Lesser-know facts about Mount K2 and why it is called the deadliest in the world

Someone had once said – happiness comes in peaks and valleys. How true and real it is for those who have actually mustered enough determination to climb the high peaks across the world. While recently, a Mexican woman named Viridiana Álvarez Chávez scaled one of the world's tallest peaks, K2, we went ahead and dug out some key facts about this unique mountain range and why it is called the deadliest in the world. Here are they –

• K2 is located at 28251 ft above sea level, which makes it the second highest mountain in the world, after Mount Everest at 29029 ft. The location of K2 is between Baltistan in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of north Pakistan and the Dafdar Township in Taxkorgan Tajik of Xinjiang, China.
  
• The story of how K2 got its name goes like this. In 1856, a British officer working for the Great Trigonometrical Survey of India reached a small mountain in Kashmir. There, his sight fell on two special peaks more than 200 km away in the Karakoram. He named them K1 and K2, the ‘K’ standing for Karakoram.
  
• K2 is also referred to as Mount Godwin-Austen in honour of Henry Godwin-Austen, an early explorer of the region. Although the name was rejected by the Royal Geographical Society, it is used on several maps and places.
  
• The climb to reach K2 starts from the Pakistan region. Its base camp is situated at a height of 16896ft.
  
• Interestingly, K2 is surrounded by five of the world’s 17 highest mountains.
  

• K2 is the sole 8000 m peak that has never been reached by anyone from its East Face or during winter time. Being situated towards the north, it is more prone to severe winters.
  
• It was George Bell, a climber on the 1953 American Expedition, named K2 as the Savage Mountain after its deadly nature, when he almost slipped from the climb. It is said that out of every four mountaineers who climb the mountain, one person dies.
  
• Till date, K2 has never been climbed in winter. The expeditions in 2019 were unsuccessful.
  
• In comparison, the death rate of K2 is 25 per cent whereas Mount Everest is 4 per cent only.