Hundreds Trapped on Mount Everest as Utah Climbers Face Fierce Blizzard
Jason Wardle, who was close to turning 50 this February was awoken by the idea to mark his birthday with an actual adventure.
Mount Everest news 2025: He decided to go with a handful of his cousins — all of whom, like him, turned 50 and live in Utah — and climb Mount Everest blizzard, the tallest mountain in the world.
“We were all turning 50 this year and we kind of thought, hey, let’s do something crazy to celebrate it,” Wardle said.
Wardle, a Herriman resident, spent the last nine months training hard for the expedition. “I mean, you can’t really train for Everest expedition updates, but I did everything I could to prepare myself physically, getting my heart and lungs in shape,” he told KSL.com.
Wardle and his three cousins made it to China’s mountain region late last month and were able to make it to the peak of the Everest Base Camp before disaster struck. The cousins found themselves in the middle of a raging snowstorm that left hundreds of Utah hikers Mount Everest trapped on the mountain.
“It’s been absolutely crazy here on Everest,” Wardle said in a Facebook post. “Got caught in complete whiteout conditions…tea house roof collapsed from snow load and we are now back in BC as well.”
He was around 14.200 meters at moment, which is around six miles away from Everest Base Camp. As the severe extreme weather Mount Everest worsened, the group was forced to withdraw.
“It’s a bummer we didn’t summit, but it was our first attempt, we’ll be back,” Wardle said in the post. “Safety first.”
Wardle’s birthday adventure ended just shy of the 29,029-foot peak, but he has said it’s a memory he will not soon forget.
To make things worse, he and his cousins all became ill while Everest climbing conditions. They continued climbing down the mountain to escape the dangers of the conditions. Wardle stated that his group intended to stay in the bed and breakfast type hotel in the mountains however, the blizzard caused the roof to collapse.
