It's the most deadly section of Everest's Southern climbing route; a river of ice riddled with bottomless crevasses beneath a cliff of hanging glaciers (seracs) that sporadically break free and come crashing down.
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It's been fun to steer you all through the treacherous Holiday Channel — I know we scraped a few seracs and lost one of the lightweights among you to hungry ernes, but I hope everyone else enjoyed the voyage.
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These are notably transversal and, when there is intense crevasse activity on the steepest terrain, blocks of seracs appear as the glacier breaks up. Crevasses are of variable depth, depending on their position, and may be as deep as fifty metres. Seracs always form in the same places, namely the steepest sections over which the glacier flows. As crevasses open and seracs tumble downstream, the supply of ice is renewed by the constant flow from upstream.
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High on K2: Seracs above the Bottleneck The Bottleneck is a location along the South-East Spur (also known as Abruzzi Spur), the most-used route to the summit of K2, the second-highest mountain in the world, in the Karakoram, on the border of Pakistan administered Kashmir and China. The Bottleneck is a narrow couloir, which is overhung by seracs from the ice field east of the summit. The couloir is located only below the summit, and climbers have to traverse about exposed to the seracs to pass it. Due to the height of , and the steepness of 50 to 60 degrees, this stretch is the most dangerous part of the route.K2climb.
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Only familiar with Alpine glaciers, they had difficulty negotiating seracs and retired back at where the West Rongbuk Glacier debouches. Note: the glaciers have lowered and retreated considerably since that time.
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Instead, the ice fractures forming crevasses. Intersecting fractures form ice columns or seracs. These processes are imperceptible for the most part; however, a serac may collapse or topple abruptly and without warning. This behavior often poses the biggest risk to mountaineers climbing in an icefall.
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It was created by the accumulation of the falling seracs of the terminus. A lake was formed but it emptied on 27 May 1817 without causing any fatalities. In April 1818 the lake measured about 2 km in length. On 10 May 1818, the engineer Ignaz Venetz was called by the canton.
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The mountain is classified as a trekking peak by the Nepal Mountaineering Association (NMA), but it is considered one of the more difficult trekking peaks to climb due to route finding difficulties and dangers from rock fall and seracs. A climbing permit from the NMA costs US$350 for a team of up to four members.
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Crevasses often have vertical or near-vertical walls, which can then melt and create seracs, arches, and other ice formations. These walls sometimes expose layers that represent the glacier's stratigraphy. Crevasse size often depends upon the amount of liquid water present in the glacier. A crevasse may be as deep as 45 metres and as wide as 20 metres.
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Two days previously he and Jerzy Kukuczka had finished the first ascent of the South Face of K2 (also called the "Polish Line") - a very difficult and dangerous route which was threatened by seracs and had been called "suicidal" by Reinhold Messner.R. Messner and A. Gogna [1981] (1982) K2 Mountain of Mountains. Translated from German by A. Salked. Oxford University Press.
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Notable examples of the overhanging glacier edge type are well-known obstacles on some of the world's highest mountains, including K2 at "The Bottleneck" and Kanchenjunga on the border of India and Nepal. Significant seracs in the Alps are found on the northeast face of Piz Roseg, the north face of the Dent d'Hérens, and the north face of Lyskamm.
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High on K2: Seracs above the Bottleneck Confortola stated that some time after he left the three men, an avalanche struck just feet away from him. In the rubble of this avalanche, he spotted the remains of one climber. After investigating them, he concluded these were McDonnell's remains. Just after noon, Tsering Bhote and "Big" Pasang Bhote had reached the bottom of the Bottleneck.
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The highest part of the massif is wholly in Switzerland, although the border with Italy lies a few kilometres south. The normal route starts from the Panossière Hut, which lies on the north side in the Corbassière valley. Despite the fact that no major difficulties exist, a particularly dangerous passage has to be traversed on the north flank: Le Corridor. It is a couloir dominated by seracs continuously falling on it.
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A glacier ( or ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. Glaciers slowly deform and flow under stresses induced by their weight, creating crevasses, seracs, and other distinguishing features. They also abrade rock and debris from their substrate to create landforms such as cirques and moraines.
