Andrzej Bargiel’s sponsor, Red Bull, has posted a 31-minute video of the Polish mountaineer’s ski descent of Everest some weeks ago. The new footage details every section, including the last slow meters to the summit, the turns down the Lhotse Face, and the spooky descent amid the crevasses of the Khumbu Icefall.
Andrzej Bargiel in Base Camp. Photo: Bartek Wlikowski/Red Bull Content Pool
Major support
Bargiel climbed the normal route of Everest’s South Side. Although a big team supported him, he himself used no supplementary oxygen. The ambitious project took place during the fall, when the mountain is quiet and well-covered with snow after the monsoon.
A strong crew fixed camps, laid ropes where needed, and broke trail up a route slightly different than the usual line between Camp 2 and Camp 4: it went up the left side of the Geneva Spur and avoided the Lhotse Face, where an avalanche had injured three of his teammates.
On October 21, Bargiel and Lakpa Sherpa reached the top, and the Polish climber skied down the entire length of Everest’s South Side, from summit to Base Camp. He did stop for the night at Camp 2.
The expedition — as well as Jim Morrison’s own ski descent of the North Face with oxygen and a comparably large support crew — has raised some debate in the climbing community about balancing alpine values and sporting achievements with major support.
Skiing the Khumbu Icefall
Matters of style aside, the video, which Red Bull has shared on YouTube, is a must-see that allows viewers to understand the magnitude of the challenge.
Filmed with the help of drones and a helmet cam, the footage shows each section, the snow conditions, and the skiing strategy, from the vertiginous traverse of the summit — with fixed ropes at the Hillary Step — to the first turns down the rocky Geneva Spur, which was covered in enough snow at this time of year for Bargiel to avoid the numerous outcrops.
He then continued down the side of the Lhotse Face in fading light toward the Valley of Silence. Here, the skier stopped for the night. The snow conditions were unstable on the upper sections of the mountain, good-looking near Camp 2 and at the beginning of the Icefall, and then increasingly complex, with a thin powdery layer on top of the seracs, which crunched beneath Bargiel’s skis.
The skier was in constant contact with his Base Camp team, including his brother Bartek and a safety advisor, who guided him through the maze of seracs.
Close to Nuptse
On the lower part of the Icefall, Bargiel kept close to the rocky flank of Nuptse, but there were nevertheless some committed passages down snow-covered seracs that hid giant crevasses. Progressing with skis is safer than on foot on crevassed terrain, since the wider surface and swift movement of the skis causes less impact on snow bridges that may be less prone to breaking, but the risk is always there, and there were no ropes on that section. At times, the exposure was heart-stopping.
Bargiel skied until the snow and ice on the glacier gave way to bare ground. It included some very steep side-slipping on big, bare seracs.
Side-slipping down a serac on the lower part of the Khumbu Icefall. Frame of video footage by Bartek Bargiel/Red Bull Content Pool
