There are a great deal of routes on a great deal of mountains in the Himalaya, nobody would deny that. There is, however, some routes that seem to defy the possible and surpass what anyone would have dreamed possible in the high altitude setting. One such route is the Russian Route up the west face of K2 (28,251 feet) in the Karakoram Range of Pakistan. This route, newly established in 2007, was a wonder of modern mountaineering. Battered by weather and near vertical pitches of rock and ice, the Russian team, led by Pavel "Pasha" Shabalin, forged their way through 7 camps to the summit of K2 on August 21, 2007. Climbing reached as difficult as 5.10 on the way to the top, completed entirely without oxygen and entirely in stiff, insulated mountaineering boots. The team spent nearly two and a half months fixing lines, ferrying supplies, constructing camps, and ultimately reaching the second highest peak in the world following a strict ethic of no oxygen for anything but medical purposes or emergencies. Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the whole expedition was the age that these climbers. The superstars of Russian mountaineering who undertook this expedition were quite old for a route so demanding, 3 of them grandfathers and all of them raised in the former Soviet Union. Age, it seems, is no reason not to climb.
Shabalin, P. (2007) K2: The Russian Route. Alpinist 23, 44-51
