A Polish adventure skier has made history by becoming the first person to climb up and ski down Mount Everest without the use of additional oxygen.<\/p>\n
The ascent was Andrzej Bargiel\u2019s third attempt at climbing Everest \u2013 the tallest mountain on earth at 8,849 metres (29,032ft) high \u2013 after dangerous conditions forced the 37-year-old to abandon earlier attempts in 2019 and 2022.<\/p>\n
Andrzej Bargiel: \u2018Skiing down Everest without oxygen was a dream that had been growing inside me for years.\u2019 Photograph: Bart\u0142omiej Pawlikowski\/Red Bull Content Pool<\/p>\n
\u201cThe summit itself was arduous and difficult. I\u2019d never spent so much time at such an altitude in my life, so that was a challenge in itself,\u201d Bargiel said. \u201cSkiing down Everest without oxygen was a dream that had been growing inside me for years.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than 6,000 people have climbed the mountain, according to the Himalayan database, but only about 200 have done it without additional bottled oxygen. A few people have skied back down, but never a continuous downhill without supplementary oxygen.<\/p>\n
It took nearly 16 hours on Monday for Bargiel to climb through the \u201cdeath zone\u201d, which is above 8,000m where oxygen levels are dangerously low.<\/p>\n
At the top of the mountain the air is so thin that climbers only get about a third of the oxygen available at sea level. This can cause brain damage, fluid in the lungs, and even death.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend\u2019s action<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n On Tuesday morning, he skied down through the Khumbu Icefall, a maze of ice towers and deep crevasses known as one of Everest\u2019s most dangerous sections, before arriving at base camp. He was guided through this section partly by a drone flown by his brother, Bartek.<\/p>\n A few people have skied back down Everest, but never a continuous downhill without supplementary oxygen. Photograph: Bart\u0142omiej Pawlikowski\/Red Bull content pool<\/p>\n \u201cI split the descent into two parts, as navigating the technically difficult icefall in relatively safe conditions was only possible in the morning,\u201d said Bargiel.<\/p>\n Bargiel\u2019s team said in a statement that it was a \u201cgroundbreaking milestone in the world of ski mountaineering\u201d.<\/p>\n The Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, celebrated on X, writing: \u201cSky is the limit? Not for Poles! Andrzej Bargiel has just skied down Mount Everest.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2018, Bargiel became the first person to ski down Pakistan\u2019s K2, the second highest mountain in the world.<\/p>\n In an interview with the Guardian in 2020 he said: \u201cNo one thought it could be done; even my own brother had doubts. It taught me the value of patience \u2013 and that nobody else can make your dreams come true.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Polish adventure skier has made history by becoming the first person to climb up and ski down…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455531,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-455530","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115276708875947906","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}