  The K2K Long--Baseline neutrino oscillation experiment has been aquiring data
since mid-1999 and has analysed those up to March of 2001. Forty-four fully
contained events are observedin the fiducial volume of the far detector where
$64^{+6.1}_{-6.6}$ are expected based partly on measurements near the beam
production point. There is virtually no background for the contained event
search. The methods established in this experiment are crucial for operation of
future similar experiments to probe the nature of mixing in the neutral lepton
sector, a necessary step in understanding the nature of family structure and of
mass itself. A brief history and a few notes about the future and direction of
the field precede the description of the experiment and its results.
