Glaciers - certain death or nice campsite?

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 mistrelo 28 Feb 2021

I've been refreshing my knowledge of glacier travel recently, and scaring myself with all the stories on UKC and elsewhere of crevasse falls. It seems the ground can and does open up underneath you with appalling randomness. Even when the snow is well frozen, you're not near the outside of a bend, you're walking on an established route etc. I am persuaded to never cross one solo, to always be roped up and not hang about.

On the other hand I've seen people camping on wet glaciers in the Alps, and if you look up "camping on glaciers" in the forum there are old threads of people saying they spend days or even weeks camping on them and giving advice on how to do it.

So what makes it safe to pitch a tent and sleep on something that's dangerous to even walk across?All I can think is that if you're on a flat section away from bends or features you're unlikely to be over a crevasse. Is that it though?

 AdrianC 28 Feb 2021
In reply to mistrelo:

A thorough poke around the area (while still roped up!) with an avalanche probe is a good start.

Edit - typo.

Post edited at 12:55
 earlsdonwhu 28 Feb 2021

One consideration will be whether it's early in the season and crevasses MAY still be pretty choked with snow. Also maybe look at snowfall history? No guarantees whatever.

 ebdon 28 Feb 2021
In reply to mistrelo:

I've camped on various wet glaciers for weeks and have yet to be swollwed by icy oblivion, obviously positioning on the glacier, away from bends and obvious cravasse zones is key but otherwise I just probe away with my avalanche probe before pitching. 

Probably one of the most unnerving night I had on a glacier was actually a dry but quite active one, hearing it crack loudly seemingly underneath me all night. 

Removed User 28 Feb 2021
In reply to mistrelo:

Depends on the glacier really. Some are very stable - much more than the surrounding terrain - and often they are quite 'unglacier' like when you are on them, covered in rock. The rate at which they move and buckle can be related to their gradient and course (they act like rivers in some ways) so have areas of turbulence and areas that are more still. Season-long camps for peaks like K2 are quite stable, on compression ridges away from the edges that seem to get more distortion.

Always good to spend time on Google earth looking at them, especially the huge ones in the Karakorum where several glaciers merge and the mix of rock makes it easy to see how they are acting.

re actual camping on them; for long stays it's important to build up around your tent site to reduce the effects of sun, so rock walls that provide shadows and platforms that stop direct melting around the edges of your tent. Places like the Baltoro can have days above 30c, and UV degrades ice, so over a season a tent that was flush with the ground when you showed up can be knee height above the surrounding ice when you leave (the tent itself insulating the ice under it from melting).

OP mistrelo 01 Mar 2021
In reply to mistrelo:

I don't know if you are aware but your mention of the area below Mont Blanc Du Tacul has reminded me,  I saw 3 or 4 tents confiscated by the Gendarmes in that very area a few years ago. They did not treat them gently!  camping in the mountains around Chamonix is illegal. You might get away with it in some more remote areas if you pitch as darkness falls and clear up before dawn.

Al

1
 Carless 01 Mar 2021
In reply to AdrianC:

> A thorough poke around the area (while still roped up!) with an avalanche probe is a good start.

Years ago someone who shall be nameless did that using a tent pole rather than a probe

Tent poles have elastic in them...  took him 40 minutes to extract it from the snow

 Tyler 01 Mar 2021
In reply to mistrelo:

Those tents look safe as houses. I did once bivi in a bergschrund in Peru and when I woke up me and one of my companions were lying along a six inch wide crack that hadn’t been there when we went to sleep!

 Babika 01 Mar 2021
In reply to mistrelo:

Camped at Everest Base Camp a couple of years ago and you can hear the glacier creaking and groaning beneath you. Tents have to be re-pitched every 2/3 weeks as the ground moves so much and some tents end up on a mushroom of ice. 

It's probably one if the weirdest campsites in the world with 100's of tents every May. 

Removed User 01 Mar 2021
In reply to mistrelo:

It pretty flat there and that bit of the glacier regularly crossed unroped isn't it?

