In news : Recently, a group of Nepali mountaineers became the first climbers to scale the K2 peak in winter
Why is it significant?
- K2 was first climbed in 1954, but all successful ascents have been in the warmer months until now.
- It has been tried only six times in the coldest months, and each effort ended in failure
- Scaling K2 in winter was perhaps the last great prize of high-altitude mountaineering, a sport born as an expression of national strength among Western European nations in the mid-20th century
- Prone to avalanches, marked by forbidding temperatures and fierce winds, K2 is so formidable that it is called the ‘Savage Mountain’.
- It is the deadliest mountain, for every four climbers who reach its summit, one dies, The New York Time said in an article; not even 400 climbers have reached the peak, fewer than the people who have been to outer space.
About K2
- It is the K2 is the second highest mountain(8,611 m above the sea level) in the world, after Mount Everest whose height was recently revised to 8,848 m
- K2 is located on the border between the Pakistan-occupied Gilgit-Baltistan region and China.
- It is also the highest mountain of India
- K2 is known as the Savage Mountain after George Bell, a climber on the 1953 American Expedition, told reporters “It’s a savage mountain that tries to kill you”
- Also occasionally known as Chhogori, or Mount Godwin-Austen, other nicknames for K2 are The King of Mountains and The Mountaineers’ Mountain, as well as The Mountain of Mountains after climber Reinhold Messner titled his book about K2 the same
Source: The Indian Express
