There are few places on Earth as remote and challenging as the Karakorum. Much of the area is so far away from civilization that is largely remains unexplored even today. Which is why I found this article over at K2Climb.net so interesting. It tells the tale of Michael Beek, a German trekker, who has spent the better part of 35 years exploring the Karakorum. During that time, he has come to know the people that inhabit the area and much of it's landscape.

However, last July Michael decided to get off the well worn trekking paths and head into areas that were far less traveled. Along the way he claims to have viewed K2's North West face from a location that no other westerner has ever seen it, and had the honor to name three mountains and two mountain passes.

At times, he was in such remote areas that border's between countries became indistinct and he had to rely less on the sketchy maps that he had with him and more on satellite images and the help of Pakistani guides.

Beeks sems to exhibit the spirit of adventure. He looks for and finds all kinds of challenges in his exploration, and certainly isn't afraid to get out into some remote areas, isolated from human contact. It sounds like a great adventure to me, and I'd love to hear more about his expedition.

Climbing.com the website for Climbing magazine has posted an excellent preview of the upcoming climbing season on K2. As things start to wind down on Everest, the Karakorum season will be starting to warm up.

There will be four teams gunning for the summit on K2 this year, three of which will be climbing alpine style, with small teams. None of the four intend to use supplemental oxygen. Two teams will challenge the West Face, which remains mostly unclimbed. One of those teams is a large Russian expedition which will lay siege to the mountain, while Peter Hámor, Dodo Kopold, and Piotr Morawski will go light and fast having recently topped out on Nanga Parbat and still being acclimatized for high elevation.

Kazakhs Denis Urubko and Serguey Samoilov will be looking to climb the North Face, on a route that has never been attempted. They'll be going up an 11,000 foot vertical face that that is amongst the most challenging big wall climbs anywhere in the World. The North Face remains largely unexplored and few climbers have even scouted the area.

Finally, on the South side, Americans Bill Pierson and Fabrizio Zangrilli will be attempting a new route themselves, going up the 9500 foot wall before merging with The Magic Line route that is amongst the more direct climbs on the mountain.

K2 remains one of the more dangerous climbs amongst the 8000m peaks. Not many climbers actually find themselves on the summit, and of those that do, nearly half perish on the descent. The mountain is a mere 240 meters shorter than Everest, and yet it is orders of magnitude more difficult to climb. Fortunately, the teams that are attempting K2 are all seasoned pros, with plenty of high altitude experience. I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more about these climbers as we get closer to the Karakorum season, but I'll take this opportunity to wish them all luck now.

Thanks to Jason over at The Adventurist for passing this one on. He has his hands full with all the Everest news at the moment, so if you're looking for the latest, be sure to head over to his site and catch-up.