325: Andrzej Bargiel, First Person to Ski Everest Without Oxygen

In today’s special episode we meet Andrzej Bargiel, the first person to ski Everest without oxygen.

In September 2025, Andrzej went viral, after Red Bull released footage of him summitting and then skiing down Everest – the world’s highest peak – without any extra oxygen.

To put his achievement into context, around 7500 people have summited Everest, but fewer than 200 have managed to do it without supplementary oxygen – and absolutely none of them have skied back down as well.

We discuss Andrzej’s journey from a tough childhood in Poland, via first skimo racing, and then high mountain adventures, to how he became the only person to ski K2 from the summit and then the only person to summit and ski Everest without supplementary oxygen.

Andrzej spoke in his natives language of Polish, so in this conversation, you’ll hear his words translated by an actor.

SHOW NOTES

Watch the full 30-minute version of Andrzej’s historic descent (0:30)
If you are really pushed for time, you could watch the one minute version
Andrzej is the ninth of 11 children (2:45)
Swapping table tennis bats for skis (2:45)
Getting into ski touring (4:15)
The ‘Hic Sunt Leones’ (‘Here are lions’) project (6:00)
Learning to function with little oxygen (7:30)
Attitudes to risk (8:30)
Previous attempts on Everest in 2019 and 2021
Why September? (11:00)
Reaching the summit (14:00)
Negotiating the Khumbu icefall (16:45)
Equipment for Everest (18:30)
Everest, K2 and Nanga Parbat - which was the hardest to climb and the hardest to ski? (19:45)

FEEDBACK
You can leave a comment on Spotify, Instagram or Facebook – or you can drop me an email to theskipodcast@gmail.com. We’re also on WhatsApp, where I release exclusive material ahead of each episode there. Look in the Show Notes for those links.

Matt Hayes: “Thank you for the content over the summer, some truly inspiring interviews. Also, for the free ticket for the snow show. We got so much out of it last year and booked our hotel as soon as the dates came out, so the free ticket certainly helps.”

Colin Tierney: “Episode 323 was very interesting: disabled skiers impress me so much.”

Jake Roskoe: “I really enjoyed Episode 235, when you spoke with Nancy Shiel from Big Sky Resort in Montana”

There are now 325 episodes of The Ski Podcast to catch up with. Just go to theskipodcast.com, have a search around the tags and categories and you’re bound to find something of interest to listen to.

If you enjoyed this episode of The Ski Podcast (which took around 10 hours to produce!), you are welcome to buy me a coffee too at buymeacoffee.com/theskipodcast