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Just a couple of weeks ago, Polish ski mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel logged a historic ski descent off the summit of Mount Everest, the first full descent from summit to base camp without the use of supplemental oxygen. Bargiel had tried the descent twice before, but conditions making a full descent possible eluded him until this season. Bargiel had four camera operators and a director with him during the expedition, and footage from the expedition is likely to emerge in the coming months. While the world waits for Bargiel and his team to sift through all the footage of the historic descent, Bargiel shared a few details with Explorersweb.
Bargiel highlighted the tradeoffs that came with attempting the descent in the autumn, after the monsoon season. “Autumn is really the only time when this ski descent is possible. The Icefall gets covered with snow—in spring it’s just too icy,” he told Explorersweb. But, more favorable ski conditions come at the expense of safer climbing conditions, and Bargiel described how it was challenging to find favorable ice to put ice screws in. The poor ice quality and challenges with protection on the route are one reason why some guiding outfits are reluctant to offer trips during the autumn. “It’s quite amazing how special this season turned out to be. When people think of Everest, they usually picture long lines of climbers and crowds on the route. But we were completely alone. During the monsoon, a few meters of snow fall up high, covering everything. It changes the mountain completely—no human traces, no fixed ropes, no footprints. Everything was buried in fresh snow, and that made the place feel wild again,” Bargiel said.
After a grueling 16-hour climb, Bargiel strapped on his skis and dropped into powder snow conditions at the highest summit in the world. “The summit ridge was definitely very snowy. There was a lot of fresh snow, so I had to be really careful. It was steep, and the snow there was slabby, so I had to be careful not to trigger a small slab slide. After that section, it was fine. The trickiest part was between the South Summit and just above the Hillary Step—the snow there was steep and heavy,” he said. As far as the actual Hillary Step, one of the more technical climbing features on the route, Bargiel was not troubled. “The ski down was fine—I just slid down following the ridge line. Was it the hardest part? It definitely required focus, but I didn’t find it extremely difficult.” I guess if you’ve skied K2, everything else is a just a little bit less scary.
Safely through the Hillary Step, the last tricky challenge before reaching basecamp was the Khumbu Icefall, a maze of ice that looks more like the surface of the moon from Wallace and Grommit than a ski run. By the time Bargiel reached the icefall though, temperatures had risen substantially and the whole place was coming unglued. After resting for awhile and letting the icefall refreeze, Bargiel navigated the maze guided by his brother, who was flying a drone for the project from Camp 2.
Bargiel described a mountain that has changed significantly since his first visit to Mount Everest in 2012. “The quality of the ice is worse every year. The glacier is shrinking, collapsing, breaking apart, and the conditions on Everest will just keep getting tougher each season for skiing,” he told Explorersweb. After attempts in 2019 and 2022, Bargiel finally lucked out with favorable conditions allowing him to reach the summit and successfully ski down without supplemental oxygen, etching his name into history.
