Kutelo ( ) is a summit in the

Pirin The Pirin Mountains ( ) are a mountain range in southwestern Bulgaria, with the highest peak, Vihren, at an altitude of . The range extends about from the north-west to the south-east and is about wide, spanning a territory of . To the north ...

mountain range, southwestern

Bulgaria Bulgaria, officially the Republic of Bulgaria, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern portion of the Balkans directly south of the Danube river and west of the Black Sea. Bulgaria is bordered by Greece and Turkey t ...

. With a height of 2,908 m it is the second highest peak in Pirin after

Vihren Vihren ( ) is the highest peak of Bulgaria's Pirin Mountains. Reaching , it is Bulgaria's second and the Balkans' third highest, after Musala and Mount Olympus. Although Vihren is deprived of lakes and streams due to the karst topography, a numb ...

(2,914 m), and the third one in Bulgaria, behind

Musala Musala ( ); from Arabic through Ottoman Turkish: from '' Musalla'', "near God" or "place for prayer" is the highest peak in the Rila Mountains, as well as in Bulgaria and the entire Balkan Peninsula, standing at . With a topographic prominence ...

(2,925 m) in

Rila Rila (, ) is the highest mountain range of Bulgaria, the Balkans, Balkan Peninsula, and Southeast Europe. It is situated in southwestern Bulgaria and forms part of the Rila–Rhodope Mountains, Rhodope Massif. The highest summit is Musala at an e ...

and Vihren. Kutelo is a double peak with a small saddle between the two parts, the lower being only one meter shorter than the higher one, at 2,907 m. Seen from the town of

Bansko Bansko ( ) is a town in southwestern Bulgaria, located in Blagoevgrad Oblast near the city of Razlog. Once mainly a stockbreeding and travelling merchant community, the town is now an international centre for winter and summer tourism. More rec ...

, it appears higher than Vihren. Like Vihren, which towers to the south, Kutelo is built up of marble but its slopes though sheer are not so rocky and it is not very difficult to climb. On the north-eastern slopes there are alpine climbing tracks of category II "b". The Premkata saddle is situated to the south and leads to Vihren while to the north is the narrow karst edge Koncheto which links Kutelo to the summit of Banski Suhodol. There are no marked tracks to the summit of Kutelo, but on the slanting western slope among the rocks is nestled the track between the Vihren refuge and Yavorov refuge. This track also leads along Koncheto. In the homonymous waterless cirque to the north-east there are snow-drifts all the year. To the south-east is the cirque Golemiya Kazan with Europe's southernmost

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

Snezhnika Snezhnika ( 'the snow patch') is a glacieret in the Pirin Mountains of Bulgaria, a remnant of the former Vihren Glacier.Grunewald, p. 129. The glacieret lies at an elevation between and in the deep Golemiya Kazan cirque at the steep northern ...

. Pirin's second glacierlet, Banski Suhodol Glacier, is situated below the northern face of Kutelo. Kutelo is home to

chamois The chamois (; ) (''Rupicapra rupicapra'') or Alpine chamois is a species of Caprinae, goat-antelope native to the mountains in Southern Europe, from the Pyrenees, the Alps, the Apennines, the Dinarides, the Tatra Mountains, Tatra to the Carpa ...

and on its slopes grow edelweiss ('' Leontopodium nivale'') and a number of other rare herbaceous plants.

Citations

References

* * * {{cite journal , ref={{harvid, Grunewald, 2010 , last=Grunewald , first=Karsten , author2=Jörg Scheithauer , date=2010 , title=Europe’s southernmost glaciers: response and adaptation to climate change , journal=Journal of Glaciology , publisher=

International Glaciological Society The International Glaciological Society (IGS) was founded in 1936 to provide a focus for individuals interested in glaciology, practical and scientific aspects of snow and ice. It was originally known as the "Association for the Study of Snow an ...

, volume=56 , pages=129–142 , issn=0022-1430 , url=http://www.igsoc.org:8080/journal/56/195/j09j048.pdf , accessdate=6 March 2015 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402112432/http://www.igsoc.org:8080/journal/56/195/j09j048.pdf , archive-date=2 April 2015 , url-status=dead Mountains of Pirin Landforms of Blagoevgrad Province Two-thousanders of Bulgaria