About this podcast
Peak Danger is Season 2 of Extreme, the BBC podcast about those who chase the impossible... who strive for superhuman status and refuse to accept that life has any limits. Every season tells an unforgettable, action-packed story about people who've pushed their minds and bodies to the very edge - but at what cost?
A mountain of trouble...
In August 2008, around 30 climbers took on K2. Over 2 disastrous days, 11 of those people would lose their lives. This is the story of what really happened.
Sitting on the border between China and Pakistan, K2 is a perfect pyramid that pierces through the clouds. It looks like a kid's drawing of a mountain...but this terrifying peak is anything but child's play.
Newlyweds Cecilie Skog and her husband Rolf Bae loved climbing mountains almost as much as they loved one another. In the summer of 2008, they embarked on a honeymoon like no other, when they decided to climb K2. What happened next would change their lives and the lives of everyone around them...forever.
A devastating avalanche scatters high altitude climbers across K2's steep slopes. Life and death rescue missions quickly get underway. Who can be saved... before time runs out?
Historian and podcaster Natalia Mehlman Petrzela returns with a sky-high story of human vs nature, and of survival against all the odds.
What does it really take to push yourself to the brink of human possibility? How does it feel to stand with the whole world at your feet? And is it ever worth risking death... in order to feel alive?
Episodes
- Peak Danger: 8. Only The Mountain Knows · 30 min · Season 2 Episode 8In the aftermath of the tragedy that claimed 11 lives, the surviving climbers leave K2 behind. As they do, they’re walking into a worldwide media frenzy. Everyone wants to know…
- Peak Danger: 7. No Man Left Behind · 29 min · Season 2 Episode 7As dawn breaks on a new day, it’s August 2nd 2008. There are nine climbers who are all either trapped, injured…or unaccounted for. Dutch climber Wlico van Rooijen finds himself…
- Peak Danger: 6. Descent into Madness · 29 min · Season 2 Episode 6What was first a tragedy now morphs into a full blown catastrophe. In the aftermath of the avalanche, stranded climbers are battling their way back to Camp. What they don’t know…
- Peak Danger: 5. Love Is in the Air · 29 min · Season 2 Episode 5When Cecilie Skog met Rolf Bae, it was love at first sight. A whirlwind romance quickly followed, as they climbed the world’s tallest mountains, shoulder to shoulder. Now…
- Peak Danger: 4. Summit Fever · 29 min · Season 2 Episode 4In the chaos of the Death Zone, this group of climbers begins to splinter apart. Some have turned back but others have caught Summit Fever. They want to push upwards at all…
- Peak Danger: 3. The Death Zone · 29 min · Season 2 Episode 3Once you get beyond 26,000 feet, your body can no longer acclimatise to the extreme high altitude. This is called the Death Zone. Cecilie Skog and her fellow climbers are in the…
- Peak Danger: 2. Plan of Attack · 29 min · Season 2 Episode 2The climbers at Base Camp come up with a plan to help everyone reach the top. Professional Adventurer Wilco van Rooijen and his team take one route. Cecilie, her husband Rolf and…
- Peak Danger: 1. Welcome to Base Camp · 29 min · Season 2 Episode 1It’s the summer of 2008. Cecilie Skog, her husband Rolf Bae and their teammates are aiming to become the first Norwegians to reach the summit of K2. When they arrive at Base…
- Peak Danger: Trailer · 4 min · Season 2A mountain of trouble. In 2008, 30 climbers took on K2. Over two disastrous days, 11 of those people would lose their lives. This is the story of what really happened. K2 is a…
- Muscle Men: 8. The Genie Is Out · 29 min · Season 1 Episode 8In the wake of the steroid ring’s downfall, the headline-grabbing prosecutions combine with sports scandals and anxieties about steroids making it into high school locker rooms…
- Muscle Men: 7. French Fries or Bust · 29 min · Season 1 Episode 7When bodybuilder William Dillon moved to LA, he dreamed of getting rich quick by selling the promise of big muscles in a bottle. But in the spring of 1987, that dream has come…
- Muscle Men: 6. One Last Hit · 28 min · Season 1 Episode 6In the summer of 1986, bodybuilder William Dillon moves to San Diego to leave his steroid dealing days behind him, and live a quiet life of working out and running a gym. Or at…
- Muscle Men: 5. The A Team · 29 min · Season 1 Episode 5Nobody gets arrested for dealing anabolic steroids. That’s the assumption bodybuilder Dan Duchaine, William Dillon and their fellow ring-members are relying upon, as they build…
- Muscle Men: 4. Perfect Square Pecs · 29 min · Season 1 Episode 4In the lobby of Caesar’s Palace Hotel in Las Vegas there’s a modern-day shrine to a 2000 year old adonis - complete with perfectly square pecs. Michelangelo’s David. 17 feet of…
- Muscle Men: 3. Get Ripped. Quick · 30 min · Season 1 Episode 3Prior to the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas Venezuela, the issue of sports doping was largely flying under the American public’s radar. But when 19 athletes are found…
- Muscle Men: 2. The Guru · 29 min · Season 1 Episode 2Historian, podcaster and fitness expert Natalia Mehlman Petrzela lifts the lid on the steroid underground - a world of risk-taking and experimentation that lies beneath the…
- Muscle Men: 1. All That Glitters · 30 min · Season 1 Episode 1Meet William Dillon. A young amateur bodybuilder from small-town Illinois, who dreams of getting ripped. It’s the early 1980s and across the USA a fitness revolution is underway…
- Muscle Men: Trailer · 3 min · Season 1Muscle Men is season one of Extreme, the podcast from BBC Radio 4 that knows no limits. Each action-packed season tells the story of people who’ve pushed themselves to the very…
