five times. First Summit With Hannelore Schmatz Sungdare’s first summit on Mt Everest was with German expedition on 2nd Oct, 1979 via the SE ridge where he accompanied Hannelore Schmatz, the first German woman to have summited Mt Everest. The expedition was led by Gerhard Schmatz, aged 50 who was also the husband of Hannelore and the oldest man to have summited Mt Everest then. It was […]
Ang Tharkay – The Father Of Modern Sherpa Climbers
Waking up on a frosty morning at first light on Ang Tharkay’s farm, south of Kathmandu, in 1975, is a memory that remains vivid in my mind. With a broad smile, he poured me tea, made in the Sherpa manner with tea, sugar, and milk boiled together. We had a breakfast of chapati and eggs from his farm. He had risen before daybreak and had milked cows and goats. Ang Tharkay was about 69 and I twenty seven. We talked of the great climbers he went on expeditions with: Eric Shipton, Sir Edmund Hillary, Maurice Herzog, Gaston Rebuffat, Lionmel Lachnel, Lionel Terray, Cmdr. Kohli and others. You […]