Polish Mountaineer Completes Ski Descent of Everest Without Supplemental Oxygen
A Polish skier and mountaineer just completed the second-ever ski descent of Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen.
Bartek Ziemski returned to Everest Base Camp after reaching the mountain's summit around 9:20 a.m., according to Everest Live. Ziemski's descent of Everest without supplemental oxygen took place just days after his ski descent of Lhotse-another towering peak in the Himalayas-which he also completed without supplemental oxygen, making him the first to do so.
Ziemski's feat on Everest marks his ninth ascent of an 8,000-meter peak without supplemental oxygen, according to Explorersweb. He has also summited Annapurna, Kangchenjunga, Dhaulagiri, Makalu, Manaslu, Gasherbrum II, and Broad Peak, alongside his recent ascents of Lhotse and Everest.
Fellow Polish ski mountaineer, Andrzej Bargiel, was the first to make a full ski descent of Mount Everest, sans supplemental oxygen, in September of 2025. Unlike Bargiel's descent, Ziemski did his descent without a support team or a drone for guidance, Explorersweb reported. However, he had a packed trail and fixed lines to rely on.
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Ziemski is known not just as a remarkably talented ski mountaineer, but also as one of the most lowkey. Ziemski doesn't maintain any kind of social media following and has no sponsors, unlike many of the other athletes completing similar feats. (We're not knocking sponsorship, everyone's gotta get paid, but dang).
This Everest season has been particularly busy and hectic as the Tibetan side of the mountain is closed for the season. Earlier this season, a serac in the Khumbu Icefall above Camp One halted hundreds of climbers. A route was eventually opened, not without some risk, but the climbing season was delayed by roughly two and a half weeks.
American ski mountaineer Jim Morrison became the first person to ski the Hornbein Couloir on Everest, shortly after Bargiel's descent. Morrison and his late partner, Hilaree Nelson, were also the first to ski off the summit of Lhotse in 2018.
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This story was originally published May 20, 2026 at 1:02 PM.