Gasherbrum II

Gasherbrum II, first recorded in surveys as K4, ranks as the world’s 13th highest peak, rising to 8,035 meters (26,362 feet). Within the Gasherbrum massif, it is the third tallest, situated in the Karakoram range along the border separating Pakistan’s Gilgit–Baltistan region from China’s Xinjiang province. Its first successful climb took place on July 7, 1956, when Austrians Fritz Moravec, Josef Larch, and Hans Willenpart reached the summit.

The mountain sits at the head of the Baltoro Glacier, straddling the Pakistan–China border. Its elevation of 8,034 meters (26,358 feet) places it behind Gasherbrum I (8,080 meters) and Broad Peak (8,051 meters) within the group. Gasherbrum III is often treated as a subsidiary peak of Gasherbrum II, since its topographic prominence is only 461 meters.

British Royal Engineer Thomas George Montgomerie, working on the Great Trigonometric Survey in 1856, spotted the mountain and labeled it “K4”—the fourth peak of the Karakoram. The name “Gasherbrum” derives from the Balti words *rgasha* (“beautiful”) and *brum* (“mountain”); contrary to a common misconception, it does not mean “shining wall”—that description was applied by Sir William Martin Conway to nearby Gasherbrum IV during an 1892 expedition. The peak is also informally called G2.

Exploration of the Gasherbrum group began in 1909 with the Duke of the Abruzzi and Vittorio Sella; the Abruzzi Glacier, a branch of the Baltoro, honors the Duke. In 1934, Günter Dyhrenfurth’s International Himalayan Expedition, which included André Roch, reached 6,250 meters on Gasherbrum II. The first ascent occurred on July 7, 1956, via the Southwest Ridge. After establishing Camp I, the Austrian team descended and returned to find it buried by an avalanche, along with all their supplies. Despite this setback, they pushed for a quick summit attempt. Leaving Camp III on July 6, they spent the night in a bivouac sack and topped out at 11:30 am the following day.

During the 1970s, four expeditions succeeded on Gasherbrum II in 1975, including a French team led by Jean-Pierre Fresafond, a Polish group under Janusz Onyszkiewicz, and another Polish expedition headed by Wanda Rutkiewicz. In 1979, a Chilean party claimed to have used the normal route to the summit, and other climbers such as Reinhard Karl, Hanns Schell, and Kurt Diemberger also reached the top.

In the 1980s, Swiss mountaineers Romolo Nottaris and Tiziano Zünd made the first alpine-style ascent on August 3, 1981. On July 24, 1982, Reinhold Messner, accompanied by Nazir Sabir and Sher Khan, climbed the Southwest Ridge; during the ascent, Messner found the body of a missing Austrian climber, which he later buried at the pass between Gasherbrum I and II. He wrote about this climb in *3 x 8000: My Great Year in the Himalaya*. In July 1984, Messner and Hans Kammerlander linked Gasherbrum II and Gasherbrum I in alpine style without returning to base camp. That August, a French expedition led by Daniel Croisot reached the summit and completed the first full ski descent of the mountain, with Patrice Bournat and Wim Pasquier skiing the Southwest Ridge from 7,500 meters to Base Camp. In August 1986, a Slovene team made a remarkably fast ascent, reaching the peak in just 32 hours from base camp—22 hours of climbing and 10 hours of rest at 5,900 meters.

The 1990s saw Jean-Christophe Lafaille climb both Gasherbrum I and II in four days without stopping at Base Camp in July 1996. In 1997, Anatoli Boukreev set a speed record, soloing from Camp ABC at 5,800 meters to the summit in 9 hours 30 minutes.

In 2006, Sebastian Haag and Benedikt Böhm climbed Gasherbrum II twice within a week. On July 29, they reached the top at 8:00 am and skied down without removing their skis or abseiling. After a few days’ rest, they left Camp I again on August 3, reached Camp IV in six hours, but then faced 50 centimeters of fresh snow, requiring over six more hours of tough climbing to the summit. They descended on skis again, navigating packed snow and avalanche risk, and returned safely to Camp I in under 17 hours—a trip that normally takes four to seven days. In 2007, Italians Karl Unterkircher and Daniele Bernasconi made the first ascent via the North Face from China, climbing in alpine style. They fixed about 1,200 meters of rope, reached the summit around 8:00 pm on July 20 after a bivouac, and descended the normal northwest route. A third team member, Michele Compagnoni, turned back just 150 meters below the summit.

In the 2010s, on July 22, 2011, Leila Esfandyari reached the peak but died during her descent. On February 2, 2011, Cory Richards, Denis Urubko, and Simone Moro completed the first winter ascent of Gasherbrum II, reaching the summit at 11:30 am without supplemental oxygen or porters, despite being buried by a class-four avalanche. Richards, the first American to climb an eight-thousander in winter, filmed the expedition.