The Second Seven Summits: the harder seven-continent challenge

The concept traces indirectly to Richard “Dick” Bass, the American businessman and mountaineer who popularised the Seven Summits, the highest peak on each continent. If climbing the highest is a landmark achievement, climbing the second-highest turns out to be a far greater one, because the second peaks are less about altitude and more about technical difficulty and remoteness. Nowhere is that clearer than in Asia, where the highest peak is Everest but the second-highest is K2, one of the deadliest mountains on the planet. That single substitution transforms the challenge from a demanding guided project into an elite mountaineering career.

The seven continents agree on six of the seven second peaks. The disagreement is over the seventh. Under the Bass definition, which uses mainland Australia as the continent, the second-highest is Mount Townsend (2,209 m / 7,247 ft), a modest peak beside Kosciuszko. Under the Messner definition, which uses the Oceania high point (Puncak Jaya / Carstensz Pyramid), the second peak is a serious Indonesian mountain, cited variously as Puncak Trikora (4,730 m), Puncak Mandala, or Sumantri depending on survey data. We use Puncak Trikora for the Oceania slot, which is also the peak most completions of the challenge have used. The Messner version is the one that makes the Second Seven Summits a true mountaineering test rather than a technicality.

On the standard Seven Summits, the hardest peaks are demanding but broadly attainable with guiding and altitude experience. The Second Seven Summits replace the accessible high points with their tougher neighbours. K2 is the obvious one, a technical, avalanche-prone giant with one of the highest fatality rates in mountaineering, and there is no guided walk-up version of it. But the pattern repeats: Africa’s Batian summit of Mount Kenya is a technical rock climb, not the Kilimanjaro trek; Europe’s Dykh-Tau is a serious Caucasus alpine route rather than the cable-car-assisted slopes of Elbrus; Antarctica’s Mount Tyree is far more remote and committing than Vinson; and North America’s Mount Logan is a longer, colder expedition than most Denali ascents. The result is a challenge only elite alpinists can realistically complete.

Climbers usually build toward the challenge by starting with the more attainable second peaks and leaving K2 as the make-or-break objective. A common shape is to gain experience on Ojos del Salado and the Oceania peak, take on the technical rock of Mount Kenya’s Batian and the alpine test of Dykh-Tau, commit to the big cold expeditions of Mount Logan and Mount Tyree, and attempt K2 only with a deep base of 8,000m and technical experience behind them. The order is personal, but the reality is fixed: without K2, the challenge cannot be completed, and K2 is where most attempts end. For how the peaks compare in grade, see our difficulty ratings guide.

The Second Seven Summits are an expensive undertaking even by expedition standards. K2 alone runs well into the tens of thousands of dollars once permits, operator fees, and Karakoram logistics are counted, and the Antarctic logistics required to reach Mount Tyree are among the costliest in mountaineering. The remote Oceania and Caucasus peaks add their own bespoke expedition costs. Spread over the years it takes to build the ability and complete the set, this is a major financial commitment layered on top of an elite skill requirement. For current, specific budgets, see each peak’s own guide, such as the K2 operators and cost guidance.

Hundreds of people have completed the Seven Summits. Only a handful have completed the Second Seven Summits. The Italian mountaineer Hans Kammerlander is widely credited as the first to finish the set, completing it on Mount Tyree in Antarctica and using Puncak Trikora for the Oceania slot. The Austrian climber Christian Stangl also completed the challenge, using Sumantri for Oceania, after a disputed 2010 K2 claim was later resolved by a genuine ascent in 2012. The rarity is a direct measure of the difficulty: because K2 stops so many attempts, the Second Seven Summits remains one of the most exclusive achievements in mountaineering.