Natalia Martinez at Camp 2 on the East Ridge of the Yukon's Mount Logan. Photo taken April 26.Lance Goodwin
Natalia Martinez was trying to reach the summit of Canada's highest mountain when the earthquake hit.
The 37-year-old Argentine climber is now stranded on Yukon's Mount Logan after Monday's tremors in the territory dislodged snow and ice along her treacherous route up the mountain's eastern ridge.
Ms. Martinez is camped out nearly two-thirds of the way up the mountain's 5,959 metres and awaiting a helicopter rescue that may not arrive until Friday due to bad weather, said her partner and fellow climber Camilo Rada, a graduate student at the University of British Columbia.
"I'm just looking forward to getting her back as soon as possible," he said.
Parks Canada says she is uninjured and has enough food and fuel. Workers from Kluane National Park have been in contact with Ms. Martinez to plan her retrieval. An average of 25 climbers try to reach the summit of the mountain every year, and not all of them are able to – staff at the park have conducted four successful high-altitude rescues in the past five years, Parks Canada spokesperson Christine Aikens said in a statement.
One other group is also currently on the mountain but has not requested assistance, she said.
Mr. Rada said Ms. Martinez hadn't slept last night, leaving her tent to shovel snow periodically as it piled around her camp.
"She is very tired," he said.
When the first earthquake struck, she came out of her tent to see evidence of serac avalanches – blocks of glacial ice, or seracs, had fallen into a crevasse near her camp. After a second earthquake, she realized that the area was unsafe so climbed down to a place on the ridge that was less exposed.
Tom Bradley, chief pilot of Icefield Discovery, the company that airlifted Ms. Martinez to her base camp several weeks ago, said that she was the ideal person to cope with the challenges of being stranded on the face of the mountain.
"She's a very experienced mountaineer and picked her camp in just the right spot," said Mr. Bradley, noting that she cut her teeth climbing in Patagonia, where bad weather is common.
"We're talking about a very accomplished climber," he added. "On the outside, you've got this warm, bubbly person and on the inside, the grit and determination to survive in this kind of world."
Volatile weather could make her wait difficult, said Michael Schmidt, co-chair of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society's expeditions committee, who climbed Logan in 1992 to measure its exact height.
"Right now, I think the main risk would be a combination of the high winds and the temperatures," he said. Temperatures on the mountain can drop to minus 40 C, he noted, and the wind was being recorded at a nearby weather station as gusting up to 70 kilometres an hour on Wednesday.
It would be too dangerous for Ms. Martinez to continue her ascent, but she would have been the first woman to make a solo summit of the mountain via the eastern ridge, Mr. Bradley and Mr. Schmidt believe – a trickier, more technical climb than the more popular western route. Ms. Martinez was then hoping to cross the mountain's wide summit plateau and descend its western side.
"There's been a lot of talk about this climb," Mr. Bradley said.
The pilot noted that she had nearly completed the most technically difficult part of her ascent when the avalanche struck.
"That's the shame of it – she proved that had things gone her way, had there not been an earthquake … things would have been home and hosed, as we say."
The decision to turn back so close to the summit has been hard to swallow, Mr. Rada said.
"It has been very tough both physically and psychologically," he said. "The summit seemed very real and reachable to her – and then suddenly this happened."
Before the avalanche, her ascent hadn't been without incident. On April 26, five days into her climb, she broke a crampon, Mr. Bradley said – the metal teeth climbers strap on to their boots for traction in icy terrain. In order for Ms. Martinez to continue, a pilot from Icefield Discovery had to airdrop a new pair down to her on the ridge.
The eastern ridge is a difficult climb in the best of conditions and has been the site of fatalities in the past. "At times, it is a bit of a knife-edge," Mr. Schmidt said.
Still, he added in an e-mail, "I gather she is in a good location with a wealth of experience behind her."
Mr. Rada said that above all, Ms. Martinez has the right mentality for the exhausting wait ahead of her.
"She's a very happy person," he said, "very mind-strong, very brave."
Eric Andrew-Gee