Critical Passages (with some pictures)

K2 , Samstag, 01. März 2014, 21:11 (vor 3720 Tagen) @ Espen1

Hello Espen.

Jörg already wrote a lot of details and explanations on the problems with fields of hard snow and the corresponding dangers.

One might add: In addition rain is also working on compressing the snow and increasing the humidity, which might get iced up.

In general the southern parts of the gorges are more difficult to go, but earlier free from snow (Pluderlingsattel, Gschuetzspitzsattel, Friesenbergscharte), of the mentioned only Gliederscharte is vice-versa: Southern part has longer snow but is easy to go.

Some samples of the last years, including some maps with colored inclines:

yellow: >= 30° and < 35° (>= 58%)
orange: >= 35° and < 40° (>= 70%)
red: >= 40° (>= 84%)

Day 06:
Schlauchkar/Birkkar

Profile

Descend

Day 09:
Pluderlingsattel

Profile

Descend

Gschuetzspitzsattel

Profile

Ascend

Descend

Day 10:
Friesenbergscharte

Profile

Ascend

Ascend mid of JULY 2013 (still closed and bridge not installed)

Descend 1

Descend 2

Descend 3

Descend Complete

Decend mid of JULY 2013 (still closed)

Day 12:
Gliederscharte

Profile

Descend

K2.