Breathtaking K2 ascent of Adrian Ballinger and Carla Perez

In summer 2019 K2 seemed unclimbable. The slopes of the world’s second highest mountain were proving simply too difficult for the vast majority of teams and, due to the dangerous snow conditions at the Bottleneck, on 18 July almost everyone operating on the mountain turned their heels and abandoned their hopes of reaching the summit.

Not so America’s Adrian Ballinger and Ecuador’s Carla Perez, who planned on climbing the Savage Mountain without supplementary oxygen. A few days later they joined forces with Nirmal Purja, on route to climb all 14 eightthousanders in seven months.

After finding incredibly stable conditions in the Bottleneck he and his team fixed ropes and successfully climbed K2 with the use of supplementary oxygen just two days after reaching basecamp. A few hours later Ballinger and Perez reached the summit without supplementary oxygen, supported by Esteban Mena, Gelje Pemba Sherpa and Palden Namgye Sherpa who climbed with O2 in order to document the ascent. This is their story.