Between 21 and 23 May 2024, Piotr Krzyżowski became the first person in the world to summit Lhotse (8,516 m) and Mount Everest (8,848 m) in a single push, climbing solo and without supplementary bottled oxygen. He reached the two summits just 47 hours and 22 minutes apart, without descending below Camp 4 at any point during his summit push. No one in the history of Himalayan mountaineering had ever accomplished this feat, let alone in this style. His achievement was entered into the Guinness World Records as the fastest ascent of both peaks in history in this style.
In recognition of this achievement, he received an award from the KOLOSY Awards jury in the Mountaineering category in 2025.
Including his ascent to Lhotse’s highest camp and his descent from Everest, Piotr Krzyżowski spent a total of four nights in or near the death zone. This was an extraordinary feat of endurance and is most likely the longest time a Polish climber has spent in this zone, which is lethal to the human body.
Piotr Krzyżowski has now summited 11 of the world’s 8,000-metre peaks and has completed the Karakoram Crown. He climbed all these mountains in his own fast style, without supplementary bottled oxygen and without personal Sherpa support, climbing solo on most occasions:
2021 – Gasherbrum II
2022 – Broad Peak
2022 – K2 (he climbed both Broad Peak and K2 in just nine days)
2023 – Nanga Parbat
2023 – Gasherbrum I
2024 – Lhotse and Mount Everest (reaching the two summits less than 48 hours apart)
2025 – Makalu
2025 – Manaslu and Dhaulagiri (the expedition lasted just 26 days. Piotr summited Manaslu on the 15th day after reaching Base Camp, then reached the summit of Dhaulagiri just six days later)
2026 – Kangchenjunga (the expedition lasted only 15 days. Piotr reached the summit of the world’s third-highest mountain on the ninth day after arriving at Base Camp, climbing without prior acclimatisation)
Born in 1979, Piotr Krzyżowski is a Himalayan mountaineer, a GOPR mountain rescue volunteer and a lawyer. He developed his climbing skills on peaks in the Tatras, the Alps, the Caucasus, the Pamirs and the Tian Shan.
In the winter of 2019, together with his climbing partner M. Hatala, he achieved a historic feat: they became the first Poles to summit Khan Tengri (7,010 m) in winter. It is the highest peak in Kazakhstan and the second-highest in the Tian Shan. For this achievement, they received the Jerzy Kukuczka Taternik Award for the best high-altitude ascent of 2019. Their ascent of Broad Peak and K2 just nine days apart also earned them recognition from the KOLOSY Awards jury in the Achievement of the Year category.
