Polish Skier Completes Fifth Descent From 8,000m+ Peak
Polish Skier Completes Fifth Descent From 8,000m+ Peak
Published : 24-May-2024 09:05
Polish skier Bartek Ziemski has skied his fifth 8,000m+ peak of the 14 that exist in the world, all, of course, in the Himalaya.
Ziemski skied Makalu (8,485m), the world's fifth highest peak, earlier this week, repeating a feat achieved by American extreme ski mountaineer Adrian Ballinger two years ago, although Ziemski is reported to have been able to make his descent from the very summit, whereas Ballinger began skiing 15 metres below the very top.
His ski descent was about 2,500 vertical metres in total, down to the snowline at 6,000m. It was completed over two days with a break at Camp 3 overnight and some sections where skis had to come off and they were impassable.
Ziemski's five 8,000m+ ski descents is the second most anyone has achieved, one less than his compatriot, Andrzej Bargiel, famous for being the first to make a successful descent on skis of K2 in 2018.
Poles are currently dominating ski descents from 8,000m+ peaks with Livigno-based Anna Tybor, another Pole, the first woman to ski (8,161m) in 2021 and Broad Peak (8,047m) and this year attempting Dhaulagiri (8,167m) and Pakistan's Nanga Parbat (8,126m) later this spring.
What the Polish skiers have in common is that they usually make their ski ascents and descents fast and light, without supplementary oxygen or sherpas.
Ziemski is now heading to Kangchenjunga (8,586m), the world's third highest peak and now the only one left not to have been skied in its entirety.
Image credit: Oswald Rodrigo Pereira
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