08/04/2026
Chogori, the Savage Mountain
Known more commonly around the world as K2, this is the 2nd tallest mountain in the world climbing to 8611 meters or 28,251 feet. It sits in a remote Karakoram mountain range in northern Pakistan which is home to 5 of the world’s 14 tallest mountains. This mountain earned it’s nickname due to its incredibly high fatality rate in the past when it used to claim 1 in 4 climbers who attempted to summit though in recent days that has decreased to near 1 in 10 as gear and safety has improved.
When I had finished setting up the plans to visit base camp of this incredible mountain, I immediately checked for possible alignments to see what compositions were possible. I saw that from the camp we’d be staying at I’d be looking straight north and knew the only option was a star trails image. This is actually the first star trails image I’ve ever done but I’m pretty pleased with how it came out. The tip of K2 sits perfectly under the North Star as viewed from Concordia Camp which gives us the perfect circles.
I have 2 versions here, the 2nd being closer to the true matching focal lengths as the sky was shot at 35mm and the foreground at 70mm but the 1st is more what I had in mind when envisioning the result and being able to see more complete circles in the sky. I’m undecided which I like best so let me know your thoughts!
