The Sixty-Three Day Double: Karl Unterkircher's Oxygenless Odyssey on Everest and K2

In the Val Gardena, deep in the Ladin-speaking heart of the Italian Dolomites, climbing is not viewed merely as a sport; it is an inheritance of soul and landscape. Karl Unterkircher grew up beneath the sheer vertical walls of the Sella Towers and the Langkofel. A master carpenter and certified mountain guide, Unterkircher was renowned for a quiet, luminous humility that masked one of the greatest high-altitude cardiovascular engines ever measured by sports scientists.

In early 2004, Unterkircher was invited to join the prestigious Italian ‘K2 2004: 50 Years Later’ project, celebrating the golden jubilee of the 1954 Italian first ascent. Led by veteran expedition organizer Agostino Da Polenza, the ambitious campaign envisioned a daring two-stage assault: first Everest in May, followed immediately by K2 in July. While most team members planned to utilize bottled oxygen, Unterkircher set himself an uncompromising personal challenge: to climb both giants strictly without supplemental oxygen.

The Roof of the World Without Gas

In May 2004, Unterkircher moved up the South Col Route on Mount Everest (8,848m). While foreign commercial clients gasped through pressurized masks, Unterkircher climbed with smooth, rhythmic efficiency. His lungs processed the oxygen-depleted air with astonishing natural tolerance.

On May 24, 2004, Unterkircher stepped onto the windswept summit of Mount Everest without supplemental bottled oxygen. Standing at the highest point on the planet, he looked down at the curvature of the Earth in quiet wonder. But there was no time to celebrate. The expedition had to pack down Base Camp, fly to Kathmandu, transfer to Islamabad, and embark on the long, grueling trek up the Baltoro Glacier toward the Karakoram.

Confronting the Savage Mountain

By late June, Unterkircher was at the foot of K2 (8,611m), staring up at the sheer pyramid of the Abruzzi Spur. Where Everest is an endurance trek in thin air, K2 is a relentless technical big-wall battle against vertical rock, falling ice, and catastrophic storms. The physical fatigue of an 8,000-meter summit normally takes months to recover from, yet Unterkircher was immediately back at work ferrying loads through House’s Chimney and fixing lines up the Black Pyramid.

In late July, a rare weather window opened over the Karakoram. Pushing upward through Camp III and across the Shoulder, Unterkircher joined teammates for the final summit assault. Once again, he left the oxygen mask behind. Pushing through the deep, shadowy couloir of the Bottleneck beneath the leaning serac, he emerged onto the summit snowfields under blazing Karakoram sunshine.

An Unprecedented Milestone

On July 26, 2004, Karl Unterkircher stepped onto the summit of K2. Exactly sixty-three days had elapsed since he stood on the summit of Mount Everest. He had become the first person in human history to climb the two highest mountains on Earth without supplemental bottled oxygen in a single climbing season.

Upon his return to Italy, Unterkircher was decorated by the Italian President as a Cavaliere of the Republic. Yet Unterkircher remained the same gentle, unassuming mountain guide from Val Gardena, proving that the greatest triumphs in alpinism are born not from commercial spectacle, but from pure, quiet dedication to fair means and the high summits.