Kazakh mountaineer Denis Urubko has never been good at retirement. Three years after declaring he was finished with 8,000-metre peaks, he has announced two heavyweight projects: a winter ascent of Broad Peak and, later, a new route on Everest.
He shared the plans at a lecture in Ekaterinburg, Russia, on September 14, and the details matter to anyone who follows high-altitude climbing. Broad Peak, an 8,051m giant in Pakistan's Karakoram, has only been climbed in winter once — by a Polish team in March 2013. That summit came at a terrible cost: Maciej Berbeka and Tomasz Kowalski died on the descent after topping out late in the day.
Urubko, who summited Broad Peak twice in summer and survived an avalanche during a 2019 winter attempt, wants the job done under what he considers 'strict' winter. While the Polish climb fell within the meteorological definition, Urubko insists winter means December 1 to the end of February. He'll go in January and February, the coldest and most dangerous stretch of the Karakoram year.
Everest comes next, in autumn, where he'll try an unclimbed line — and he won't have the mountain to himself. Furtenbach Adventures will run a commercial expedition on the normal route, and a four-man Russian team led by Andrey Vasiliev is already heading to the mountain with an off-the-normal-route plan of its own. Their original target was a new no-oxygen route in spring 2027, so this autumn was meant to be a gear test. What they actually attempt may change.
The broader backdrop is Urubko's remarkable late-career run. Since his 2020 'retirement' — which he later blamed on media misreading his words — he has climbed Broad Peak by the normal route in under 15 hours, soloed Gasherbrum II and K2, opened a new winter route on Koshar Gang, and put up a new line on Nanga Parbat with partner Maria Cardell. Not everything has gone his way: a winter try on Gasherbrum I ended with him falling into a crevasse, self-rescuing and walking out frostbitten to hospital in Skardu.
For travellers, this is a reminder that the Karakoram and Everest are still arenas for genuine firsts — not just tick-list trekking. Even if you never strap on crampons, following these expeditions adds depth to any trip to northern Pakistan or the Khumbu: the routes, the rivalries and the history are all around you. Skardu and Askole are the gateway towns for Broad Peak treks, while Everest's autumn season is quieter and cheaper than the spring circus. If you're trekking in either region while these climbs are underway, you may literally be walking in the footsteps of a live attempt at mountaineering history.
Whether the 50-something Urubko can pull off either climb is an open question. But the man who once promised to quit clearly isn't finished writing his story.
Story first reported by ExplorersWeb.
