A super-athlete's mission become the only person to ever descend the world's most dangerous mountain on skis has been turned into a feature length documentary.
In 2018, Andrzej Bargiel made history when he clicked into his bindings 28,000 feet up the side of K2 in Pakistan and didn't once take them off until he was safely off the mountain.
Following a treacherous 60-hour ascent without supplemental oxygen, the Polish mountaineer had to make his way back down 'as quickly as possible' to escape the notorious 'death zone' above 8000m (26,200ft).
He then dodged ice falling 'at the speed of bullets' to reach the Messner Traverse, a barely-climbed narrow route with deep caverns on either side, and on to the crevasse-filled Kukuczka-Piotrowski route back to base camp.
On Wednesday, Red Bull released the 65-minute feature film of Andrzej Bargiel’s 2018 descent, a feat which has not been matched since.
The July 22 premiere marks the second anniversary of his descent.
Andrzej's brother Bartek filmed the descent using the professional MavicPro drone which is the first in the world capable of filming at a height of 8,000 metres.
The thrill-seeker has a long history of daring climbs and descents.
In 2015, he was awarded the Polish Golden Cross of Merit for developing and promoting Polish skiers abroad and National Geographic Poland named him 'Man of the year' in the wake of record-breaking attempts he had made skiing down peaks including Shishapangma, Manaslu and Broad Peak.
His first attempt to ski down K2 was made in 2017 but he had to call it off because of heavy snow and severe storm weather conditions.
K2 has long been one of the most challenging peaks in the world to tackle, and climbers say it has the most fatalities because of its notoriously difficult approaches.
Around one in four people dying in attempting to reach the summit, and no one has skiied down it before.
It is the second highest mountain in the world after Mount Everest.
Before his attempt on Saturday night he said: 'I was not successful in completing my challenge on the first attempt, however, it was possible to identify at least three different routes down the mountain which can be skied in one go and I will finalise which one I choose when I see the current conditions.'
After the event he told CNN: 'I have managed to ride down from the summit of K2, directly to the base camp. It's a very technical descent, leading down the middle of the face, so I'm very happy it turned out well, because I'm here for the second time, and I'm glad I don't have to come back'.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
