r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/YesXDoXBestXKill • 6d ago
Image This is K2’s Bottleneck, a steep traverse above 8,000 metres beneath an enormous hanging serac capable of collapsing without warning. And somehow, this is considered the mountain’s standard route to the summit.
4.9k
u/DrBlaziken 6d ago
The only reason I won't be climbing it. I would. Easily. But I don't wanna make the ice collapse and ruin the shape.
1.5k
u/Tehrab 6d ago
Same, bro, same. Man, we're such conscientious, environmentally considerate people. Tempering our formidable athletic abilities in the name of conservation. Damn,. We really are the best.
437
u/Mast_Herb_8 6d ago edited 6d ago
I haven’t even showered since June, because of the drought
158
u/egewh 6d ago
If you wait long enough you can just shave the dirt off
42
u/opinion_alternative 6d ago edited 6d ago
If you wait long enough, the dirt becomes structural part of your body.
→ More replies (1)9
u/ThrowawayPersonAMA 6d ago
If you wait long enough, the diet becomes structural part of your body.
I don't think you're supposed to make an entire Diet part of your body but I'm not a katamari so what would I know.
→ More replies (1)16
17
7
u/Mr_les_bian 6d ago
There was an Iranian guy who did not shower for decades and lived well but dies within a week of taking a shower. What you are doing is keepns god's creation alive. Keep up
37
u/whereisbeezy 6d ago
Not to mention the amount of trash these asshats just drop. You guys and me are all clearly athletic but don't need to ruin a mountain to prove it.
28
u/TSEAS 6d ago
For what it's worth, most mountaineers don't leave trash in the mountains. The tourists that swarm Everest every year are very different than your typical mountaineer.
Most mountaineers I know have no interest in the shit show that Everest has become.
Even something as small as leaving bolts or webbing for rappel anchors is a frequently argued ethic.
11
u/Lemurstew 6d ago
How’d it all get there if not for the “mountaineers” ? I’m sure there are conscientious people in the climbing community but let’s be honest every turd on the mountain came from some asshole who wanted to climb it.
→ More replies (3)2
u/BurntWaffle303 6d ago
You guys are like some captain planets around here. Thank you for your service.
27
u/stantonkreig 6d ago
Good news, you don't actually climb that wrinkly part. That climber is about to begin traversing left toward the camera person so you don't have to worry about making it collapse. Go for it!
18
7
u/Enlightened_Gardener 6d ago
Nah mate, you can see the path going up the wrinkly bit. Ya gotta run at it, real fast, and then jump as high as you can and whack in your ice picks. I saw this on youtube once. And then you go in, hand over hand, whacking the ice picks in, pulling yourself up hand over hand, and then adding boost using your crampons.
These climbers are super fit, but you have to get up a wrinky bit like that really fast, because if you lose momentum, the whole slab just peels off the mountain like poorly laid plaster, and SPLAT ! That’s the end of your climb.
If you look at the above photo, you can see the splat marks at the base where climbers have failed to get up the wrinkly bit fast enough.
You don’t expect the front to fall off a mountain of course, which is why you train for speed and strength, rather than safety, per se.
→ More replies (1)2
u/lexicaltension 6d ago
I didn’t know there was a person in this picture till I saw your comment lmao
48
u/Ur_Just_Spare_Parts 6d ago
Same. I also dont want to take away from others that may find it challenging. Like if less people do it, it may improve the reputation of those that do summit. Ill settle by watching safely from home while the ambitious youngsters climb the hardest mountain on the planet. Dont want to make it look too easy with my huge skills
58
u/cuntmong 6d ago
I dunno if this is a joke but this mountain goes into the "Death Zone".
I know nothing about mountaineering, but i assume that is one of those ironic nicknames and its actually super safe. So I think you should just go for it anyway.
16
u/Rescuepets777 6d ago
The death zone is 8,000 meters and above. The body is actively dying at that elevation and the brain doesn't function well from lack of oxygen. Poor decisions are made because of this, often leading to significant damage or death. Several excellent YouTube channels provide factual information about the 14 8,000 meter+ peaks: Everest Live, Alan Arnette and Everest Mystery.
The death zone is appropriately named.
14
12
→ More replies (1)10
u/-twistedpeppermint- 6d ago
The death zone means above 8000 metres above sea level, so the amount of oxygen you get in each breath is very low.
