Howdy friends and family of Alp 10, the Da Fine Dieter team, this is Matt Szundy calling in from 14.2 once again. This is day 11 for us at 14.2. To update you on what's gone on here, Eric Remza and I carried--last night went late, we left camp here at about 9:30--up the headwall to our 16.2 cache, to retrieve our cache, to get our food and fuel back down here to 14.2. We encountered some definitely loaded slopes and there were definitely some sketchy potential avalanche sections and we're glad that we didn't make the decision to move to high camp yesterday.

Today started with a big lenticular cloud on the summit and, based on our experiences with conditions on this mountain and the weather forecasts of 40-60 mph winds the next couple days, we are turning around and we'll be down in base camp tomorrow night. It's definitely a very difficult decision, but one based on safety alone. This team, I must say, has been one of the strongest teams I've ever had up here, and it's a very sad decision to not go for the summit because they, this team, definitely, certainly deserves an opportunity to stand on top of North America's highest peak.

However, we feel the conditions, based on the amount of food and fuel we have left and what the weather forecast is and what the snow load has been due to this six day storm, um, we're turning around.

So for now, this is Matt calling in from 14.2. We'll be descending this evening to 8,000' camp and wait for the glacier to freeze up a little bit before we cross it into base camp. So we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for watching. Take care.

— Matt Szundy, Alpine Ascents International Guide and MountainZone.com Correspondent