Goran Kropp's Ascent to K2 Mountain

K2, the second-highest mountain on Earth, rises to a formidable height of 8,611 meters (28,251 feet) above sea level, trailing only Mount Everest at 8,849 meters (29,032 feet). Situated along the border between Pakistan and China, K2 is part of the Karakoram Range, a section of the greater Himalayan mountain system, in a region renowned for its isolated and rugged splendor. Dubbed the "Savage Mountain," K2 has garnered a reputation for its perilous conditions. It ranks among the deadliest peaks globally, with a staggering fatality rate of approximately 25%. This means that for every four climbers who reach the summit, one does not survive the descent. The mountain's steep, ice-clad slopes, volatile weather, and complex technical challenges contribute to its harrowing mortality rate.

Our protagonist, Goran Kropp, first glimpsed K2 when he ascended Muztagh Tower in Pakistan, also known as the Impossible Mountain.

As Goran writes, “It was like seeing a newborn baby for the first time: I experienced a profound longing, a love for that mountain. I knew I had to climb it one day.”

In 1993, Goran Kropp joined a Swedish expedition headed for his dream mountain, K2, the world’s second-highest peak. No Scandinavian had yet scaled K2, and it occurred to him that he could become the first and would probably be able to support himself through mountaineering. But already in Islamabad, he met Tomaz, the leader of the Slovenian K2 expedition that he had bought into for about $9,000. When Goran introduced himself, Tomaz looked at him with surprise. “Kropp?” he stammered. “Oh, yes. That’s right. Thanks for your money. You can do whatever you want – but we’re climbing without you.”

It turned out that Tomaz had wanted his money only to help fund his expedition. Apart from cash, he had no interest whatsoever in Goran. His statement became a slap in Goran’s face.

Goran Kropp and K2 mountain

Kropp arrived at Base Camp with his girlfriend, Josephine Beijer, and met David Sharman, an English climber who, like him, had also bought into the Slovenian team and been fooled.

Kropp writes: “One day the Slovenian expedition set off for the top. At noon, we heard them on the radio: ‘One hour left to summit,’ they said. Of course, we were happy for them. But then the almost predictable storm broke, and there was no more word from them. Later that night, we heard news that all six climbers were huddling in a two-person tent flapping wildly in the gale.”

Bostian suffered cerebral edema. Others tried to carry and pull him downhill, but he died on the Shoulder – the same haunted place where everyone perished in 1986. Goran climbed up to help them. In Camp Two, he met them. Stiepe was snow blind. One of Boris’s toes was frostbitten, as were all of Zvonko’s toes and fingers. He helped them into the tent. There was only room for half the tent on the ledge, however, so they crawled inside, pressed their backs up against the rock face, and dangled their feet over the edge. When he asked them to do this or help with that, they answered: “It’s no use. We’re too tired.” Zvonko’s hands were black and covered with frostbite blisters. After Kropp removed his boots, he saw that his feet, too, from the ankles down, were frozen solid. Then he placed Zvonko’s feet under his armpits to warm them, and they sat like that all night long while he spoke to them in a soothing tone. Perhaps he saved an inch or two of Zvonko’s feet. When he asked whether they reached the top, they answered “No,” after hesitating for a moment. Zvonko was the closest; he turned back 200 feet from the summit of K2.

Back home, Boris eventually had two toes amputated, and Zvonko lost all ten of his fingers and all ten toes. But in order to recoup the expedition’s finances and their honor, the Slovenians made a desperate decision. They fabricated a story that they had reached the summit. As Goran writes, “It was a miserable lie, of course, one that poisons mountaineering.”

David Sharman and Goran, meanwhile, were getting ready for their ascent. They headed up the Abruzzi Spur a week later, reaching Camp Four at 26,200 feet on August 22. The weather was good, with no snow, but David was complaining of a headache.

After a restless time spent in the tent, at 3:00 AM, Kropp started the ascent. David started shortly after him. Soon after the sun appeared in the sky, David gave up; it turned out he had slipped and fractured something. Kropp was now alone. He approached the Bottleneck, a difficult section that had taken many lives. But Goran smoothly crossed that section as if it weren’t at all the notorious K2.

At 11:00, he stood at the summit of K2, the mountain of mountains. He took his camera from his backpack and took pictures of the view and himself.

He thought to himself, “What a star I am! I’ve climbed the hardest peak in the world without any problems.”

Goran Kropp making his iconic journey by bicycle

But at that very same moment, he felt the power of the mountain. The icy cold mountain was getting ready to punish him for his pride. He immediately started climbing back down the summit snow ridge to get to Camp Three as soon as possible before the storm hit. His crampon came off and fell down the icy slope. Desperately groping for his ice axe, after falling for 100 feet, he grabbed his ice axe and managed to stop.

He was still above the notorious Bottleneck, and the blizzard was now approaching. He put his crampon back on with difficulty as his hands were very cold. The fear of death moved him. Just as the storm hit, he reached Camp Four and crawled into his tent. David was not there; he had descended earlier.

Kropp writes: “I realized to my chagrin that everything was exactly as it had been at the start of the 1986 tragedy. But they had been eight, and I was alone.”

He knew he should not make the mistake of the 1986 expedition and wait for the storm to pass. Now cuddled in his sleeping bag, he tried to regain his strength as soon as possible to continue the descent. He forced himself to eat every scrap of food he could find and turned on his Walkman to listen to some samba, the happiest music he had. Morning came, but the storm didn’t subside. Earlier, they had marked the route back, placing marker sticks every 80 feet to get from that ridge down the Abruzzi Spur and Base Camp.

But now, as he got out of the tent, he found that the snow was up to his waist. No bamboo wands, nothing. He returned to the tent. He realized he needed a rope. He then remembered Bostian, who had died there from cerebral edema. He got out of the tent to look for Bostian’s body, which was tied with a rope used to drag him down. With great difficulty, he found Bostian’s backpack, and luckily inside was a rope. No need to find Bostian himself.

He then tied one end of the rope to his tent and himself to the other end, then used the rope as a tether to search for the marker wands and still find his way back to the tent. After four hours, he found the first marker. Alas, he was now stuck in deep snow. Goran thought, “Now it’s over! I will die.”

Just at that moment, the snowy fog opened up long enough for Goran to see the next marker wand leading across the snow slope to the descent ridge.

He slid forward. Soon, night fell. He was now left without food and water. He ate snow, which could cause diarrhea. At Camp One, he heard a loud clap. It was an avalanche that passed 300 feet away. But the wind blast threw him fifteen or twenty feet until the fixed rope he was tied to stopped his fall. But at that moment, the videotape with all his film sequences fell out of his backpack and rolled down into the abyss.

Not much later, he fell into a small glacial lake. Standing in water up to his waist, he was instantly chilled to the marrow. After getting out of the water, he was now shivering with hypothermia. He forced himself to tear off his sodden outer clothes, wring them out, and get into his sleeping bag to sleep for 28 hours. After he got up, he noticed the multicolored tents that marked Base Camp; he had slept 600 feet from there.

He took his radio and called, “Goran Kropp here!”

The surprised voice answered, “We thought you were dead.”

His girlfriend, Josephine Beijer, had also thought that he had died. Later, he realized that he had lost her on K2. Josephine just couldn’t live with that kind of worry and left him after she realized he wanted to continue high-altitude climbing. Another sixteen-hour sleep was required to recover from that exhausting journey.

This ascent made Kropp the second person to summit K2 without the use of supplemental oxygen.

For this article, I referenced Goran Kropp’s book Ultimate High: My Everest Odyssey."