The First Ascent of K2: The Savage Mountain, 1954
1954 · event
On 31 July 1954 Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli stood on the summit of K2, at eight thousand six hundred and eleven metres the second highest mountain on Earth and, by a wide margin, the harder of the two. The Italian expedition that put them there had been organised by the geologist Ardito Desio with military thoroughness, and the climb had already cost the life of one member, Mario Puchoz, who died of illness at altitude weeks earlier.
K2 stands on the border of Pakistan and China in the Karakoram, far from any road, with steep ice on every side and weather that arrives without warning. Its slopes had turned back several expeditions since 1902. Even today it is climbed by a small fraction of the number who attempt Everest, and for decades it had no winter ascent at all until a team of Nepali climbers reached the top together in January 2021.
The 1954 climb produced one of the longest disputes in mountaineering. The young Walter Bonatti and the Hunza porter Amir Mehdi carried oxygen bottles to the high camp for the summit pair, found the tent pitched higher than agreed and were forced to spend the night in the open above eight thousand metres. Both survived, but Mehdi lost his toes to frostbite. Bonatti was blamed for years, and the Italian Alpine Club eventually reviewed the evidence and corrected the record in his favour.
The first ascent of K2 is remembered for the summit and for what happened below it. It gave Italy a national triumph in the same decade as Everest and Annapurna, and it left the sport with a lasting argument about honesty, credit and the duty climbers owe to the people who carry for them.