A Polish adventure skier has become the first person to climb Mount Everest and then ski down it without using supplemental oxygen, his sponsors announced.
The skier, Andrzej Bargiel, 37, completed the feat on Monday, taking four days to ascend from base camp and then two days to ski back down.
In videos taken at the top of the mountain, where oxygen is only one-third that of sea level, Mr. Bargiel breathes heavily, even before he straps on his skis, illustrating the difficulty of doing anything on Everest without an extra source of oxygen. While more than 7,000 people have ascended Everest, which reaches 8,800 feet above sea level, only about 200 have done so without bottled oxygen.
Mr. Bargiel is then seen peacefully gliding through pristine snow, almost as if he were a recreational skier on a ski resort’s trail, not on the highest mountain in the world.
But he is also seen navigating tricky and dangerous situations, like narrow ridges, nearly sheer mountain faces and drop-offs.
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The post Polish Skier Climbs Everest and Skis Down Without Extra Oxygen appeared first on New York Times.
