Polish ski mountaineering legend Andrzej Bargiel has achieved what was long considered impossible, becoming the first person to climb and successfully ski down Nanga Parbat without the use of supplemental oxygen. According to a historic announcement by Red Bull, Bargiel reached the 8,126-meter summit and navigated a continuous line all the way to the end of the mountain’s skiable snow. The monumental triumph completes a perfect lifetime sweep of all five of Pakistan’s 8,000-meter peaks, making him the first human to descend every major Pakistani giant on skis without bottled oxygen.
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Nanga Parbat is widely regarded as one of the world’s highest and most demanding mountains, challenging elite climbers for decades. For skiers, the biggest obstacle has always been the upper Diamir Face, where a towering serac barrier had blocked every previous attempt at a continuous descent. This massive wall of glacial ice historically forced previous ski pioneers to remove their skis and carry their equipment on foot across the gap before reconnecting with the snow below. Bargiel solved this legendary alpine puzzle by finding a way through the ice, linking the summit to the lower slopes in one completely uninterrupted descent, Red Bull reports.
This latest high-altitude milestone brings Bargiel’s career total to eight of the world’s fourteen 8,000-meter peaks—all achieved without the use of supplemental oxygen. The unprecedented run in Pakistan serves as a centerpiece for his ongoing Hic Sunt Leones project, which has continually captured global attention by testing the absolute limits of human endurance. By completing this historic sweep of the region’s peaks, the Polish pioneer has permanently cemented his status as one of the most daring alpine athletes of the modern era. The triumph seamlessly joins his existing portfolio of oxygen-free feats, which includes his groundbreaking descents of Broad Peak, both Gasherbrum peaks, and his legendary status as the only human to have ever skied K2 from summit to base. It also directly follows his celebrated autumn 2025 expedition, when he shocked the mountaineering world by executing the first full, bottle-free ski descent from the summit of Mount Everest to base camp, ensuring his legacy as a master of the world’s highest slopes.
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