French climber Benjamin Vedrines set a new record on July 28 by summiting K2, the world’s second-highest mountain, in under 11 hours.
Vedrines, 32, left K2 base camp just after midnight on July 27 and reached the summit at 11:10 AM, clocking in at 10 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds. This achievement slashed the previous record of 23 hours, set by Frenchman Benoit Chamoux in 1986, by more than half.
Vedrines, known for his high-speed ascents without the aid of bottled oxygen, had previously attempted to summit K2 in 2022 but was forced to turn back at 8,300 meters due to hypoxia.
“I took my revenge on this mountain,” he said in a voice message shared with Agence France-Presse. “But, above all, I wanted to reconcile with it by doing things with maturity.”
Reflecting on his climb, Vedrines expressed a mix of emotions. “I still find it hard to believe,” he wrote on social media. “When I was up there, I also had a hard time realizing where I was and how I got there.”
K2, standing at 8,611 meters on the Pakistan-China border, is known as the “Savage Mountain” due to its technical challenges. It is considered a quintessential achievement among elite climbers.
The treacherous conditions of the mountain have claimed many lives, including Japanese climbers Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima, who fell from K2’s western face at the weekend. A helicopter spotted the motionless pair but could not attempt a rescue due to the difficult terrain.
Vedrines, one of France’s premier climbers, previously set a speed record on Pakistan’s Broad Peak in 2022, summiting in seven hours and 28 minutes before descending by paraglider. Although he has not confirmed whether he used a paraglider to descend from K2, his ascent marks a significant milestone in the climbing community.