Not being a climber, why would someone leave an ice cave offering protection from the elements to build another one elsewhere close by? Hyposia? Hope of it being seen from above?
Why would the other two climbers leave their fellow climber that was having serious problems behind while they continued on? Is the climb more important than someones life?
bttt
Kelly James was said to be "delirious" by his son after his first phone call a week ago (Sunday).
It's hard to fathom how he got that way in only two days. They climbed on Friday and made it 300 feet from the summit, so he must have been OK then.
And someone had the wits to build a snowcave and the "Y" marker. Not something a delirious person would do. Did his partners help him and then go looking for help? Seems odd. Was the first snowcave built for 1 or 3 people?
Kelly was clearly not immobilized, since he apparently bailed from the cave and made it to the summit (I'm guessing they found him in the second "cave" right at the summit ridge, but in more of a trench than a cave).
So if he had that kind of will and stamina after X days in the first cave, why did his partners leave him?
This whole thing is very mysterious.
I'm going to take a guess here: in Kelly's Sunday comments to his son Jason he said that Brian was "in town looking for help" and that Nikko was "on an airplane". This is clearly delerium, probably brought on by dehydration and hypothermia during the course of building his snowcave (which would have taken many hours on Saturday). If the snowcave was built by and for one person only, it was because Brian and Nikko were already gone.
Did they fall, leaving Kelly alone? Is that what he was hiding from his family on Sunday?
I know that sounds weird. But nothing is adding up here.