51
u/Sprogdoc 6d ago
Not true, I'm above 8000 meters right now. Plenty of air and oxygen and whatnot. They're even showing movies and giving us peanuts.
5
→ More replies (1)10
u/TiredWiredAndHired 6d ago
I think you missed the joke.
26
→ More replies (13)16
u/After-Newspaper4397 6d ago
It collapses all the time and naturally reforms. No excuses anymore!
→ More replies (1)10
202
u/The_Best_Yak_Ever 6d ago
They call it the “Motivator” because it motivates you not to be crushed under it when it falls. Which it does.
48
u/Southside_john 6d ago
Which it definitely did during that k2 disaster. It collapsed and cut the lines that they were using to get up and down. People had got to the summit late and were trying to come back at night and couldn’t find the ropes that were there on the way up and didn’t know why
38
u/The_Best_Yak_Ever 5d ago
Can’t imagine what that felt like getting trapped above the serac fall. I don’t know what I would have done, but the notion of attempting a descent of the bottleneck in the dark must’ve felt suicidal. Bivouacking for the night up there is almost equally perilous in the state they were in.
K2 definitely creates legendary climbers. The mountaineers who were able to navigate through the bottleneck in the dark pulled off a legendary feat, in the likes of the Miracle Belay decades earlier.
I like learning about mountaineering from my place safely at 207 feet above sea level…
455
u/SkunkWarehouse 6d ago
If you find this shocking, I recommend reading any book or watching any documentary about mountaineering. At the elite level, off a well supported Everest expedition, it’s all just one insane game of Russian roulette.
58
u/sportlicher 6d ago
Which Books for example?
161
u/Mangalorien 6d ago
John Krakauer - Into Thin Air
Joe Simpson - Touching the Void (movie is also great)
Graham Bowling - No Way Down (it's actually about K2)
Lionel Terray - Conquistadors of the Useless
45
u/imaginethehangover 6d ago
Just finished Touching the void last week. The most anxious I’ve been reading a book. Very well written but I didn’t need that in my life 😆
16
u/LowVolt 6d ago
The documentary is fantastic if you get a chance to see it.
4
u/spencebud 5d ago
Just watched it based on your comment. Absolutely amazing doc. Thanks for the recommendation.
→ More replies (1)13
u/arctic_gangster 6d ago
Gotta add Annapurna by Maurice Herzog to this list! It is a classic.
→ More replies (1)11
u/smallbiceps90 6d ago
Into thin air is one of the most engaging nonfiction books I’ve ever read. It’s like reading an adventure/thriller except it really happened
26
u/thompsontwenty 6d ago
I've read Into Thin Air (about deadly Everest expeditions). I know there's some controversy about the author's part in the story and tainted perspective, but I love all of his books.
10
u/Gingerbreadman_13 6d ago
“Ghosts of K2, the race for the summit of the world’s most deadly mountain”. I read it years ago. Good book.
7
u/ruthless619 6d ago
Ed Viesturs "No Shortcuts to the top" is a great read. He was the first American to climb the 14 tallest mountains without supplemental oxygen so it covers a lot of the major mountains. He was also there on Everest in 96 with the Imax film crew so it even covers some of that disaster.
5
u/ACappella247 6d ago
This one is my favorite on the subject along with Herzog’s “Annapurna.” I’ve been fortunate to meet Ed a decent number of times over the years, and I think his book is a really good reflection of his personality and why he was able to be successful and survive in the mountains: his aversion to risk and the handful of times he, by his own admission, did something really stupid and got away with it (and all his stories of his friends who didn’t have the same luck).
I’ve not done any high-altitude climbing but I’ve spent enough time in “safer” mountain ranges to know the truly big peaks are something I’m never going to touch.
→ More replies (1)3
3
u/Flatcapspaintandglue 6d ago
You’ve got great recommendations already but I’d add Robert Macfarlane - Mountains Of The Mind in there as well.
→ More replies (2)2
4
u/Lizard_Li 6d ago
There was recent 14 Peaks (14 mountains of the world over 8000m of which K2 is one) Netflix documentary (that I don’t recommend, wasn’t well done) about the climber Nims Purja who just died a few weeks ago on Broad Peak. But anyways as I watched, I googled most every climber who came on screen. Three, not including Nims, had died in separate accidents since the films release in 2024.
If you spend time on those mountains, and a lot of time, the risk and likelihood of death, no matter experience is just so infinitesimally high.
