Two earthquakes struck Monday morning while 37-year-old Natalia Martinez was making her way up Yukon's Mount Logan. Nine days into her journey, the Argentine climber found herself in an unstable environment after the 6.2 and 6.3 magnitude quakes triggered a series of avalanches on the mountain.
Her partner Camilo Rada has been keeping in touch with Martinez via satellite phone. Rada told CBC, "Right now, she's doing her best to stay safe, keep the camp safe, to keep the tent sound … Things are not settled yet, and another aftershock is possible. So it's dangerous for her to move, basically, whether up or down, so the plan is to get her a rescue by helicopter."
The current challenging and unpredictable weather conditions makes this difficult, however, and things likely won’t clear up until Friday.
Stuck about 10,000 feet up the peak, Martinez, a mountaineering guide and professional ski instructor, is doing well given the circumstances, Rada reports. She says the climber has had to go outside her tent every few hours with a shovel to ensure she doesn’t become entombed by the snow.
"She had a really tough night keeping the camp safe, but she managed to do it," Rada said. "She has a lot of climbing experience in Patagonia, which is notorious for the bad weather. So she knows how to make a camp strong and to keep it safe in a storm."
Martinez’s location is "relatively safe," according to Icefield Discovery Tours, who flew her to her camp base, but high winds and storms are still expected. They could knock loose some snow that was put on edge after the initial earthquakes.
Sian Williams, operations manager for Icefield and a friend of Martinez, told CTV, "She's on a knife edge ridge … She's in a safe area where she is right now, but to move up or down would be quite dangerous for her at this time."