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On the final stages, there are many cracks and seracs to be overcome, and there are extensive views from the summit. Cayambe was considered especially beautiful by Alexander von Humboldt, whose writings in turn inspired Frederic Edwin Church to paint the peak, setting the stage for his painting The Heart of the Andes. Cayambe's peak is the point of Earth's surface farthest from its axis; thus, it rotates the fastest as Earth spins.
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Between , the glacier flows through a steep icefall that provides challenging climbing through a maze of seracs. The first ascent of the glacier was by Fred Beckey, Dave Lind, and Robert Mulhall in July 1945. Below , the glacier spreads into a broad sheet with five separate tongues of ice extending out to termini between large moraines. On its easternmost tongue, it ends at a glacial tarn, or small ice-choked lake above High Camp.
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The 1818 Giétro Glacier catastrophe, killing 44 people, originated in a 4-km long valley located in south-western Switzerland. Fatal flooding was known during historical times with 140 deaths first recorded in 1595. After an increase of the glacier during the "Year Without a Summer", an ice cone started to form from the accumulation of falling seracs. During 1816, the valley filled into a lake which emptied during the spring of 1817.
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In 20032004 the ice cap had a volume of about snow water equivalents. Ice cores have been taken from the Coropuna ice cap and from a summit crater; one of these ice cores covers a timespan beginning from 20,000years ago. Penitentes reaching heights of and seracs (blocks of ice in glaciers delimited by cracks) occur on the glaciers, while debris cover is rare. Mudflows (lahars) originated from the ice cap and left deposits at the bottom of valleys.
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Van Rooijen, in his book Surviving K2, supports the theory that Karim bivouacked even higher on the mountain than van Rooijen, Confortola, and McDonnell. Again, van Rooijen provides photographic evidence: what looks like a climber can be seen above the serac field on the morning of 2 August. In a later photo, the figure seems to have disappeared, and there is a trail leading down the seracs. Van Rooijen and others, such as McDonnell's partner Annie Starkey, believe this figure was Karim.
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Fox Glacier, New Zealand A serac (originally from Swiss French sérac) is a block or column of glacial ice, often formed by intersecting crevasses on a glacier. Commonly house-sized or larger, they are dangerous to mountaineers, since they may topple with little warning. Even when stabilized by persistent cold weather, they can be an impediment to glacier travel. Seracs are found within an icefall, often in large numbers, or on ice faces on the lower edge of a hanging glacier.
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Tephra layers crop out in ice cliffs and seracs and testify to recent eruptions, including the one that deposited the ejecta and lapilli pumice units on the summit. Tephra bands are also found in other glaciers of the region. They form when snow accumulates on top of tephra that fell onto ice and in the case of Mount Melbourne they indicate eruptions during the last few thousand years. Volcanic sediments from Mount Melbourne are also found in Terra Nova Bay.
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A glacier ( ) or () is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight; it forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation (melting and sublimation) over many years, often centuries. Glaciers slowly deform and flow due to stresses induced by their weight, creating crevasses, seracs, and other distinguishing features. Because glacial mass is affected by long-term climate changes, e.g., precipitation, mean temperature, and cloud cover, glacial mass changes are considered among the most sensitive indicators of climate change.
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The guides of Zermatt, threatened with excommunication by their priests if they failed to attend the early mass, were not willing to go. Other people came to help: J. Robertson, J. Phillpotts and another Briton offered themselves and their guides, Josef Marie Lochmatter and his brother Alexander Lochmatter of St. Niklaus in the canton Valais and Franz Andenmatten. Other guides (Frederic Payot and Jean Tairraz) also volunteered. At 8.30, after having passed the seracs of the Matterhorn Glacier, Whymper and other reached the top of the plateau.
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On 18 April 2014, seracs on the western spur of Mount Everest failed, resulting in an ice avalanche that killed sixteen climbing Sherpas in the Khumbu Icefall. This was the same icefall where the 1970 Mount Everest disaster had taken place. Thirteen bodies were recovered within two days, while the remaining three were never recovered due to the great danger of performing such an expedition. Many Sherpas were angered by what they saw as the Nepalese government's meager offer of compensation to victims' families, and threatened a protest or strike.