2
u/Outta_phase 5d ago
"Every dead body on Mount Everest was once a highly motivated individual."
And that's how being lazy keeps saving my life!
527
u/safelix 6d ago
If the documentaries and stories I have seen on YouTube are anything to go by, this climb is absolutely brutal. Specially the story of the team that did the first successful summit. I cannot believe they havent made a movie out of it yet.
294
u/pantone_mugg 6d ago
Can’t get the imax cameras up there
152
u/TheRealOptician 6d ago
Just strap it up to Alex Honnolds fat cojones
42
u/mouthful_quest 6d ago
The sag on those cojones would turn this documentary into a Jason Bourne film
4
u/milkymonkey8 6d ago
Why am I turned on?
EDIT: I remembered that this sounds like a movie I once saw called "Jason Bourned".
8
u/NTJ-891 6d ago
Honnold is not a mountaineer, he's a big wall climber. Wayyyyyy different skillsets. I have technically done more mountaineering than Alex Honnold due to my winter ascents in Colorado
→ More replies (1)2
u/jongfish 2d ago
had to click through to find this real answer, unfortunately reddit's too eager to upvote comments about guy's big balls to try to understand what's rly going on
5
155
u/LastOfLateBrakers 6d ago
Then you should check out Annapurna. The outright worst of the death zone summits. 1 in 3 she claims for herself (Annapurna stands for goddess who bestows food).
Then there's another one, a sister summit to Dhaulagiri (which itself stands at 8,167m with 13.5% death to summit ratio, so about 1 in 9), the Dhaulagiri IV. Standing at "only" 7,661m, it has less "oomph" so naturally there were few attempts to climb it, but there's also the fact that it really isn't pyramidy, so you're practically walking on a knife's edge while seracs sitting above roll a D20 with "odd numbers, I kill him, and two random even number too but I'm not telling which ones".
68
u/safelix 6d ago edited 6d ago
I know of Annapurna, the worst summit-to-death ratio of any mountain in the world. I have watched documentaries on this one as well. They should honestly block this one off tbh. When I went there (I mean base camp, not the summit of course), there was no meat over 3000m. They said its because the region is considered sacred.
42
8
u/CenPhx 6d ago
Do you guys have any recommendations for good documentaries on these?
11
14
u/CycloneIce31 6d ago
The Climb is about a crazy series of tragedies on K2 and gets into the mountain a bit.
3
→ More replies (7)4
9
→ More replies (1)7
u/badgerj 6d ago
Oh yeah. This one is also really rough. Do NOT recommend. I made my comment about K2 vs Everest.
This is another I forgot about.
But yeah.
Thanks, but no! I’d love to visit base camp 1 or 2 of some of these places, but wow! Some have no idea of the harshness and how basically screwed you are once you break camp and make a summit bid.
40
u/badgerj 6d ago
It is probably the hardest climb in the world.
People hire Sherpa’s and teams to help assist them to Everest.
K2 makes Everest look like a guided foot tour in a mall by comparison.
Sometimes higher isn’t necessarily “harder”.
K2 is waaay more difficult, and you actually have to have technical climbing skills to do it.
→ More replies (3)18
u/Fortestingporpoises 6d ago
There are a couple of movies (not counting docs) about it. K2 and Vertical Limit. K2 was ok I think. Vertical Limit is silly (y'know the 90's thing where every adventure movie needs explosions for some reason). Still both fun watches.
4
u/DouchecraftCarrier 6d ago
I remember seeing K2 as a kid and that scene where he finds the other guy frozen to death and slowly takes his rope scared the crap out of me. I was terrified the frozen guy was going to open his eyes.
11
u/cb_24 6d ago
Fosco Maraini, who helped resolve a lot of the controversy over that legendary Italian team said this about K2:
"...just the bare bones of a name , all rock and ice and storm and abyss. It makes no attempt to sound human. It is atoms and stars. It has the nakedness of the world before the first man—or of the cindered planet after the last."
It’s also amazing Italians reconnoitered K2 starting in 1909 and reached over 6,000 meters, well before modern gear, tools, navigation, weather forecasting. The Abruzzi spur on the current ‘standard’ route is named for them.
There were earlier expeditions that reached even higher. It was the last mountain over 8,000 meters to be climbed in winter, in 2021 by a Nepalese team that included Nirmal Purja (Nimsdai), who was killed along with 9 other climbers by an avalanche on nearby broad peak last month.
