Denali Team 1: May 2-22, 2010
Guides: Forest McBrian and Mike Pond
Climbers: Rob Gribbin, Deke Williams, Jens Rabbels, Krushnaa Patil, Chris Shumate
Thursday, May 20 - 7:15am Pacific Standard Time
AAI Guide Forest McBrian called in with this quick update:
"Hey everybody, Mike, Rob, Deke, Jens, and Chris are down and safe from the summit after a 20 hour summit push. They were successful and fought their way down through the storm. Just wanted to let everyone know that we are all safe. Will call more with the full story later. Bye bye."
Congrats Team 1!
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2 comments:
Anonymous said...why was Krushnaa not given a fair chance when others were given???it is not her fault that a guide is unwell and so she was chosen to not go for the final summit....she is all alone there so please give her full support and see that she also summits...its very important that she summits....she has the capacity to do that....so please please help her to go for the summit and back down safely....her safety is very very important....she is representing India and cannot come back without summiting...she is almost there just help her to go and summit safely and come safely.....
Four climbers made it to the summit on Wednesday with guide Mike Pond and returned safely after twenty hours of climbing and battling through a storm to get back. Krushnaa remained at high camp with lead guide Forest McBrian who was not feeling well with the altitude. The fact that only four climbers are allowed to move with a guide (excluding the fifth, in this case Krushnaa), is in this case totally coincidental to Krushnaa remaining at camp and not causal.
On the climb to the 17,200-foot high camp on Monday, Krushnaa had difficulty keeping her hands warm. There was no visible injury, but through the rest day on Tuesday they continued to "tingle," indicating that some damage had been done to her hands. The guides concluded that climbing to the summit would put her at risk for frostbite.
As it turned out, it was a very fortunate decision to keep her at high camp. Though the weather was fair during the climb to the summit, the team was unexpectedly enveloped in storm conditions. It was very windy and very cold and the difficult conditions and limited visibility made a long summit day much longer (20 hours). There is no doubt that had Krushnaa been with the summit team, the likelihood of frostbite would have been extremely high. We concur with Ranjana Patil that in climbing, safety must be the top priority come before all other ambitions.
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