The standard route of ascent, used far more than any other route (75% of all climbers use this route) is the Abruzzi Spur, located on the Pakistani side, first attempted by Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi in 1909. This is the southeast ridge of the peak, rising above the Godwin-Austen Glacier. The spur proper begins at an altitude of , where Advanced Base Camp is usually placed. The route follows an alternating series of rock ribs, snow/ice fields, and some technical rock climbing on two famous features, House's Chimney and the Black Pyramid. Above the Black Pyramid, dangerously exposed and difficult to navigate slopes lead to the easily visible Shoulder, and thence to the summit. The last major obstacle is a narrow couloir known as the Bottleneck, which places climbers dangerously close to a wall of seracs that form an ice cliff to the east of the summit. It was partly due to the collapse of one of these seracs around 2001 that no climbers summitted the peak in 2002 and 2003.