As I awoke to the patter of snow on my tent at 3 am. Later, the sounds of several distant avalanches continued throughout the rest of the early morning. The signs were quite clear that the weather had again taken a turn. By first sunlight a scan of the mountain and the base camp valley basin revealed nothing but dense tempestuous fog. When Chris radioed down at 6:30 am it was confirmed that in the night an unexpected snowstorm had swept across the mountain leaving the climbers with whiteout conditions and 10 meter visibility.

Throughout the morning we held hopes that the system would blow through and that once abated, the climbers could make the 5-6 hour ascent to Camp 3 as planned. However, as the morning continued into afternoon, the 50-kilometer per hour winds and unstable conditions persisted. The ongoing avalanche threat kept the climbers from moving either up or down, trapping them for the rest of the day. By late afternoon, the skies in the valley below the mountain had cleared leaving only the top half of the mountain still covered in windy, wet, fog. While from all accounts, the weather is expected to clear tomorrow, the loss of a day obviously threatens the summit window as storms are again predicted for this weekend. As you can imagine, we are watching the weather conditions for the next 24 hours intensely and will keep you posted on our progress.

Joel Shalowitz