Video of Andrzej Bargiel Skiing Down Everest Goes Live on YouTube
On September 22, 2025, the Polish mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel accomplished an astounding feat when he climbed and skied from the top of Mt. Everest via the South Col Route without supplemental oxygen, becoming the first to do so.
Since his descent, Bargiel has shared bits of footage and photos from his time on the flanks of Everest. Now, with Red Bull, he’s released a 30-minute-long video providing a deeper look at the journey, and it’s as absurd as you would expect.
Watch it below.
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Bargiel wasn’t the first to ski from the top of Mt. Everest. Others, like the Slovenian Davo Karnicar, have completed ski descents on the mountain.
But Bargiel’s decision to forgo supplemental oxygen set his attempt apart. Most people who ascend to ski or climb the mountain use supplemental oxygen to survive in the high altitude “death zone” where the air is thin.
Here, above about 25,000 feet, the human body can’t survive for long as hypoxia, or oxygen deprivation, sets in. Bargiel kept his composure at that altitude for hours as he climbed and skied Everest, which tops out above 29,000 feet.
Bargiel broke his descent into two sections. First, he skied the upper mountain, spending the night at Camp II. The next morning, he navigated the labyrinthian Khumbu Icefall with some help from his brother, Bartek, who flew a drone, before finishing at base camp.
“It’s one of the most important milestones in my sports career. Skiing down Everest without oxygen was a dream that had been growing inside me for years,” he told his sponsor Red Bull afterwards.
The descent follows Bargiel’s 2018 ski down K2, the second-tallest peak in the world.
American skier Jim Morrison accomplished another first on Mt. Everest this fall when he skied down the famously treacherous Hornbein Couloir. A small bit of footage from that descent was shared by National Geographic, with a forthcoming feature film created by the team behind Free Solo in the works.
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