Ty–thanks for giving us a great segway to talk about how expeditions often do not go as planned. Ty mentions in his update that they had to assist a sick climber off the mountain. Please be advised, if you are a family member of a climber on this team and you have not been contacted about your family member being ill, then they are doing well! There are many things that can happen on an expedition, or any day spent in the mountains at any length anywhere, that can be unexpected or unpreventable. These situations may or may not be life threatening, but our guide and administrative teams always seek to act with the upmost caution in our care for our clients/guides/teammates. We really appreciate Ty’s transparency with this event and how it may have changed the teams schedule on the mountain a bit. Often we only see the end result, and not everything that a team went through to make it happen. So thank you Ty!
Back to our regularly programming.. Yesterday the June 2 team was able to return to 10,200′ and retrieve their first cache. This is called “backcarrying”. It allows the team to have an active rest day, a day where they can get out and move but expend much less effort than days when moving camp. This typically only takes a couple of hours and the team has there remainder of the day to rest and/or practice some skills that they will be needing as they move further up the mountain. Leaving Camp 2, the terrain starts to get steeper and a bit more challenging, at this point teams will don their crampons and bring out their ice axes.
Here’s Ty:
