Future Climbing

So, there you are, you won the Kings Crown; and survived! You are a K2 summiteer.

Now what? You might choose to retire for only the occasional golf tournament, sipping cocktails in the garden, impressing everybody with your tales of the impossible.

After a while though, that might bore you mad. If you are the impossible, restless kind; one of those strange human dreamers thriving only on high adventure, solitude and challenge - here are some new horizons for you!

Despite a hundred-year history of expeditions, K2 still presents many significant mountaineering challenges. Here are some ideas:

• The mountain still awaits a true "alpine-style" ascent, from bottom to top without the aid of fixed camps, fixed ropes, or bottled oxygen.
• There has been no traverse linking the obvious North Ridge and Abruzzi Spur routes.
• There has been no winter ascent of any route.
• Many of the ridge routes take significant deviations in line, so direct ascents are still open.
• None of the West, North, or East Faces have had a direct ascent.
• No one has completed a circumnavigation of K2.

Happy climbing!