The Climb - Day 20
May 30 Summary

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With more storms, winds (up to 80 km/h) and white-out conditions, the team remained stuck at Camp 2.5 for the fourth day in a row. Even though snow-walls had been built to protect the tents, they still had to be dug out of the drifts that accumulated from the winds and snow which continued to do its best to try and bury the tents. The Camp-bound team is dealing each day now with trying to be patient while waiting for the next window of opportunity to move up again ... perhaps a bit difficult for a group of spirited and energetic adventurers. But they are managing well.

Aside from a nagging cough, James' health is on the rebound and his blood oxygen saturation level is back up to 87%. As a good indication that they are all feeling well again and have now adapted to the altitude, today they built an igloo and a snow cave which Shawn described as "going down 10 feet, turned sideways and then was another 10 feet long!" They built side-benches into the walls and actually had a group dinner in it this evening.

Perhaps it is a blessing that they only got as high as they did at this point, as other teams up top have been battered by even stronger winds and have been running out of time, fuel and food. As such, 8 more people moved down today passing through the SOC Camp for a total of 17 people now having left the mountain.

While the team still has ample supplies, most of it is now up at Camp III from the carry-forwards they completed in previous days. As such, they have now been rationing food for a couple of days. With a possible break in the weather, they are hoping to make the move up to Camp III tomorrow, and Friday at the latest. With their hearts still set on the big goals such as measuring the height of the mountain with the Zmax unit supplied by Gemini Positioning Systems, they are maintaining focus on the more immediate goal of getting up to Camp III and the rest of their cache of food and fuel supplies.

Speaking of food, this leads us perfectly into our Educational Challenge Question for today ... but you'll have to listen to today's Audio Clip to find out what it is!