K2, the second-highest mountain on Earth at 28,251 ft8,611 m, has a garbage problem. Abandoned tents, oxygen cylinders, fuel canisters and human waste pile up along the route, and every busy season adds more. Pakistan has tried to pay for the cleanup with climbing and environment fees, and those fees have changed a lot since we first looked at them in 2023.
Updated November 2026: we rewrote this analysis with the 2024, 2025 and 2026 seasons, the new per-climber permit fees, and corrections to our 2023 version. The original said K2 claimed 22.8% of its climbers in 2023 and that the garbage fee was new that year. Both were wrong; the details are below.
What Changed Since 2023
- Permits went per climber. The group permit ($12,000 for up to seven climbers) was replaced in 2025 by an individual royalty, which settled at $3,500 per climber after a court fight. It stayed at that level in 2026.
- Crowds came and went. K2 saw a record 200 summits in 2022 and about 112 in 2023. Then the numbers fell: about 50 to 65 in 2024, 42 in 2025 and none at all in 2026.
- The cleanup got bigger. Park staff, banks and expedition teams now run cleanup drives on the mountain itself, not only along the trek in.
- The waste is still there. A dry 2025 season melted out years of old rubbish around Base Camp and Advanced Base Camp.
Why K2 Has a Garbage Problem
Commercial expeditions changed K2 within a few years. Until 2021, fewer than 400 people had ever stood on the summit, according to Climbing magazine. In 2022 alone, 200 did. More climbers means more tents, more fixed rope, more oxygen bottles and more people living on the mountain for weeks.
Most of that waste sits on glaciers. Dark debris absorbs sunlight and speeds up local melting, and human waste in the camps can end up in the meltwater that flows down the Baltoro Glacier. Those glaciers feed rivers that people downstream depend on for drinking water and farming.
Getting rubbish off the mountain is hard. Everything collected at Base Camp has to be carried out by porters and mules for about 60 miles100 km to Askole, where the Central Karakoram National Park (CKNP) sorts it and burns or landfills it.
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A Short History of K2
British surveyor Thomas Montgomerie spotted and named the peak in 1856 while mapping the Karakoram; the K stands for Karakoram. The mountain held out until 31 July 1954, when Italian climbers Achille Compagnoni and Lino Lacedelli reached the top.
In January 2021, a team of ten Nepali climbers made the first winter ascent, the last great prize among the 26,000-foot8,000-meter peaks. The guiding companies behind that team brought commercial-style climbing to K2 the following summers.
How Many People Climb K2, and How Many Die
K2 has a reputation as one of the deadliest mountains on Earth, and historically that was fair: until 2021, about one climber died for every four who reached the summit. The crowded seasons since 2021 changed the ratio. By early 2025, Climbing magazine counted about 96 deaths against roughly 800 summits, or about 12 deaths per 100 summits.
Our 2023 version quoted a Statista figure of 22.8% as if it were the 2023 death rate. It was not: that number compared all deaths with all summits on record as of May 2023, before the 2023 season even started. In 2023 itself, one climber died among about 112 summits.
| Season | Summits (approx.) | Deaths on K2 | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 58 to 70 | 6 | First winter ascent in January; deaths mostly in winter |
| 2022 | 200 | 2 to 3 | Record year: 145 summits in about 24 hours |
| 2023 | 112 | 1 | High-altitude worker Muhammad Hassan died below the summit |
| 2024 | 50 to 65 | 2 | Japanese alpinists Kazuya Hiraide and Kenro Nakajima fell on the West Face |
| 2025 | 42 | 2 | Rockfall and avalanche between Advanced Base Camp and Camp 1 |
| 2026 | 0 | 0 | First summer without a summit in years; 10 died on nearby Broad Peak |
Sources: Alan Arnette 2023, 2024, 2025 and 2026; Dawn; Statista for 1993 to 2022. Pakistan publishes no official summit statistics, so season counts differ slightly between sources.
