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Mammut sends its congratulations to Christian Stangl on reaching the summit of K2.

Friday 13 August 2010, 07:15 CET The magic call! Chri called his girlfriend Birgit: "I did it! Just got back to base camp - it took 70 hours - yesterday at 10 o'clock I was standing on the summit of K2. The satellite phone had no power - I took a couple of photos and started climbing down again - climbing down during the night I found a little shelter under a niche in the rock face and had a little doze. I am back at base camp now, I'm going to bed and will call back again later."

K2 in the Karakorum mountains is a frightening mountain. At 8611 metres, the mountain on the border between China and Pakistan is only the second highest summit on earth behind Mount Everest (8848 metres), but it is considered the most difficult eight-thousand metre mountain by climbers. There have been many fatal accidents. A German study in early 2007 suggested that around 24 percent of those who conquer the summit of K2 do not return alive.

Long, steep cliff faces and demanding routes make K2 one of the most technically difficult mountains to climb. From base camp at 5200 metres, the normal route along the Abruzzi ridge means overcoming 2000 metres of altitude at a 45 degree incline. And the unpredictable weather does not help. The mountain at the end of the massive Baltoro glacier and the edges of the Karakorum range is extremely exposed to wind and weather.

Conquering K2 is the second-to-last milestone in Christian Stangl's 14 "Seven Summits" project which will take him to the highest and second highest mountains on every continent. The last stop for the extreme sportsman is the 4852 Mount Tyree in Antarctica in December.

Sources: Christian Stangl; Kronenzeitung