Climbing K2 is one tough journey, but photographer David Kaszlikowski's images show a valid reason mountaineers take on the extreme challenge. His spectacular images, some of which were captured using a drone, depict an alien landscape that appears untouched by human influence.

The mountain is 784 feet lower than Mount Everest, but it's terrain makes the climb even more difficult. According to National Geographic, for every four climbers who have succeeded, . The mountain has been summited nearly 400 times, while .

The photographer shot his own photographs while he was shooting the HBO documentary, "K2 Touching the Sky." Using a drone to capture the aerial images, Kaszlikowski was able to capture the vast, remote landscape that is impossible to see from ground level. Though the team did not intend to summit the mountain, Kaszlikowski was able to photograph scenes that many mountaineers dream about.

"Trekking to Concordia took us more than a week," Kaszlikowski told weather.com. "All together we spent 3 weeks on the glacier with the film crew. Sometimes, you have to use a rope to protect yourself on the glacier."

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"We had great consistent weather," Kaszlikowski said. "But you have to remember, at an elevation of 5,000 meters, it is really cold at night. I had a small DJI Phantom drone; it was surprisingly good at flying at such a high elevation. However, my assistant, Habbibullah, was always alert, ready to prevent a crash, as we had no landing strip, just rocks around us."

Kaszlikowski has been working as an adventure photographer for many years, so he was already physically fit for the climb. However, he felt that taking photos added an extra challenge to the journey.

"There are times when it's so easy to give up photography, especially if you are exhausted, having constantly cold fingers and cold feet. Plus, you mustn't slow down the other climbers. There are times the great photo you just imagined isn't worth the effort for the rest of your companions. In fact, this happened very often. I was lucky that the director of the film and the Balti team were very supportive," Kaszlikowski explained.

Kaszlikowski's K2 photos have won many international photo contests, including the grand prize of the International Mountain Summit photo contest, one of the largest mountain photography contests in the world, as well as the Lense Culture Earth Award. For more information, or his .