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When Hillary and Tenzing climbed Everest in 1953, the British expedition they were part of (comprising over 400 climbers, porters, and Sherpas at that point) started from the Kathmandu Valley, as there were no roads further east at that time. Climbers spend a couple of weeks in Base Camp, acclimatising to the altitude. During that time, Sherpas and some expedition climbers set up ropes and ladders in the treacherous Khumbu Icefall. Seracs, crevasses, and shifting blocks of ice make the icefall one of the most dangerous sections of the route.
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This part of the glacier extends from just below Rob Roy Peak down to a bench high on the valley's side where it abruptly breaks over the cliff's edge at around . The glacier covers most of the headwalls encircling the valley, except the eastern side where the bordering peaks are all just below . The spring melt causes frequent small avalanches, and seracs breaking off the glacier's terminal face on the northwestern side of the valley. Bigger blocks of ice can tumble and crash all the way to the valley floor.
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The northeast ridge (normal route) is of intermediate difficulty (rated D range according to the International French Adjectival System). It consists in climbing a steep, rocky ridge from the Ranrapallqa-Ischinca col to the summit snowfields and 6,000 m and then traverse south of the knife edge summit. An easier variant of the normal route consists in avoiding the northeast ridge. From the Ranrapallqa-Ischinca col the summit snowfields can be reached climbing the easy snow slopes on the left of the ridge but this route, albeit slightly easier is more exposed to seracs and loose rocks.
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K2 is the second-highest mountain on Earth, after Mount Everest, with a peak elevation of . K2 is part of the Karakoram range, not far from the Himalayas, and is located on the border between the Pakistani Gilgit-Baltistan region, and China's Taxkorgan Tajik Autonomous County of Xinjiang Autonomous Region. It is regarded by mountaineers as far more challenging than Everest, and is statistically the second most dangerous mountain in the world in terms of fatality per summit. The most dangerous section of the climb is the Bottleneck, a steep couloir overhung by seracs from the ice field east of the summit.
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It killed two skiers and built a -high dam of snow and ice which temporarily blocked the Dora Baltea river, whilst the air blast destroyed mature forest trees and buildings on the opposite side of the valley. The total volume of rock, snow and ice was estimated at four million cubic metres. Further investigation suggested that the avalanche was not caused directly by the rockfall, but through seismic shock causing seracs to collapse which, in turn, then initiated the snow and ice avalanche. The rock avalanche itself has been described as a classic example of a sturzstrom.
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The Mer de Glace flows continuously under the effect of its own weight, causing crevasses, seracs or pockets of water to form, depending on the terrain over which it moves. Its speed, although not perceptible to the naked eye, is considerable. From more than a year in its upper part, the Mer de Glace moves about per year in the region of Montenvers, which is about one centimetre per hour.. The pressure within the ice is known to reach at least 30 atmospheres. When the tension in the ice increases as the slope increases, the glacier is unable to deform and crevasses appear.
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Tronador () is an extinct stratovolcano in the southern Andes, located along the border between Argentina and Chile, near the Argentine city of Bariloche. The mountain was named Tronador (Spanish for "Thunderer") by locals in reference to the sound of falling seracs. With an altitude of , Tronador stands more than 1,000 m above nearby mountains in the Andean massif, making it a popular mountaineering destination. Located inside two national parks, Nahuel Huapi in Argentina and Vicente Pérez Rosales in Chile, Tronador hosts a total of eight glaciers, which are currently retreating due to warming of the upper troposphere.
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With the recent volcanic activity starting in 2004, the glacier lobes were pushed aside and upward by the growth of new volcanic domes. The surface of the glacier, once mostly without crevasses, turned into a chaotic jumble of icefalls heavily criss-crossed with crevasses and seracs caused by movement of the crater floor. The new domes have almost separated the Crater Glacier into an eastern and western lobe. Despite the volcanic activity, the termini of the glacier have still advanced, with a slight advance on the western lobe and a more considerable advance on the more shaded eastern lobe.
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The 730 m (2,400 ft) icefall (center) in the Roosevelt Glacier, Mount Baker, Washington, U.S. An icefall is a portion of certain glaciers characterized by relatively rapid flow and chaotic crevassed surface, caused in part by gravity. The term icefall is formed by analogy with the word waterfall, which is a similar phenomenon of the liquid phase but at a more spectacular speed. When ice movement of a glacier is faster than elsewhere, because the glacier bed steepens or narrows, and the flow cannot be accommodated by plastic deformation, the ice fractures, forming crevasses. Where two fractures meet, seracs (or ice towers) can be formed.
