Mountain Trip teams on the way down from the Polo Field

The May 26th team set out today to cache around Windy Corner, but with super high winds funneling through the area, the team made the call to drop their cache at the top of the Polo Fields instead. It was a smart, flexible decision and a good example of reading conditions as they come.

Windy Corner sits at around 13,500 feet and earns its name by funneling wind off the upper mountain. On a calm day, it’s a manageable but tiring section of the route. When the wind picks up, it can become genuinely dangerous, and pushing a fully loaded team through that kind of exposure isn’t worth the risk. The Polo Fields, the flatter stretch just below the Corner, offer a safer place to stash supplies when conditions higher up aren’t cooperating. Either way, the cache is staged higher up the route, and the team has made real progress toward establishing themselves at 14 Camp.

Days like this highlight one of the most important parts of expedition-style climbing: being willing to adjust the plan when the mountain tells you to. The cache going in at the Polo Fields rather than past the Corner doesn’t change the bigger picture of the climb. It just means the team made the right call in the moment and kept everyone safe in the process.

For now, the May 26th team is back at camp with another productive day behind them. With supplies now staged higher up the route, the team is in a strong position to keep building toward the next move.

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