ISLAMABAD – Spanish climber Sergi Mingote is all set to take on the last major challenge in mountaineering: climbing Mount K2 (8,611 meter, 28,251 feet) – a nearly perfect snow pyramid and the world’s second tallest mountain – in winter.

“Climbing K2 in winter is the last great challenge remaining in mountaineering. Many think that it is impossible,” Mingote, who is already in Pakistan for the expedition, told EFE on Monday.

K2 is the only one of the eight-thousanders – the 14 highest peaks in the world with heights above 8,000 meters – which has not been scaled in winter.

Mingote is the co-leader of the expedition along with 38-year-old Nepalese Chhang Dawa, the youngest mountaineer to climb all the 14 eight-thousanders.

The team consists of 55 climbers from 13 countries who have joined hands to try and achieve the feat.

The experienced Spanish alpinist said that the biggest problem in climbing K2 during this season was the strong winds and low temperatures.

“Yesterday it was -55 degrees Celsius at the summit with winds of 90 kilometers per hour, and a wind chill factor of -90 degrees,” Mingote said.

“One has to add up the degrees,” he stressed.

There have been seven attempts to summit K2 in winters, with the farthest point reached by the climbers remaining a little beyond camp 3, around 800 meters from the summit.

However, Mingote believes the task to be possible. “One year or the other it is going to be conquered.”

The team is set to reach Skardu, a city in northern Pakistan, on Monday, and would begin trekking along the Karakoram range around Christmas to reach the base camp.

The climb to K2 would begin some time during the last few days of 2020, and is set to last until February.

Last winter, Spaniard Alex Txikon led one of two expeditions to K2, but both failed to reach the top.

Mingote scaled the world’s second highest peak without supplemental oxygen in 2018, in what proved to be a turning point in his career.

“I have a love-hate relationship with K2. I had it pretty bad descending amid bad weather (in 2018), I thought I wouldn’t make it,” he confessed.

Therefore, he wants to return to the top.

“I want to make my peace. Reunite with a mountain with which I have this love-hate equation.”