The 2026 season shows how fast K2 can shut down. Heavy snow through July, a hot start to August and constant rockfall stopped every attempt, and the season ended after an avalanche on neighboring Broad Peak killed ten climbers on 30 July, among them Nirmal Purja. Fewer climbers came in the first place: Alan Arnette called it the lowest number of permits in perhaps twenty years.
What It Costs to Climb K2 in 2026
The cost of a K2 expedition is made up of the government royalty (the climbing permit), an environment and waste fee for the national park, and everything else: gear, flights, hotels, staff and, for most people today, a guiding company.
The Climbing Permit: From Group Fee to Per-Climber Fee
From 1 January 2023, Gilgit-Baltistan restored the full royalty rates set under the 1999 mountaineering rules, after years of discounted fees. For 2023 and 2024, a foreign team paid one royalty for the whole group:
| Peak height | Royalty for up to 7 members | Each extra member |
|---|---|---|
| K2 (28,251 ft8,611 m) | $12,000 | $3,000 |
| 26,250 to 27,887 ft8,001 to 8,500 m | $9,500 | $3,000 |
| 24,610 to 26,247 ft7,501 to 8,000 m | $4,000 | $1,000 |
| 22,969 to 24,606 ft7,001 to 7,500 m | $2,500 | $500 |
| 21,329 to 22,966 ft6,501 to 7,000 m | $1,500 | $300 |
Pakistani climbers paid Rs 30,000 per person for K2, about $130 at 2023 exchange rates (PTDC).
In September 2024, the regional government announced individual permits for 2025: $5,000 per climber for K2 in summer, which would have nearly tripled the cost for a team of seven. Tour operators took the decision to court, permits stalled for weeks in spring 2025, and in May 2025 the cabinet cut the summer K2 fee to $3,500 per climber. That rate stayed unchanged for 2026. The other four 26,000-foot8,000-meter peaks in Pakistan cost $2,500 per climber in summer.
| 2023 to 2024 | 2025 to 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| K2 royalty, foreign climbers (summer) | $12,000 per team of up to 7, plus $3,000 per extra member | $3,500 per climber |
| Team of 7 pays | $12,000 | $24,500 |
| Planned in 2024 but withdrawn | $5,000 per climber ($35,000 for 7) |
The Environment and Waste Fee
The garbage fee was not new in 2023, as our first version claimed. Climbers in the Central Karakoram National Park have paid a waste deposit or environment fee for years: about $68 per expedition member around 2020, and $200 per foreign K2 expedition member by 2022.
Under the PTDC fee schedule, foreign expeditions pay $200 per person per peak in the restricted zone, which includes K2, and $100 in open zones. Foreign trekkers pay $150 in the restricted zone. The money goes into waste collection, staff, toilets and incinerators in the park. Confirm the current amount with your operator: the regional fee schedules have changed several times since 2024.
Gear, Hotels and Guided Expeditions
Permits are the smallest part of the bill. In 2023 we estimated mountaineering gear (boots, ice axe, harness, rope, down suit, oxygen system, navigation and first aid) at $10,000 or more, and hotel nights in Skardu, the starting point for most expeditions, at about $18 to $28. Guided expeditions that include gear, from companies such as Summit Club or Adventure Peaks, cost up to about $40,000 per climber at the time. Guiding prices change every season, so ask operators for a current, itemized quote.
If you are new to high-altitude gear, our guide to mountaineering boots versus hiking boots explains why K2 needs a very different boot from a normal trail.
How Climbing Affects the Environment Around K2
Waste in the mountains is a global problem. The 2021 Mountain Waste Survey by GRID-Arendal and partners collected 1,753 responses from people of 74 nationalities. Plastic was the most common waste they saw, and respondents in Asia reported more waste than those in Europe or the Americas, linked to weaker waste systems. About half said they had seen enough litter on a single visit to fill the top pocket of a backpack, and a small share had seen enough to fill several 3,660-cubic-inch60-liter packs.
