I received a call from Bud this morning and I will try to relate this update as well as I can.  He sounded tired and pretty concerned about some of their team members.  Bud will send an update when he is able and it will probably be more accurate in details.  Bud’s summit team, Team 1, was at Camp 2 as I indicated in the entry yesterday.  One of the team members fell and hit his head on a rock and the rest of the team loaded him on a sled and began the descent to get him medical treatment.  So—back to Base Camp.  Another member of the expedition fell ill and had to be helicoptered off the mountain.  I am not sure if he was a member of Bud’s summit team or a member of the expedition team at large.  Either way as you can imagine, these are people that the expedition members become quite close to and to have these serious situations is very emotional for the rest of the folks.  Bud was more concerned about these guys than about the summit. 

Hopefully Bud will call tonight or early in the morning and can tell me more.
As to how this impacts his chances at a summit opportunity…
They started out the season thinking it was going to present an earlier than usual summit window, based on weather forecasts.  Now it appears that storms are expected to move in later this week and possibly set in for an extended period.  I don’t know what this means for Bud or the rest of the teams.  Team 2 from Asian Trekking will begin their summit ascent or may have already.  Therer are only so many tents at each camp and Team 1 will now have to work with that issue.  Can they rework themselves back into the rotation?  I don’t know nor do I understand exactly how all of that works.

It reminds me, once again, that there are so many things that can happen which impact the outcome of a mountain ascent.  My constant reminder to Bud is:  This is not who you are, this is something you do for “fun.”