House's Chimney, named after American climber Bill House, is a 30-metre (100 ft) tall crack in a rock wall, located on the Abruzzi Spur of K2, a mountain on the China–Pakistan border.
The 'chimney' was first climbed, and named, when House free climbed it on the 1938 American K2 expedition.
[2] If free climbed the technical grade is 5.6 (4c),[2] but it is located at an elevation of 6,600 metres (21,500 ft) and even Pete Boardman who climbed it in 1980, before it was festooned with fixed ropes, was "impressed and surprised at its technical difficulty".
[4] However, by 1986[5] an Elektron Ladder has commonly been used to provide assistance[2][6] and now that commercial expeditions regularly take clients up the Abruzzi Spur, and House's Chimney has been determined as the safest route to climb higher up the mountain, a ladder is usually in situ.
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