The Bottleneck is a location along the South-East Spur (also known as

Abruzzi Spur K2, at above sea level, is the second-highest mountain on Earth, after Mount Everest (at ). It lies in the Karakoram range, partially in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan-administered Kashmir and partially in a China-administered te ...

), the most-used route to the summit of K2, the second-highest mountain in the world, in the

Karakoram The Karakoram is a mountain range in Kashmir region spanning the borders of Pakistan, China, and India, with the northwest extremity of the range extending to Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Most of the Karakoram mountain range falls under the ...

, on the border of

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

and

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

. The Bottleneck is a narrow

couloir A ''couloir'' (, "passage" or "corridor") is a narrow gully with a steep gradient in a mountainous terrain.Whittow, John (1984). ''Dictionary of Physical Geography''. London: Penguin, p. 121. . Geology A couloir may be a seam, scar, or fissur ...

, which is overhung by

serac A serac (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 ...

s 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. According to AdventureStats, 13 out of the last 14 fatalities on K2 have occurred at or near the Bottleneck. Despite all the dangers, the Bottleneck is still technically the easiest and the fastest route to the summit. Most climbers choose to use it to minimize time required to spend above (the "

death zone In mountaineering, the death zone refers to altitudes above a certain point where the pressure of oxygen is Effects of high altitude on humans, insufficient to sustain human life for an extended time span. This point is generally tagged as , less ...

"). The standard route, the

(SE), as well as the Cesen route (SSE Ridge, which joins SE Ridge), and the American variety on the NE Ridge (traverse across E Face to SE Ridge), all attain the summit via the Bottleneck. The climbers approaching the Bottleneck start from a shoulder, on almost level ground just below 8,000 m, where the highest camp is typically located. The bottom end of the couloir drops to the south face of the mountain, and it gradually steepens to 60 degrees just below the ice field. It is not possible to climb up the icefield, which rises straight up tens of metres; instead, one has to traverse leftwards at the bottom of the icefield until it is possible to pass it. It is possible to bypass the Bottleneck by climbing the cliffs on the left. However, due to the technical difficulty of this approach, it has only been done once, by

Fritz Wiessner Fritz Wiessner (February 26, 1900 – July 3, 1988) was a German American pioneer of free climbing. Born in Dresden, Germany, he immigrated to New York City in 1929 and became a U.S. citizen in 1935. In 1939, he made one of the earliest att ...

and Pasang Dawa Lama Sherpa on the

1939 American Karakoram expedition The 1939 American Karakoram expedition to K2 was the unsuccessful second attempt by American mountaineers to climb the then-unclimbed second-highest mountain in the world, K2, following the 1938 reconnaissance expedition. Fritz Wiessner, the l ...

. On August 4, 2009, Dave Watson became the first person to ski down the Bottleneck. On February 5, 2021, Pakistani mountain climber Muhammad Ali Sadpara, John Snorri of Iceland, and Juan Pablo Mohr of Chile went missing near the bottleneck. By February 18, 2021, the climbers have been declared dead after rescue and recovery missions conducted by the Pakistani Army failed to spot them. On July 26, 2021, a team of sherpas discovered the dead bodies of the three climbers.

References

{{coord missing, Gilgit-Baltistan K2

See also

References