A Polish adventure skier has become the first person to climb Mount Everest and then ski down it without using supplemental oxygen, he and his sponsors announced.
The skier, Andrzej Bargiel, 37, completed the feat on Monday, taking four days to ascend from base camp and then two days to ski back down.
In videos taken at the top of the mountain, where oxygen is only one-third that of sea level, Mr. Bargiel breathes heavily, even before he straps on his skis, illustrating the difficulty of doing anything on Everest without an extra source of oxygen. While more than 7,000 people have ascended Everest, which reaches 8,800 feet above sea level, only about 200 have done so without bottled oxygen.
“I have never used bottled oxygen in the mountains,” Mr. Bargiel told The New York Times in an email interview on Friday.
In the videos, Mr. Bargiel is then seen peacefully gliding through pristine snow, almost as if he were a recreational skier on a ski resort’s trail, not on the highest mountain in the world.
But he is also seen navigating tricky and dangerous situations, like narrow ridges, nearly sheer mountain faces and drop-offs.
Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland commented on the feat, saying on social media: “Sky is the limit? Not for Poles! Andrzej Bargiel just skied down Mount Everest.”
Mr. Bargiel made his ascent in the fall, when the mountain weather is more unpredictable, but the slopes are significantly less crowded than in May, when the bulk of Everest expeditions take place.
“Everest is, of course, the highest mountain in the world, but I wanted to break the cliché of it being just a crowded and commercial place,” he said Friday. “That’s why I chose to go there in autumn — to have the mountain to myself.”
Mr. Bargiel started at Everest’s base camp in Nepal and then rotated among the higher Camps I, II and III to adapt to the altitude.
He began the final climb from Camp IV on Sunday and reached the summit 16 hours later, his sponsors said, which was longer than expected because of fresh snowfall.
He began his descent only minutes later, and within five hours he had skied to Camp II, where he stopped because of darkness. The next morning he skied for another hour and 45 minutes to reach base camp.
The most dangerous part of the journey came near the end, Mr. Bargiel’s team said, at the treacherous Khumbu Icefall, not far above base camp. The team described him “navigating a labyrinth of shifting ice and deep crevasses — without ropes or fixed lines.” He was aided in this part of the journey by a drone piloted by his brother Bartek.
Despite his exertions, Mr. Bargiel reported: “I came back safe and strong. I’m healthy, fit and happy.”
Davo Karnicar of Slovenia is recognized as the first person to ski down Everest, completing the trip from summit to base camp in 4 hours 40 minutes in 2000. The Academy Award-winning 1975 documentary “The Man Who Skied Down Everest” related the story of Yuichiro Miura of Japan, who skied a small part of the mountain.
Mr. Bargiel has also climbed and skied down K2, the world’s second-highest mountain, and many other prominent peaks.
“I have many plans ahead,” he said Friday. “I’d love to travel to Antarctica, to the Andes in Peru. I simply enjoy doing this, and as long as I remain healthy, I will always keep seeking new mountains, no matter the altitude.”