K2

K2, also Mount Godwin-Austen, mountain peak in the Karakorum Range of the western Himalaya, straddling the border between China and Jammu and Kashmir, a territory claimed by both India and Pakistan. Pakistan currently controls the portion where K2 lies. K2, rising 8,611 m (28,251 ft), is the second highest mountain in the world surpassed only by Mount Everest (8,850 m/29,035 ft), also in the Himalaya. K2 is an almost regular cone of ice and limestone resting on a granite base. In 1856 T. G. Montgomerie of the Survey of India measured the mountain and named it “K2” to denote it as the second in a list of 35 summits in the Karakorum Range. In 1861 the peak was unofficially renamed Mount Godwin-Austen, after British soldier and topographer Henry Haversham Godwin-Austen, the second European to visit the area. Several local names, including Chogori, Lambha Pahar, Dapsang, and Kechu (K2), are also used to identify the peak. Eight expeditions to K2 were made between 1892 and 1954. On July 31, 1954, Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli, two members of an Italian expedition led by Ardito Desio, made the first successful ascent to the mountain's summit.