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Base Camp was established on 22 August and over the next few days more equipment and food were brought up there while a route was being reconnoitred through the Khumbu Icefall where the conditions in the ice seemed unusually benign. The weather also was generally favourable with the cold mornings reducing the risk of ice seracs collapsing and dangerous avalanches. Generally snow would be falling in the afternoons and it could be heavy ( in an afternoon). With the monsoon not yet over there was a severe avalanche risk from Everest's West Ridge and Nuptse so a careful route had to be chosen between Base Camp and the Icefall.
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Pemba Dorjie crossing a crevasse on the Khumbu Icefall The Khumbu Glacier is one that forms the icefall and moves at such speed that large crevasses open with little warning, and the large towers of ice (called seracs) found at the icefall have been known to collapse suddenly. Huge blocks of ice tumble down the glacier from time to time, their sizes ranging from that of cars to large houses. It is estimated that the glacier advances down the mountain every day. Most climbers try to cross the icefall during the very early morning, before sunrise, when it has partially frozen during the night and is less able to move.
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East of the summit cone, a separate steep niche glacier, Glaciar Oriental, long and having a gradient of , flows down the mountainside from about ; it contains many crevasses and seracs and is the most difficult glacier to climb. Glacier Oriental had a surface area of about in 1958, which makes the total area of glaciers and firn field on Citlaltépetl about . No earlier historical record of glacier tongue activity (advance or recession) is known for Citlaltépetl's glaciers. Although the Gran Glaciar Norte ice cap is covered with snow, it is possible to see the seven outlet glaciers on the irregular west margin of the ice cap, especially Glaciar de Jamapa and Glaciar Occidental.
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Camp II was in the middle of a plateau above the north Annapurna glacier, fairly well sheltered from avalanches. Each morning brought or more of snow – making for slow progress – but after crossing an avalanche corridor they were able to establish Camp III among some seracs on the far side of the glacier and by 28 May they had established Camp IV below a curving cliff of ice that they called the "Sickle". Terray was amazed by the energy he and the team showed, considering how long they had been at high altitude and how little they had eaten. He wondered if this was due to the drugs Oudot had insisted on them taking regularly.
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On reaching the very much crevassed middle region of the glacier, some time was lost in the endeavour to force a direct way. The correct course was to cross to the southern bank below the rocks of the Mönch. After a short ascent the form of the crevasses made it expedient to cross back to the opposite side, nearly to the edge of the glacier, here held up by the great rocky buttress of the Eiger, so remarkable from the Wengern Alp. Further progress seemed to be barred by the menacing condition of the seracs; but the difficulties could be avoided by crossing the glacier diagonally a third time to a sort of snow valley, where the crevasses were apparently filled up by avalanches from the Mönch.
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On the ridge south of Sapphire Lake is an unusual phenomenon consisting of a temporary glacier, versus an inactive snowfield that melts out in dry years. Following years of heavy accumulation, an icefield appears in this fully sheltered north-facing cirque that can show active crevasses and seracs some tens of feet high. But this ice body, at an elevation of only in a region experiencing a long, hot dry season from about mid May to mid October, can disappear completely during a run of drier years. Studies of lichen collars indicate that the site near Kalmia Lake is the snowiest spot in the State of California, receiving snow accumulation in excess of the Lake Helen snowcourse on Lassen Peak, by far the snowcourse with greatest late winter snow accumulation in California.
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23The Caucasus Mountains, which include higher peaks than the Alps, are usually included on political maps of Europe, although not systematically. If the Europe–Asia border is defined north of the Caucasus, Monte Rosa is the second-highest summit in Europe after Mont Blanc (or third if Mont Blanc de Courmayeur is considered as a summit). The north-west side of the central Monte Rosa massif, with its enormous ice slopes and seracs, constitutes the boundary and upper basin of the large Gorner Glacier, which descends towards Zermatt and merges with its nowadays much larger tributary, the Grenzgletscher (), right below the Monte Rosa Hut on the lower end of the visible western wing. The Grenzgletscher is an impressive glacier formation between the western wing of the mountain and Liskamm, a ridge on its southwestern side on the Swiss- Italian border.
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