The Karakorams are set in the wildest imaginable landscape of range upon mountain range. Just to get one's first sight of K2 takes 12 days of hard walking from the nearest road, compared with the two days it takes from the Sherpa village of Namshe Bazaar to Everest Base Camp. And because bottled oxygen is hardly ever used on K2 (unlike Everest), it has the reputa- tion (well-deserved) of being a real climber's mountain. But however much the moun- tains of Asia may continue to seize the public imagination, for the climbers themselves there are plenty of other mountain ranges to be explored and more than enough challenges to be faced — in Russia, in South America, in Alaska, and in Europe. The North Face of the Eiger, for example, is still considered a for- midable adversary. Not only is one confronted with 9,000 feet of sheer climbing (most big Alpine faces are about 3,000 feet), but certain parts are very difficult to reverse climb in the event of bad weather. (There is an added surreal element in the shape of the doors set into the rock face which lead to the comfort and safety of the Jungfraujoch railways and which are often only inches away from the climbers' noses as they clamber past.) There are always new to be negotiated at all levels of climbing.