French mountaineer Benjamin Vedrines counted every second as he made history’s fastest ascent of K2 without oxygen, but said he does not add up the growing number of records to his name.
“It’s not the records themselves that interest me, it’s also the links that I create with certain mountains and especially in the case of K2,” the 32-year-old said. “It fascinated me from the first moment I saw it.”
Vedrines scaled the world’s second-highest mountain — standing at 8,611m on the border of Pakistan and China — in 10 hours, 59 minutes and 59 seconds on July 28.
Photo: AFP
The ascent slashed by more than half the previous record for climbing K2 without bottled oxygen, completed in 23 hours by fellow Frenchman Benoit Chamoux in 1986.
The remarkable feat on the “Savage Mountain” came exactly two years to the day since Vedrines was forced to abort his first attempt as the high altitude starved his brain of oxygen a mere 200m from the top.
While his record has made headlines worldwide for its speed, for Vedrines it is remarkable for the opposite reason — because it was so long in the making.
“I wanted to arrive there really ready, prepared, body, mind,” he said. “I pay attention to doing things well, to building them. These are projects that take time.”
Vedrines is considered one of France’s pre-eminent climbers, and in 2022 set a speed record climbing Pakistan’s Broad Peak — the world’s 12th-highest mountain — before descending by paraglider.
Back home in the French Alps he has also broken a host of records.
He uses the “alpine style” of climbing, which relies on minimal use of cumbersome ropes in favor of moving swiftly up the slopes.
Yet without the aid of oxygen tanks to counteract the thin atmosphere, he faced a paradox on K2 — needing to move quickly, in one of the world’s most unforgiving environments, with minimal effort.
“It requires knowing how to go slowly to go fast,” he said. “It is a little bit of a contradiction that we have to negotiate.”
To make matters worse, poor weather on the mountain prevented his attempts to acclimatise.
“I had to face a lot of unforeseen events during this expedition,” he said. “I knew how to persevere. I knew how to be determined, patient and above all humble because this K2 mountain requires a lot of humility.”
While Nepal’s Mount Everest is about 240m taller than K2, the Pakistan peak first scaled in 1954 is regarded as a more challenging ascent. Elite climbers often talk of a special connection to the mountain despite its fatal reputation. Historically about one in four ascent attempts have ended in death.
There have been fewer fatalities over the past few years, but two Japanese climbers also attempting to scale K2 using the “alpine style” fell the day before Vedrines’ ascent, with their motionless bodies spotted by a helicopter. A rescue was deemed impossible.
At times Vedrines was climbing solo, as well as at record speed.
“I had to forge a little path in the snow and there was this slightly mystical atmosphere that is specific to K2,” he said.
Vedrines left K2’s Advanced Base Camp at 5,350m just after midnight, and covered the 3,261m to the top before lunchtime.
He spoke to Agence France-Presse a week after making his descent, in the resort town of Skardu — the gateway to northern Pakistan which is home to five of the world’s 14 mountains above 8,000m.
“I feel very grateful that the K2 mountain finally accepted me this year,” Vedrines said. “It was not a form of revenge, but a form of reconciliation.”
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