For the first time in history, a man has skied down from the summit of Everest to base camp without taking off his skis or using supplemental oxygen. The protagonist: Polish climber Andrzej Bargiel, one of the great names in modern mountaineering.
Skiing down Everest without oxygen: conquering the impossible
September 22 and 23, 2025, will go down in the annals of mountaineering. On the first day, Andrzej Bargiel reached the summit of Everest (8,849 m), one of the most beautiful mountains in the world, after climbing without supplemental oxygen, and then skied all the way down to base camp. No climber had ever before achieved these two milestones in such a clean manner: summiting without oxygen and descending entirely without removing his skis or resorting to fixed ropes.
“More than 6,000 people have climbed Everest, but fewer than 200 have done so without supplemental oxygen.”
It should be remembered that before Bargiel’s feat, Slovenian Davorin Karničar had already made history as the first man to descend Everest on skis in 2000, albeit using supplemental oxygen.
The 37-year-old Pole, already known for his historic descent of K2 in 2018, once again pushed the boundaries of extreme high-altitude skiing. His line from the top of the world to the 5,300 meters of the Khumbu Glacier represents an unprecedented milestone in the Himalayas.
A mountaineer forged in the mountains
In the words of Reinhold Messner, pioneer of the eight-thousanders without oxygen, “every generation must find its own Everest,” and everything points to Bargiel finding it on skis. Born in 1988 in Łętownia, a Polish village at the foot of the Beskides Mountains, and the ninth of eleven siblings, he grew up climbing trees, cycling, and skiing on the slopes near his home. His career first took him to competitive mountain skiing, where he was Polish champion, before he ventured into high mountain climbing with his own approach: fast, light, and with skis on his feet. In 2013, he founded the Hic Sunt Leones project, inspired by the ancient inscriptions on medieval maps that marked unexplored lands. The motto: venture into the unknown and prove that even the eight-thousanders still held challenges to be written.
Before tackling Everest, Andrzej Bargiel had already proven himself a pioneer capable of challenging the status quo in high-altitude skiing. In 2013, he completed the first full descent from the central summit of Shishapangma, his first eight-thousander on skis. A year later, on Manaslu (2014), he set a speed record by reaching the summit in 14 hours and descending to base camp in just over 21 hours, all in a single day.
In 2015, Bargiel completed the first ascent and subsequent descent on skis of Broad Peak, cementing his reputation as an innovator in extreme skiing. His consecration came on K2 (2018), where he achieved the first complete descent on skis of the second highest mountain on the planet, a milestone considered impossible for decades due to the complexity of its terrain. Finally, in 2023, he added Gasherbrum I and II, thus completing the series of ski descents of the Karakorum giants.
Ascent without oxygen: 16 hours in the “death zone”
It was not an immediate triumph. In 2019, Bargiel was forced to abandon the attempt due to the risk of an unstable serac on the route. In 2022, hurricane-force winds forced him to give up. The success of 2025 was the result of years of preparation, patience, and reading the conditions.
The expedition had a multidisciplinary team: experienced sherpas, a doctor, a physical therapist, a photographer, and his brother Bartek as a drone operator, crucial for guiding the journey through the dangerous Khumbu Icefall.
In the early hours of September 22, Bargiel set off from Camp IV on the South Col (7,900 m). The ascent proved harder than expected: deep snow and bad weather prolonged the effort to 16 hours. He finally reached the summit at around 3:00 p.m., exhausted but determined to begin the descent immediately. “There was no room for hesitation. I had to start skiing as soon as possible,” he confessed to his team.
From the summit itself, Bargiel put on his skis and tackled one of the most delicate sections: the Hillary Step and the South Summit. He then crossed the Balcony, returned to the South Col, and continued down the steep slopes to Camp II (6,400 m), where he rested briefly during the night.
Dawn found him at the entrance to the Khumbu Icefall, the most dangerous section of the route: moving crevasses, unstable blocks, and ever-changing terrain. Thanks to visual support from his brother’s drone, he managed to find a safe corridor and descended without removing his skis, a feat that few experts believed possible.
It should be noted that the Khumbu Icefall is one of the most feared points on the southern route of Everest. A maze of open crevasses, unstable blocks of ice the size of buildings, and towers of seracs that collapse without warning make this section of terrain considered virtually unskiable. Every season, even climbers who cross it on foot do so at great risk, secured by ladders and fixed ropes installed by Sherpas. That Bargiel managed to slide down this chaos of ice without taking off his skis, guided only by his instinct and images from a drone piloted by his brother, is almost incomprehensible even to mountaineering experts. His line down the waterfall is not only an exercise in extreme technique, but also a feat of daring that borders on the inhuman.
According to a statement from Red Bull, he reached base camp at 8:45 a.m. on September 23, completing the first full descent of Everest on skis without supplemental oxygen.
