Bottleneck (K2) left. However, due to the technical difficulty of this approach, it has only been done once, by Fritz Wiessner and Pasang Dawa Lama Sherpa on the 1939 American Karakoram expedition. On August 4, 2009, Dave Watson became the first person to ski down the Bottleneck. Bottleneck (K2) The Bottleneck is a location along the South-East Spur, known also as Abruzzi Spur— the most used route to the summit of K2, the second-highest mountain in the world, in the Karakoram, on the border of Pakistan and China. The Bottleneck is a narrow couloir, which is overhung by seracs from the ice
1953 American Karakoram expedition 1953 American Karakoram expedition The 1953 American Karakoram expedition was a mountaineering expedition to K2, at 8,611 metres the second highest mountain on Earth. It was the fifth expedition to attempt K2, and the first since the Second World War. Led by Charles Houston, a mainly American team attempted the mountain's South-East Spur (commonly known as the Abruzzi Spur) in a style which was unusually lightweight for the time. The team reached a high point of 7750 m, but were trapped by a storm in their high camp, where a team member, Art Gilkey, became seriously ill. A desperate retreat