The Climb - Day 21
May 31 Summary

............................................
< MAIN BLOG

With the report of a possible break in the storms today, the team was hoping to be able to make their way up to Camp III. And while they did make the attempt, Mother Nature however, had other ideas in mind. The storms continued with more strong winds, freezing temperatures and white-out conditions and forced the team to turn back after only a 1/2 hr into the climb. The mountain, it seems, is not happy with people all over its flanks this year. Yet another team passed through the SOC Camp today on their way down after they decided to relinquish their bid for the summit.

The Summits Of Canada team is also at the point of having to make a major decision. But before we go into that ... there was an 'incident' in Camp today which was probably a turning point for the team. Samantha slipped into a crevasse today ... but before becoming too alarmed, I'll quickly point out that: She is Okay! :)

The team was packing up the camp before beginning the climb today to make a push towards Camp III during a small break in the weather. They were willing to risk a few lighter storm conditions because they needed to get to the next camp in order to get to their main food & fuel supplies that had been carried forward to and stored at Camp III a number of days ago (they have now been on rations for a few days). It was at this point as they were packing up and preparing to move when Samantha, standing right over the spot where their tent had been set up (in an area that had been considered safe), suddenly disappeared and sank into a crevasse when the ground simply gave way!

Urzsula began yelling that Samantha had fallen into a crevasse and the team, not knowing how far down she had fallen or if she was injured, immediatley jumped into action. For all the details, be sure to listen to the Audio Blog from James today. To skip forward to the most important part though, she was apparently down about 10 feet on a ledge and safe, but pleading to get her out of there. Working together, the team quickly pulled her to safety. Samantha's friends and family can rest assured that, although she was obviously shaken, aside from a slightly injured shoulder, she was/is otherwise fine.

Another development today was the assessment that the slope the team needs to climb in order to get up to Camp III is now a potentially hazardous avalanche zone. The going would be slow as it is, with the steep headwall and large crevasses to navigate over & around, as well as the need to break a new trail through the fresh snow. But the new snow that has been dumped by the storms has now made the steep slope a risk that the team will also have to take into consideration if the climb is to continue. (If you haven't already tried it, be sure to check out the "topographic" view in Live Search Maps for another perspective on the route being cimbed by the team. You can find this at the bottom of the map-control in the top-left area of the map.)

So, as James mentions in the Audio Blog, they are now at a cross-road with a decision to make about whether or not to continue the climb. And the weather, it would seem, is for a large part trying to make that decision for them, as it has already for most of the other teams on the mountain. Regardless of the decision tomorrow though, the team has worked incredibly hard and accomplished much already in bringing this expedition to the students across the country and around the world and for that, they have much to be proud of.