Everest might be the world’s tallest mountain but talk to any mountaineer who has climbed both, and it’ll be K2, the second highest peak on the planet, that makes them go misty-eyed. This staggering pyramid of rock and ice, the loftiest point in Pakistan’s Karakorum, is undoubtedly one of the world’s most beautiful mountains, arguably its greatest and, statistically, its most deadly.
Nicknamed the Savage Mountain, K2 has a dark reputation and it’s objectively more dangerous than Everest. While it poses similar problems in terms of avalanche risk and the complications associated with high altitude, the main routes to K2’s summit are extra technical, steeper and more fraught with unavoidable hazards. Among these are massive overhanging seracs, primed to shear off the mountain at any given moment, obliterating all in their path.