Climate change adds to the pressure. The Karakoram is one of the few ranges where some glaciers have held steady or even grown, but researchers expect more floods from heavier rain in the coming decades, followed by less meltwater for Pakistan’s farms. Weather is already less predictable: operators blamed shifting patterns for the poor 2025 and 2026 seasons.
The problem is old. A 1993 United Nations study of tourism in Pakistan’s mountains already found significant environmental damage along the main climbing and trekking routes in the Karakoram, including K2.
What Has Been Done to Clean K2
- 2006 to 2011: the Italian Ev-K2-CNR project and the Alpine Club of Pakistan ran the first Baltoro cleanups, starting with about 6,600 lb3 tonnes in 2006 and reaching Gasherbrum Camp 4 by 2011 (CKNP).
- Since 2015: the Central Karakoram National Park manages waste in the area, with a seasonal waste crew, toilets at the main camps and an incinerator in Askole.
- 2022: CKNP staff collected 3,549 lb1,610 kg between K2 Base Camp and Camp 4, and about 44,000 lb20,000 kg across the Baltoro that season (Explorersweb).
- 2023 to 2024: CKNP counted over 73,500 lb33 tonnes of waste from 1,886 visitors in 2023, and 50,700 lb23 tonnes by September 2024, helped by bank-sponsored cleanups on K2 and at Base Camp (HUM News).
- 2025: Madison Mountaineering’s team removed 605 lb275 kg from Base Camp up to the foot of the Abruzzi Spur (Madison Mountaineering). The dry season exposed rubbish that snow had hidden for years.
Teams are expected to carry their own waste down to Base Camp, where the park takes over. The weak spot is still the upper mountain, where old tents and rope are left behind because carrying them down is dangerous and exhausting.
Our 2023 Climber Survey
In 2023 we ran a short online survey in hiking and climbing groups and on social media. We received 56 responses from people who said they had climbed K2 recently or planned to within two years, most with medium or advanced experience.
- Awareness: 45 of 56 (80%) knew about the environmental problems on K2.
- Seen it themselves: 30 (54%) had seen garbage or glacier melt on the mountain.
- Conservation matters: 51 (91%) said it was important to their climb.
- Responsibility: 48 (86%) said climbers have a real role in protecting the area.
- Leave No Trace: 52 (93%) were willing to follow Leave No Trace practices.
- Paying more: 31 (55%) would pay an extra fee for conservation.
This was a small, self-selected sample, not a representative study, and we could not check each respondent’s K2 plans. Read the percentages as a snapshot of motivated climbers in 2023, not of everyone on the mountain.
Conclusion
Most climbers we heard from care about K2 and say they would follow sustainable practices. About half pushed back on paying more, and Pakistan’s own fee fight in 2024 and 2025 showed the same tension on a bigger scale: higher fees can fund cleanup, but they can also drive climbers and local jobs away.
Fees alone will not clean the upper mountain. A refundable deposit that climbers get back only when they bring their gear and waste down, as Nepal uses on Everest, would reward the behavior that matters. Until then, the cleanup depends on park staff, sponsors and the teams willing to carry more down than they brought up.
This case study was first written by our team in 2023, inspired by the planned K2 expedition of Christina, and updated in November 2026. For more numbers from the outdoors, see our hiking statistics.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Much Does a K2 Climbing Permit Cost in 2026?
A foreign climber pays a $3,500 royalty for K2 in summer, plus the national park’s environment and waste fee. Until 2024, the royalty was $12,000 for a team of up to seven.
Is There a Garbage Fee on K2?
Yes. Foreign expedition members in the Central Karakoram National Park pay an environment and waste fee, $200 per person per peak in the restricted zone that includes K2. It has existed in some form for well over a decade; it did not start in 2023.
What Percentage of K2 Climbers Die?
By early 2025, about 96 people had died on K2 against roughly 800 summits, around 12 deaths per 100 summits. Recent guided seasons were far safer: one death among about 112 summits in 2023, for example.
Did Anyone Summit K2 in 2026?
No. Heavy snow, heat and rockfall stopped every attempt in summer 2026, the first season without a K2 summit in years.
