In the summer of 2012, Stangl started a new expedition to K2 at which the conditions were considerably better than in the years before. Late in the evening of July 12, Stangl and his fellow polish climber Adam Bielecki, started their crucial ascent from base camp III (7400m) and reached the peak of the second highest mountain in the world at around 16:00. The climbers completed the climb successfully without any bottled oxygen and returned to base camp III 23 hours later.