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Strong Winds Deny Second Summit
Friday, February 11, 2000
 Burleson | |
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Hi Mountain Zone, it's Todd. I'm in Base Camp right now. It's been about two or three days since we checked in. We did a carry up to...with Allen's group.
Last time we talked, we were with Allen's group at 19.2. The next day we did a rest day and then we carried up to 20,600, to our new High Camp. The next day turned out to be really windy. I went back to 19.2, with one person, and we tried to summit and meet the guides at 20,600. We went up to Independencia, about 21 and a half, and we were turned around by extremely high winds. It was amazing; the winds would blow up the summit and drop 2,000ft and then come right back up the wall in a big eddy current. You could see it from the clouds.
So, I ended up taking three or four people all the way back to Base. Allen and Jose Luis, they summitted today, about two in the afternoon, with five other people. So it sounds like everything turned out to be a great success. We're in Base Camp and we'll wait for the group to descend tomorrow. Wally and Al [Albert Hanna] are in Base Camp in [Unintelligible], so they're preparing to go up and head up the mountain and they'll take over the cybercast in the next couple of days. And that's it from Base Camp, bye-bye.
—Alpine Ascents Founder Todd Burleson, reporting for MountainZone.com
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