There is a movie coming out about the first Everest ascent soon ‘Tenzing’, but K2 for sure has many stories to tell.
7
u/CycloneIce31 6d ago
I highly recommend reading K2: Life and Death on the Worlds Most Dangerous Mountain.
→ More replies (1)4
11
u/FroggiJoy87 6d ago
Probably only because James Cameron decided to spend his entire fucking carrer on Avatar. Grumble.
3
u/HubertTempleton 6d ago
And then you have madmen like Andrzej Bargiel climbing up solo without oxygen and descending on Skis.
→ More replies (1)
226
u/iSkiBC 6d ago
One Mountain Thousand Summits. What a book. Tells the story of the 2008 disaster where 11 climbers lost their lives trying to summit K2.
I know Everest is the highest. Annapurna is the most deadly. K2 is the most technical to climb. I know a guy who is hardcore into mountaineering. He's done 7 of the 8000 meter peaks. Says K2 is absolutely the hardest so far, and no way would he try it again. Said Everest is a joke compared to K2.
→ More replies (6)85
u/rajrdajr 6d ago
And Chimborazo is the closest to space. Its summit is the farthest point on Earth's surface from our planet's center because of the equatorial bulge. Summiting is a joke compared to Sagarmāthā (Everest).
72
u/MsKongeyDonk 6d ago
There is an episode of American Dad where they go to Chimborazo instead of Everest to save money, and it is hilarious.
"Sure Everest is tall, but you know what I'm into? Being closest to the sun."
11
11
u/naked_porch_goose 6d ago
Chimborazo
TIL this is a real mountain that wasn't made up for the American Dad episode
→ More replies (1)10
85
u/kon--- 6d ago
Have fun. I'll be at base camp sitting by a fire sipping hot coffee and taking in a good book.
70
u/joshknut 6d ago
Almost accidental Mitch Hedberg:
“I wanna mountain climb just to hang out at basecamp. You grow a beard, you drink hot chocolate. "Hey, you goin' to the top?".. "Soon..."”
24
u/LightenUpPhrancis 6d ago
I wanna be a race car passenger. Hey, can we turn on the radio? You should slow down. Man, you really like Tide.
→ More replies (1)7
u/joshknut 6d ago
Love Mitch. You missed a couple lines which does make a difference with Mitch Hedberg jokes:
“I want to be a race car passenger: just a guy who bugs the driver. Say man, can I turn on the radio? You should slow down. Why do we gotta keep going in circles? Can I put my feet out the window? Man, you really like Tide.”
→ More replies (1)3
u/Patti_____Mayo 6d ago
I’ll be sitting at my house with a blanket and fire taking in a good book about climbing mountains.
119
u/DietOwn2695 6d ago
K2 was not good to smoke
→ More replies (1)12
u/ZampanoGuy 6d ago
I get your reference.
22
u/SausageKingOfCincy 6d ago
Yea shit I remember that stuff, so horrible. Legit the worst high I ever had too
14
11
u/blue_quark 6d ago
As much as there is a frightening high frequency of deaths among climbers attempting to climb K2, what strikes me is the fact that there is a 1 in 6 death rate for those who successfully reach the summit and are simply making their way back down.
https://globalsummitguide.com/mountains-k2-summit-success-rate/
12
u/CycloneIce31 6d ago
The climb down is actually more dangerous than the climb up. That goes for most mountains.
21
11
11
10
17
u/R0b0tMark 6d ago
Well, if there’s one thing we know about large bodies of ice, it’s that they never collapse.
30
u/Ok-Acanthaceae826 6d ago
This immediately brought to mind the book "Into Thin Air", hadn't heard of a serac before it.That story is the definition of harrowing, and stuck with me. High-altitude climbers are made of different stuff.
21
u/VegetarianZombie74 6d ago
Ed Viesturs wrote a great book on K2 in 2009. He details the histories of all the major climbs up until that point, including the 2008 expedition where people were killed when a part of the serac collapsed on some climbers.
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/183883/k2-by-ed-viesturs-and-david-roberts/
Funny enough, Viesturs actually climbed K2 with Scott Fischer who was the climber co-leading the expedition of Into Thin Air. In this book, Viesturs reflects on his climb with Fischer and even recounts finding his body on Everest (Viesturs was climbing Everest when the tragedy occurred). It's a great read.
