What drives people to risk their lives climbing world's deadliest mountains?

In its recent article, BBC describes the harrowing journey of two climbers who faced disaster on K2, the world's second-tallest mountain. 

Historian Natalia Mehlman Petrzela delves into the themes of life, love, and death on Earth's second-highest peak in the latest season of Extreme.

Located on the border between Pakistan and China in the Karakoram mountain range, K2 is often dubbed the "savage mountain." Standing at 8,611 meters, K2 reaches toward the sky like a snow-covered pyramid, making it the second-tallest mountain in the world, after Everest, and widely regarded as the most difficult to climb. In Peak Danger, the second season of the BBC's Extreme podcast, Petrzela, who hosts the series, recounts the tragic story of newlyweds Cecilie Skog and Rolf Bae, who climbed K2 in 2008. Their journey ended in a disaster that claimed the lives of 11 climbers in just two days.

For Skog, the mountain's allure began at a young age. Raised in the shadow of towering peaks, she was naturally drawn to the alpine environment, and like many mountaineers, she described the thrill of scaling mountains as "addictive."

"I grew up in Ålesund, a little town on the west coast of Norway, and surrounding this little town is mountains everywhere. It is really beautiful there," Skog says on the podcast. "These mountains, they should have given it with, like a warning sign: 'this is really addictive.'"

While climbing mountains across the globe, Skog also found love and wed fellow climber Rolf Bae. After years of perfecting their mountaineering skills, the couple decided to make their honeymoon an adventure, choosing to travel to Asia and attempt to summit K2. Their journey began in Pakistan at the Baltoro Glacier, a legendary landscape featuring six peaks rising above 7,900 meters. The area’s stunning, nearly pristine beauty is a major attraction, but it’s also a place where the challenges of high altitude, steep cliffs, and thrilling ascents are ever-present, along with the constant shadow of imminent danger.

"If you are going to take on K2, you got to be at the top of your game. That is why it is known, in climbing circles, as 'the mountaineer's mountain,'" Petrzela says. That reputation was something Skog and Bae were well aware of, as well as the inevitable possibility of facing a life-or-death emergency.

"The most important thing cannot be to summit; the most important thing has to be to come back home alive," Skog says in the podcast.

Upon reaching the Karakoram Range, Skog and Bae teamed up with around 30 ambitious climbers from countries like Serbia, Ireland, France, the Netherlands, and South Korea, along with a group of experienced Nepalese and Pakistani porters. These climbers were well-versed in the harsh conditions, the inherent dangers, and the potential for extreme weather. Avalanches, rockfalls, and sudden blizzards were not uncommon, but there was another stark reminder of the mountain's deadly reputation: a memorial at the start of the journey honoring those who had perished while attempting to conquer K2.

"When you arrive, you see a huge pile of brown, weathered rocks, all stacked on top of one another. It is adorned with crisscrossing flags, and pictures of fallen climbers," Petrzela says.

The memorial fails to dissuade climbers, nor do the low oxygen levels and freezing temperatures.

Fellow climber Dr. Eric Meyer shares on the podcast, "What I went through was a moment of asking myself, 'Why am I here… am I in the right place?' I questioned my reasons for being there. And then you begin to ponder… is it worth the risk?"

As Petrzela explains on the podcast, it has never been easier for daring adventurers to take on the challenge of K2, with a cottage industry now catering to those hoping to join the ranks of those who've reached its summit. However, this commercialisation has sparked concerns about climber safety and the sometimes relaxed attitude towards the inherent dangers of the trek.

"There is no rulebook to mountain climbing. No international association telling you what or how to climb. And there is nothing to stop anyone from making mountaineering into big business. Nowadays, for the right price, you too can buy your way onto the slopes of an 8,000m peak," Petrzela points out. While no central authority regulates all climbers, the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation (UIAA) has developed safety standards for over 25 types of equipment, such as helmets, harnesses, and crampons.

As the group encountered some unforeseen challenges – including a strange case of missing equipment – Skog admits that the idea of turning back did cross her mind, but she remained captivated by the summit. "[I thought] we should turn around, because this is crazy. But again... we are looking up and we can see the summit there. We are so close," Skog says. "The closer you get to the summit, the harder it is to turn around."

"It is like a kind of compulsion, an inexorable force pulling them further and further up the mountain," Petrzela observes.

In what would later be known as the 2008 K2 disaster – following a similar tragedy in 1986 that claimed five lives – a massive ice avalanche destroyed climbers' rope lines, causing many to fall from a particularly dangerous section of the mountain called the "Bottleneck." The avalanche resulted in the deaths of 11 climbers, including Bae. Those fortunate enough to survive faced frostbite and other severe injuries. Survivors, Petrzela explains, felt "shellshocked, like a soldier returning from war."

The names of the victims were added to the makeshift memorial at basecamp, and reports would later describe the incident as "one of the worst tragedies in Himalayan history."

Nonetheless, Skog continued her adventures – partly, as she explains, to recapture the sense of wonder she once shared with her late husband. She recruited friends to embark on a trek across Greenland and later completed an unassisted crossing of Antarctica. She even returned to the Himalayas, though her perspective had changed, altering her entire approach to mountaineering, including the allure of summiting.

"I did not have the same feeling being there. I felt that this does not belong to me anymore," she says.

By Naila Huseynova