|
Hanging glacier.—An active hanging glacier can threaten a broad area beneath it, and should be given a wide berth. Its first sign of activity may be an ice avalanche. Icefall.—An icefall is to be avoided where possible. It is not static. Seracs may topple as the glacier moves, but they are often stable for long periods of time. If passage is necessary and seracs appear unstable, it should be swift, to minimize time of exposure, and silent, so that sounds of moving or falling ice may be heard and heeded. Members of the party should keep a weather eye on the ice cliffs above them. Crevasses.—These are the classical bugaboo of glaciers, and while often very interesting and beautiful, deserve their bad reputation. Even when not snow-covered, they may present a maze that requires time-consuming search for a zigzag route. In a gentle icefall they can close unpredictably, and, in an area under pressure that was supposed to keep them closed, one was known to open with an alarming report just three feet from a pitched tent. On snow-covered glaciers they may be too broad to be bridged and require long detours; snow bridges may be unsturdy-looking and adequate or deceptively the exact opposite; a bridge reliable in the morning may have softened and be ready to slough into its crevasse in the afternoon; the crevasse may be completely covered by snow, which may have settled into a hollow barely perceptible in poor light, or there may be so fresh a snow cover that the crevasse cannot possibly be detected, even by careful probing with the ice-ax shaft, until the curses are heard of the leader who has fallen into it (and who, if his curses are to be heard, must be roped and belayed). |
|||
|