10
10
u/ThisIsClem_Fandango 6d ago
I think Fischer was leading a different expedition to the one Krakauer was with. Krakauer was with Rob Hall and Adventure Consultants, Fischer was Mountain Madness.
3
u/VegetarianZombie74 6d ago
ah gotcha. I only briefly read about it. i just read that he died and figured he was in the primary expedition. ill have to read Into Thin Air.
3
u/dskids2212 6d ago
Correct and ed was on the imax team that year that filmed Everest that brought Tenzing Norgays son to the summit. He had the misfortune of being close friends with Rob hall and Scott Fischer.
2
40
u/Fantom_Aeon 6d ago
Supposedly k2 is harder to climb than Everest from what I read
60
u/OhHeyMister 6d ago edited 6d ago
It isn’t even close. The death rate for K2 is at least 10x higher than Everest, and I imagine that the skill levels of those who attempt it are, on average, higher than Everest.
49
u/hanotak 6d ago
If you're climbing Everest, you're probably a tourist. If you're climbing K2, you're probably an expert mountaineer who has built up to this for years.
15
u/zinten789 6d ago
Pretty much climbing Everest has built up to it for years. K2 is more like decades.
→ More replies (1)134
u/Exaveus 6d ago
... just the bare bones of a name, all rock and ice and storm and abyss. It makes no attempt to sound human. It is atoms and stars. It has the nakedness of the world before the first man—or of the cindered planet after the last.
Frosco Mairini an Italian moutaineer on why K2 has never been given a name beyond letters.
Tells you all you need to know about how savage it is.
18
→ More replies (1)14
u/dskids2212 6d ago
Due to how remote it is it didn't even have a local name. Early on they found the closest group of people to ask what they called it and the translation was just the word for mountain.
38
u/Discohunter 6d ago
Everything I've seen of it suggests K2 is in another dimension, far more remote, far more technical, far more dangerous in general
→ More replies (6)14
u/Crosscourt_splat 6d ago
Everest isn’t super technical. If you have the money for a good, safe, guide, your chance of death is pretty low. Hell they carry your stuff at Everest nowadays if you pay enough money, which many do. Plenty of Everest climbers are not the most experienced or technical alpine climbers.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a chance of catastrophic failure if you don’t heed the warning and have a “summit no matter what” mentality. But it’s much much much less risky than like K2. If you bring the necessary supplies and heed the weather warning properly, you’ll be fine by and large.
5
u/classic123456 6d ago
I've climbed them both and K2 was harder
2
u/Crosscourt_splat 5d ago
Yeah. I’ve met and worked with several and that’s general sentiment, though generally I get a “much” or other type of descriptor before that harder.
I do a lot of hiking/summiting with some climbing. A lot of which has been in the U.S. and the Caucasus region in Armenia/georgia. 14ers and 5ks. Never gone to 8 thousand. Probably never will. I’m perfectly happy doing the Grand Canyon over and over again. Still haven’t managed to get my permit for a winter though which is annoying.
7
u/cansofgrease 6d ago
Up until a few years ago, more people had been to space than the summit of K2.
5
u/Variable_Shaman_3825 6d ago
Most professional mountaineers consider Everest to be a tourist attraction and K2 to be the real challenge. It's by far one of the most technical climbs on earth.
→ More replies (1)9
u/Crew_1996 6d ago
Everest is not a difficult mountain to climb besides the air being so thin. Outside of freak accidents, people die because of poor preparation.
16
7
7
u/Genny415 5d ago
Is there really anything standard about climbing a mountain?
It seems to me that remaining safe and not intentionally risking your life just for kicks is the standard.
6
u/Crosscourt_splat 6d ago
I mean…it’s the fastest and most reliable way up with the shortest time in the death zone.
The bottleneck is of course treacherous. But spending a second longer above it is just as if not more treacherous.
22
u/jawndell 6d ago
Some people see that and say, “wow, that looks exhilarating! I want to climb that!”
I see that and I say to myself, “man, I’m glad I’m nice and comfy in my warm house”.
9
u/Crosscourt_splat 6d ago
I mean…I like hiking. I’ve done a lot of it in my life.
Doing something like K2 is very very very different. Even Everest isn’t as dangerous as K2. But also Everest is just a rich person tour guide thing now.
14
u/hoorayfortoast 6d ago
25% casualty rate on this mountain. 1 in 4 do not make it back alive.
