Bonatti was the youngest participant of the 1954 Italian expedition to K2 organised by Ardito Desio. As Bonatti said afterwards at the age of 80: It was the era when European countries picked off the 8,000m peaks in the same way they had colonies 100 years previously. On 31 July, two members of the Italian team Lino Lacedelli and Achille Compagnoni reached the summit, securing the first ascent of K2 for the Italian team. However, years after the expedition Bonatti found himself accused and at the center of a bitter controversy based on conflicting accounts of events which occurred during the ascent. Only 53 years later, did the Italian Alpine Club officially recognise that both Lacedelli and Compagnoni lied in their account of the ascent and that Bonatti's version of the facts was accurate.