OP mistrelo 02 Mar 2021
In reply to Tyler:

> Those tents look safe as houses. I did once bivi in a bergschrund in Peru and when I woke up me and one of my companions were lying along a six inch wide crack that hadn’t been there when we went to sleep!

F*cking hell! Hungry hungry glaciers!

So what makes those tents look safe as houses? I think there's some glacier knowledge I'm missing here.

OP mistrelo 02 Mar 2021
In reply to Carless:

> Years ago someone who shall be nameless did that using a tent pole rather than a probe

> Tent poles have elastic in them...  took him 40 minutes to extract it from the snow

Someone else definitely would've done that if you hadn't warned him!

OP mistrelo 02 Mar 2021
In reply to Gaston Rubberpants:

> I don't know if you are aware but your mention of the area below Mont Blanc Du Tacul has reminded me,  I saw 3 or 4 tents confiscated by the Gendarmes in that very area a few years ago. They did not treat them gently!  camping in the mountains around Chamonix is illegal. You might get away with it in some more remote areas if you pitch as darkness falls and clear up before dawn.

> Al

Thanks for the heads up, I had heard that. I'm not personally planning on camping there or anywhere really. I'm trying to figure out what makes certain parts of a glacier safe enough that people are happy to sleep on it. I'd like to be able to tell the dangerous bits from the safe bits.

 Kees 02 Mar 2021
In reply to mistrelo:

Look at a river. Where it pools before a dam or gradient or directly after the water can be very still. In the gradient it is very turbulent. In inside bends it flows slow, outside bends it flows fast.

Ice behaves just like that.

 Tyler 02 Mar 2021
In reply to mistrelo:

> So what makes those tents look safe as houses? I think there's some glacier knowledge I'm missing here.

To be fair it’s probably me that’s missing the glacier knowledge and trying to make up for it with a tiny bit of out of date local knowledge. I’d happily camp there and have in the past happily walked around there on my own but that doesn’t mean it’s safe and it was a long time ago when things might have been very different

 tehmarks 02 Mar 2021
In reply to mistrelo:

Equally important, and not yet mentioned, is what's above you. It's no good avoiding falling to your icy death if you get brained in the night by rockfall/icefall, or hit by an avalanche. Around the Col du Midi, unless you're a madman and choose to sleep directly under the dodgy seracs on the Tacul, that obviously doesn't apply so much - but in other places you might find yourself on the slopes to the side of the glacier (probably otherwise a good choice as concave areas should theoretically be relatively crevasse-safe, and you can dig yourself some shelter with less effort), or near rock buttresses, etc.

Apologies if I'm stating the obvious.

 TobyA 02 Mar 2021
OP mistrelo 04 Mar 2021
In reply to TobyA:

Thanks everyone for replies. Seems it's basically a combination of glacier observation, climber convention, and probing potential sites.

 AdrianC 04 Mar 2021
In reply to mistrelo:

Oh - and I should have said - once you've probed an area and are happy with it, mark out the corners of it.

 Trangia 05 Mar 2021
In reply to Babika:

> Camped at Everest Base Camp a couple of years ago .....Tents have to be re-pitched every 2/3 weeks as the ground moves so much and some tents end up on a mushroom of ice. 

The main reason for having to re-pitch tents regularly is surface melt of the snow and ice around the tent. There is a lot of radiant heat from the sun at high altitude, but where a tent is pitched the ice immediately under thaws much more slowly resulting in the floor (groundsheet) appearing to rise up reducing headroom, and leaving the tent perched on the mushroom feature you describe, because the surrounding surface of the glacier has become lower. 

I spent several weeks camped on glaciers in the Himalayas and this was a constant problem necessitating re pitching of the tent every few days.

The same phenomena occurs  where you see pillars of ice surmounted by a boulder which has been shading the ice under it from the sun's radiant heat. They haven't risen up from the glacier, the glacier's surface has melted leaving them there.

Post edited at 11:59

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