Austrian mountaineer reached the summit of K2 Tuesday, becoming the first woman to climb the world’s fourteen 8,000-meter peaks without the use of supplemental oxygen. Kaltenbrunner, along with Maxut Zumayev, Vassiliy Pivtsov, and Derek Zaluski, made it to the top of the mountain after weeks of bad weather had spurned numerous teams away from the summit. They are the first climbers to reach K2’s summit since 2008, when the peak’s notoriously bad weather claimed 11 lives. The team began their summit push at 1:30 a.m. local time and plowed through waist-deep snow under bluebird skies and colder than usual temperatures. Kaltenbrunner’s team shortly after the summit that she “is over the moon and can鈥檛 believe how lucky they were to reach the summit TOGETHER in this fantastic weather, despite the difficult conditions during the ascent.” The team is now making their way down the mountain.
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