A FORMER Bolton schoolboy and his team of climbers are facing a race against time to reach the summit of an unconquered mountain.

Bad weather conditions have conspired to keep Chris Smith, a former Canon Slade pupil, and the other three members of the Saga British Western Patagonia expedition away from the top of Angel Wings in Southern Chile.

As previously reported in the BEN, there have been only a handful of expeditions before to the area -- with intimidating steeply rising glaciers above fjords.

The team reached base camp a month ago and since then have been trying to reach the summit of the inhospitable 2,000-metre high mountain.

Bad weather forced the team to return to their base camp on November 8 and three days later they suffered snow swept in from the Antarctic!

An attempt to climb as high as possible the next day was scuppered by more snow as they reached an upper glacier and the team had to return to camp.

Early the following day conditions were looking better but the team were disappointed when at 1100 metres they reached an area in danger of avalanche and had to turn back.

Two of the team, Niall Washington-Jones and Dave Hillebrandt, remained at a high camp while Chris, 48, and Nick Banks headed back to base camp to collect more supplies.

Unfortunately, the weather closed in behind them and heavy rain meant the two groups were separated for two days.

Niall and Dave eventually made it back to base camp with horrendous tales of fierce winds and of having to dig their tents out of the snow every four hours.

The storms continued for eight days.

"There was concern about the state of the high camp and whether it would still be there, as over £2,000 worth of equipment had been left to the mercy of the elements," Chris said.

On the first day of better weather, although it was still raining, they made a dash for the upper camp and found the tent almost completely buried in snow.

In case the weather turned bad again they dismantled the camp and headed back down to base.

With only five days left to make the ascent the team have now decided the only way they will succeed is to climb fast and light in one push from the base camp.

You can follow the team's progress via the Internet on their web site www.saga.co.uk/exped