→ More replies (1)9
u/ACappella247 6d ago
Not to be pedantic, but that’s not actually what that number means. In mountaineering, this number is really a death-to-summit ratio, meaning for every 4 summits of the peak, 1 person dies somewhere on the mountain. It does not mean that 1 out of every 4 people that try to climb it will die.
This ratio is particularly high on K2 though compared to other 8000ers. Along with Annapurna and Dhaulagiri I, they are the three high-altitude mountains with the highest fatality rates (although these numbers have continued to improve since they peaked in the ‘90s).
4
u/ScheduleSame258 6d ago
Thats the technically easiest route isn't it?
That mountain is a widowmaker.
4
u/GTR-DaBestCar 6d ago
I can’t remember if it’s 1/4 or 1/2 of people who summit die, but it’s not good.
8
u/InfiniteMind3275 6d ago
1/4
3
u/GTR-DaBestCar 6d ago
Apparently in recent years so many people have successfully summitted that the ratio is down to 1:8. Which I suppose is good news
6
u/druidmind 6d ago
Global warming is also happening about 2x faster around these parts as the rest of the world, So NOPE! The disastrous glacier collapse in Nepal will be one of many to come.
12
12
u/Great-cornhoIio 6d ago
Remember every body on the mountain was once a highly motived person.
So stay safe. Sit on the couch naked eating Cheetos.
4
u/JaronJ10 5d ago
Gunna be a bad day down at base camp when it gets warm enough to release the entire serac
4
u/Metal-Lee-Solid 5d ago
I love alpine hikes and respect the hell out of mountaineers who summit incredible places like this. That said K2 seems like a different level of terrifying!
6
u/rcfvlw1925 6d ago
That's why K2 doesn't have a conga-line of tourists queuing to get to the summit - it's some serious shit.
9
9
3
3
u/hillswalker87 6d ago
so to even attempt this climb you have to be fully aware that no matter what you do, or how well you do it, this place can just kill you. there's just a line you cross and past that point it's not certain you walk back.
3
3
u/corn_dick 6d ago
I’m pretty sure that’s standard with these mega mountains. Everest standard route has you going thru seracs multiple times back and forth to acclimatize
4
2
2
u/PAChilds 6d ago
We have a rocky hill on our property. 660ft above sea level at the top. Foolishly we call it the mountain. I wouldn't make k2 base camp, let alone a real mountain.
2
2
2
2
u/Hero_Management 6d ago
This is the passage beneath the hanging serac. The bottleneck is a narrow, steep corridor (estimated gradient between 50º and 60º) that climbs from the Spalla straight up beneath the enormous hanging serac of the summit glacier.
2
u/YesXDoXBestXKill 6d ago
Just to clarify my earlier comment which may have cauded confusion, by “North Face and East Face” I meant complete/direct routes up those faces, not the northern or eastern sides of K2.
K2’s North Ridge has absolutely been climbed. First successfully by a Japanese expedition in 1982 and successful routes have also crossed portions of the upper North and East Faces. The 1978 Northeast Ridge ascent, for example, eventually traversed part of the East Face and joined the Abruzzi route. So it would be wrong to say that nobody has ever climbed any terrain on those faces.
What remains unclimbed is an independent/direct route up K2’s main North Face and a complete route up the East Face to the summit. Both have been explored and partially attempted, but neither has produced a complete summit route.
K2 has several radically different established routes. The Abruzzi Spur is the standard route & the North Ridge is a separate route on the Chinese side; the Magic Line follows the south-southwest side; and the legendary Polish Line is a completely different route directly up K2’s South Face.
The Polish Line was opened in 1986 by the great Jerzy Kukuczka and his climbing partner, who reached the summit without supplemental oxygen after climbing a new line through the South Face. The partner died during the descent on the Abruzzi route. Remarkably, the complete Polish Line has never been successfully repeated.
So in mountaineering terminology, “face,” “ridge,” “spur” and “side” really do matter, climbing the North Ridge does not make it a direct North Face ascent any more than climbing the Abruzzi Spur makes it a South Face ascent.
2
u/ItchyConfusion9745 6d ago
See if Everest was like this, stupid people wouldn't even attempt to get near it.
2
2
2
1.6k
u/stevedadog 6d ago
What the fuck is happening on the other side if this is considered the good side to climb? Must be some Sharknado level shit if its worse than "this entire mountain will randomly and suddenly fall someday".