Polish ski mountaineer Andrzej Bargiel is on his way to Nepal with Dhaulagiri in his sights, aiming to climb the 8,167m peak and ski down from the summit without supplemental oxygen. There is one big obstacle: a serious snowstorm is currently hammering the mountain, with heavy snowfall, violent winds aloft and large avalanches reported by climbers waiting at Base Camp. Bargiel's team will have to sit tight until conditions stabilise.
If he pulls it off, Dhaulagiri becomes his second 8,000er skied this year alone. In June he completed a full, non-stop ski descent of Nanga Parbat (8,125m) in Pakistan, capping off his Pakistan portfolio.
Bargiel is famously tight-lipped about expedition logistics, but his team list is public: Kuba Poburka climbs alongside him, while a film crew — cameramen Bartek Pawlikowski and Pasang Rinzee Sherpa plus drone operator Maciej Sulima — documents the attempt. Based on his track record, expect no bottled oxygen and a complete descent from the top, not a partial ski from high on the route. His well-resourced expeditions are also a quiet boon for the handful of other climbers on the mountain, since extra ropes, manpower and weather intel raise everyone's odds.
The bigger picture is intriguing. Bargiel made history with the first complete ski descent of K2 in 2018, and his CV also includes Broad Peak (2015), both Gasherbrums, Shishapangma (2013), Manaslu (2014) and an oxygen-free ski line off Everest last autumn. Add Nanga Parbat and a successful Dhaulagiri, and he has skied nine of the fourteen 8,000m peaks. He has never announced a formal project, but the trajectory points towards an audacious goal: the first climb-and-ski of all fourteen 8,000ers, without supplementary oxygen.
Dhaulagiri itself is no unclaimed prize on skis. Fellow Pole Bartek Ziemski already made a complete, oxygen-free ski descent of the mountain, climbing independently with partner Oswald Pereira — no Sherpa support, no bottled gas. Pereira descended on foot while Ziemski skied, and days later both rejoined the upper route to help rescue veteran Spanish climber Carlos Soria. So while Bargiel's broader project may be unprecedented, this particular peak will test him against a line someone else has already skied.
For travellers, the story is a window into Nepal's autumn climbing season, when Dhaulagiri's remote and avalanche-prone flanks draw a small, hardy crowd compared with Everest or Manaslu. Even if you will never clip into a harness at 8,000m, the drama unfolding around Base Camp — storms, rescues, record attempts — is part of what makes trekking in the Dhaulagiri region, or simply following Himalayan expeditions from a teahouse in Pokhara, so compelling.
