A team of climbers were camped out at K2 this summer when they heard a thunderous boom, followed by an avalanche that came rushing toward their tents. And Italian climber Federico Secchi happened to catch it all on camera, which he posted on Instagram.
"I made this video inside my tent where I was resting and woken up by a loud bang," posted Secchi, who summited both Broad Peak and K2 this summer without supplemental oxygen.
To which one of his teammates commented: "After the video the tent was full of snow."
Fortunately, they had pitched their tents far enough away from a collapsing serac (ridge of ice) to escape any real danger, but it did make for some awesome footage.
From Advnture:
In this video, a serac breaks off above them, shatters and turn into an ice avalanche that powers down towards their camp. Luckily it runs out of its most destructive potential before it reaches them and leaves them engulfed in a cloud of ice particles. …
Seracs are house-sized glacial columns that occur above the crevasses of a glacier that are prone to collapsing, and mountaineers need to be very wary of them and other elements of avalanche safety. A serac collapse on K2 in 2008 killed 11 mountaineers. It looks like the Secchi / Majori team pitched camp a sensible distance from the danger. Certainly the guy in the distance to the left of the video towards the end doesn't seem particularly worried.
Previously: Climber hangs on with ice axe as an avalanche rushes around him
