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Is K2, the “Savage Mountain,” Becoming Less Savage?

The world’s second highest peak remains much more difficult and dangerous than Everest, but it’s rapidly commercializing.

AUGUST 17, 2022OWEN CLARKE

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This article is part of Climbing’s online archives documenting climbing’s greatest mountains, such as Everest, and its pioneering practitioners such as Marc-Andre Leclerc.

K2 (8,611 meters/28,251 feet), or “Chogori,” is the world’s second highest mountain, after Everest (8,048 meters). Unlike Everest and the eight other highest mountains on Earth, K2 is not located in the Himalaya, however, but in Pakistan’s Karakorum. K2 is situated on the border of the Pakistani-Kashmir region Gilgit-Baltistan, and a slice of Kashmir administered by China as part of Xinjiang. All 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks, and the vast majority of the 100 highest mountains on the planet, are located in either the Karakorum or Himalaya.

Also known as the “Savage Mountain,” K2 is generally considered among the most difficult of the world’s 8,000ers, and its death rate was historically one of the highest of all 14 mountains, along with Annapurna I (8,091 meters) and Nanga Parbat (8,126 meters). The former sits at a death rate of approximately 25%, while Parbat and K2 have traditionally held death rates in the low 20 percents. However, swarms of K2 ascents in recent years, notably in 2022, are contributing to lowering the K2’s overall death rate, which currently sits around 13%. K2 was the last of the 8,000-meter peaks to see a winter ascent (in 2021).

While its difficulty and technicality have traditionally deterred the swarms of amateur mountaineers that flock to Everest, K2 has rapidly commercialized in recent years. Overcrowding on the peak is becoming a concern, especially due to dangerous sections that lend themselves to traffic jams, like the Bottleneck Couloir (see below).

2022 saw over 190 summits as of July 30, smashing the previous yearly record of 62 [2018] by over three times. In addition, over 145 climbers summited in a single 24-hour period, on July 22. “The Everest model is now official on K2,” Himalayan chronicle Alan Arnette wrote in a July 2022 blog. “I [once] wrote that K2 would never become Everest … I was wrong.”

The world’s 10 highest mountains. Everest, K2, Kangchenjunga, Makalu, Lhotse, Manaslu, Dhaulagiri I, Nanga Parbat, Annapurna I, and Cho Oyu.  (Illustration: Getty Photo)

History

K2 was originally surveyed by a British team in 1856, christened K2 as it was the second main peak of the Karakorum that was mapped. The other principal Karakakorum summits were originally named likewise (K1, K3, K4, and K5), but today are known as Masherbrum (7,821 meters), Gasherbrum IV (7,925 meters), Gasherbrum II (8,035 meters), and Gasherbrum I (8,080 meters).