K2 with Elite Exped

Our leaders Nimsdai, Mingma David, and Mingma Tenzi will be forever associated with K2 because of their world-first winter ascent in January 2021. But both have a history with the world’s second-highest mountain that stretches back before that remarkable feat. Mingma David led the rope-fixing team on K2 twice, leading to successful summits both times. And of course, Nimsdai summited the savage mountain as part of his ‘Project Possible’ push in 2019, when many people told him it wasn’t - around 90 percent of the expeditions turned round that year without making it to the top. 
 

Elite Exped’s K2 expedition plan is based on the one he successfully implemented, although with 47 days in total, we leave longer for our clients’ acclimatisation and rest days. We also allow for a full week on top of the usual climbing window, in case of weather delays.

Nims and Mingma David’s success on mountains like K2 is about more than just their supreme skill as climbers - it comes down to their ability to plan and prepare for every eventuality that can possibly be prepared for. This approach has become one of Elite Exped’s founding principles: we control the controllable, making sure we keep every aspect of expedition planning, from preparing food to fixing ropes, in-house, so we’re never left relying on third parties.

This helps ensure the best chances of summit success for our clients, but perhaps more importantly, it also helps us maintain the highest safety standards. We guarantee a 1:1 guide to client ratio on all our expeditions, with four guides always kept in reserve in case of emergencies. 

Like Nimsdai and Mingma David, all of our guides are hugely experienced mountaineers, and many of them are record-holders in their own right. They’re also trained in high altitude rescue and recovery techniques. We have evacuation plans and accessible helicopter rescue in place, ready to go at short notice should it be needed. Simply put, if you’re thinking of attempting one of the world’s hardest mountains, you could not be in safer hands.

Climbing K2 is a huge achievement and the pinnacle of any mountaineers’ career. It’s not easy, but that’s the point. As record-breakers, we recognize and respect the desire to achieve the impossible in our clients - it’s what drives us too. In fact, we don’t view our clients as clients, but as friends and fellow high achievers. If it’s your dream to conquer the savage mountain as we have previously, we’ll stand with you, and climb with you, every step of the way.