K2

K2 is a huge mountain in Asia.

Only one mountain in the world is taller. K2 is shaped like a giant pointy tent. Snow and ice cover its sides. Rivers of ice called glaciers flow around its feet.

K2 is the second highest mountain on Earth. Only Mount Everest is taller. K2 reaches 8,611 meters above sea level, and it stands in the Karakoram, a range of very high mountains in Asia, on the boundary between land run by Pakistan and land run by China.

The mountain rises like a giant pyramid of rock, snow and ice. Its base sits at about 4,570 meters on the Godwin Austen Glacier, a river of ice that flows into the much bigger Baltoro Glacier. K2 has other names too, such as Chogori and Mount Godwin Austen.

Britannica gives K2 a height of 8,611 m (28,251 ft), second only to Mount Everest, and places it in the Karakoram Range, partly in a Chinese-administered enclave of the Kashmir region within the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and partly in the Gilgit-Baltistan portion of Kashmir administered by Pakistan. Because the Kashmir region is disputed, each side of the mountain is described here by who administers it.

The snow- and glacier-covered summit rises from about 4,570 m on the Godwin Austen Glacier, a tributary of the Baltoro Glacier. The Karakoram, Britannica says, holds the greatest concentration of high mountains in the world: its peaks average about 6,100 m, and four exceed 7,900 m. Four of the fourteen peaks above 8,000 m, K2, Gasherbrum I, Gasherbrum II and Broad Peak, lie in Gilgit-Baltistan, according to its Forest, Wildlife and Environment Department.

High on K2 there is only rock, snow and ice.

Lower down, wild goats and sheep climb the steep slopes. Snow leopards live in these mountains too. Big birds glide on the mountain winds.

Nothing grows on K2's icy upper slopes, but life finds a way lower down. In the deep valleys, people water small oases with channels fed by melting glaciers. Willows and poplars grow along streams, and juniper grows on high slopes. Britannica describes grassy pastures between the high peaks.

The mountains around K2 are protected in the Central Karakoram National Park. Its wildlife department lists snow leopards, markhor (a kind of wild goat), ibex, blue sheep, musk deer, lynx and wolves, and about 90 kinds of birds. Britannica adds that big birds such as lammergeiers and golden eagles soar on the mountain winds.

Britannica notes that almost all lush vegetation in the lower Karakoram valleys is shaped by people: mountain oases on rocky outcrops are watered by intricate channels from glacial melt. The range has an upper tree line set by cold and a lower one set by aridity, with only sparse trees between; willow, poplar and oleander thickets line watercourses up to about 3,000 m, juniper grows among high seasonal snowfields, and Artemisia shrubs thinly cover the lower slopes.

The Central Karakoram National Park, declared in 1993 and covering about 10,558 km², is described by the Gilgit-Baltistan Forest, Wildlife and Environment Department as Pakistan's largest protected area; glaciers cover about 38 percent of it. The department lists snow leopard, markhor, musk deer, urial and Marco Polo sheep among threatened species, with blue sheep, ibex, lynx and wolf, and about 90 bird species, and names over-hunting, habitat loss and isolation of small populations as pressures on snow leopards and markhor. Britannica adds Himalayan griffons, lammergeiers and golden eagles.

Long ago, a map maker measured the mountains here.

He wrote K2 next to this one, and the name stuck. Many years later, two climbers reached the top. In 2021, ten climbers from Nepal reached the top in winter.

In 1856, Thomas Montgomerie of the Survey of India was measuring the Karakoram. He labeled the peaks K1, K2 and so on, and this mountain was the second one he measured. Its other English name, Mount Godwin Austen, honors H. H. Godwin Austen, its first surveyor.

Climbers tried for more than 50 years to reach the top. Teams in 1902, 1909, 1938, 1939 and 1953 turned back. Then, on 31 July 1954, Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli of an Italian expedition stood on the summit. On 16 January 2021, ten climbers from Nepal reached the top together, making the first winter climb of K2.

Britannica records that Col. T. G. Montgomerie of the Survey of India discovered the peak in 1856 and gave it the symbol K2 as the second peak measured in the Karakoram; the name Mount Godwin Austen honors Col. H. H. Godwin Austen, its first surveyor. An Anglo-Swiss expedition made the first attempt in 1902, reaching about 5,670 m on the northeast ridge; the Duke of the Abruzzi's Italian expedition of 1909 reached about 6,100 m on the southeast ridge, later called the Abruzzi Ridge; American expeditions reached about 7,925 m (1938), 8,380 m (1939) and 7,900 m (1953).

In 1954 an Italian expedition led by the geologist Ardito Desio, including a Pakistani member, climbed the Abruzzi Ridge, and Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli reached the summit at 6 p.m. on 31 July. Britannica counts K2 among the world's most difficult mountains to climb because of its frequent, severe storms. It was the last of the fourteen 8,000-meter peaks climbed in winter: on 16 January 2021 ten Nepali climbers from three teams, among them Nirmal Purja and Mingma G Sherpa, reached the top together (National Geographic; Planet Mountain).