GPS World, August 2015
SURVEY Extreme Environments Steep Questions A Mountaineering Survey Team Determines K2 s Actual Height S urveying the worlds highest peaks is a daunting task One international survey team set out to measure the Himalayas K2 peak the second highest in the world after Mount Everest In 2004 50 years after an Italian team led by Ardito Desio first summited a team tried to measure K2 with GNSS surveying equipment but the attempt to bring the GNSS receiver to the top failed when a climber fell For the most recent attempt a Pakasti Italian team took along a rugged industrial survey system 60 years after the first summiting in June August 2014 The team performed measurements at five different climbing campsites and on the K2 summit using GNSS technology to collect the most accurate measurements ever made of K2 The measurements were accomplished by Pakistans Rehmat Ullah Baigh and Italys Michele Cucchi who set up the receiver at each stop and allowed it to remain for approximately 20 minutes to collect the latitude longitude and altitude of each point from the available satellites One reference receiver was permanently positioned by team technical leader Maurizio Gallo close to the K2 Base Camp at the Gilkey Puchot Memorial which is dedicated to climbers who died on K2 A second reference receiver was placed in Skardu a final stop before heading up the mountains At Skardu computer expert Fida Hassain from Central Karakorum National Park helped install and process the transmitted data along with researcher Aamir Asghar and Giorgio Poretti professor at the University of Trieste The coordinated network of two permanent GNSS stations allowed data from the summit to be processed with excellent precision and is still in operation today After the climb the data was downloaded from the receivers and analyzed The GNSS survey results lowered SETTING UP CAMP also meant setting up a GNSS receiver to gather data See STEEP page 45 GPS World August 2015 www gpsworld com 36
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