In a truly breathtaking display of skill and endurance, Poland’s Andrzej Bargiel has successfully completed an unprecedented ski descent of Mount Everest. What makes his achievement particularly remarkable is that he accomplished this incredible feat without using any supplemental oxygen, a world first according to his team and expedition organizers. The announcement of this historic event came on Thursday, September 25, 2025.
Bargiel, after triumphantly reaching the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) summit of the world’s highest peak on Monday, September 22, gracefully glided down its treacherous, snow-covered slopes.
An early Thursday Instagram video captured Bargiel’s exhilaration at the summit, where he declared, "I am on top of the highest mountain in the world and I'm going to descend it on skis."
While several individuals have skied down parts of Everest before, none have managed a continuous descent from the summit without relying on bottled oxygen. For comparison, Slovenian Davorin Karnicar completed the first full ski descent from Everest’s summit to base camp in 2000, but he used supplemental oxygen.
Chhang Dawa Sherpa of Seven Summit Treks, the expedition’s organizer, confirmed that Bargiel skied down to Camp 2, rested there overnight, and then continued his ski descent all the way to base camp the following day. Sherpa emphasized the unparalleled difficulty of the endeavor, stating, "This was extremely challenging and no one had done it before."
Adding to the peril, heavy snowfall forced Bargiel to endure 16 grueling hours above 8,000 meters. This altitude is notoriously dubbed the "death zone" due to the dangerously thin air and critically low oxygen levels, which dramatically increase the risk of severe altitude sickness.
Upon his arrival at base camp, he was warmly welcomed with a khada, a traditional Buddhist scarf, signifying respect and good fortune.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk celebrated Bargiel’s achievement on X, exclaiming, "Sky is the limit? Not for Poles! Andrzej Bargiel has just skied down Mount Everest."
Bargiel’s team issued a statement proclaiming his success as a "groundbreaking milestone in the world of ski mountaineering."
This Everest challenge was a long-held ambition for Bargiel, who first set his sights on it a year after making history in 2018 by becoming the first person to ski down Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second-highest mountain. His previous attempts on Everest were met with formidable obstacles; a perilous overhanging serac forced him to turn back in 2019, and high winds thwarted his plans in 2022.
This daring adventurer is on a mission to complete ski descents of the world’s highest mountains as part of his "Hic Sunt Leones" project, a Latin phrase meaning ‘here are lions,’ used historically to denote unexplored territories.
His impressive resume includes skiing down all four of Karakoram’s eight-thousander peaks in Pakistan, as well as Nepal’s Manaslu and Tibet’s Shishapangma.
Autumn expeditions on Everest are typically rare due to the increased snow, shorter and colder days, and a significantly narrower window for summiting compared to the busier spring season, making Bargiel’s accomplishment even more extraordinary.