K 2; The King of Mountains

     After Mount Everest at 8,849 metres above sea level, K2 is the second-highest mountain on Earth at 8,611 metres. It is located in the Karakoram mountain range, partially in the Gilgit-Baltistan section of the Kashmir region governed by Pakistan, and partially in an area of the Kashmir region administered by China, which is a part of the Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County of Xinjiang.

After George Bell, a climber on the 1953 American expedition, told reporters that K2 was "a terrible peak that attempts to kill you," the mountain began to be known as the Savage Mountain. K2 is the deadliest of the five highest mountains in the world; roughly one person per every four climbers perishes there. The King of Mountains and The Mountain are alternative titles for K2, which is also also referred to as Mount Godwin-Austen.

On the 1954 Italian expedition headed by Ardito Desio, climbers Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni from Italy became the first to reach the summit. K2 was the last eight-thousander to be climbed in the winter when it was conquered in January 2021 by a group of Nepalese climbers under the direction of Nirmal Purja and Mingma Gyalje Sherpa.

K2 is the only summit over 8,000 metres high whose eastern face has never been scaled. The hottest months of the year, July and August, have virtually always seen ascents; K2's more northern location makes it more prone to bad and colder weather.