MISSION ACCOMPLISHED, CLIMBERS HEADING HOME

Ten Santa Barbara climbers were due to start home today after successfully
reaching the summit of a remote Arctic mountain in an effort to raise funds
for an adolescent substance abuse center in Santa Barbara.

The climbers got to the top of the previously unnamed 7,000-foot-tall peak
with little time to spare, as a storm bore down.

"If it was even a day later, they wouldn't have made it," said a spokesman
for the Santa Barbara Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse, which
spearheaded the expedition, called Summit for Danny and All Our Kids.

"It was a lot harder than they thought,'' said the spokesman who has been
in communication with the group that left Santa Barbara Aug. 21. They flew
to Pond Inlet on Baffin Island in far northern Canada. They then crossed to
Bylot Island, 500 miles from the North Pole, where they began a trek over a
glacier they named Danny's Glacier.

Danny Bryant, son of Santa Barbara jewelry store owner Bob Bryant, died of
a drug overdose in 1995. Since then Bob Bryant has led a campaign for a
local drug treatment center. He organized the Canada climb, which also
included Sheriff Jim Thomas, District Attorney Tom Sneddon, Drs. Michael
Pesce and Richard Kahmann, Don Lafler, chief financial officer of Santa
Barbara Bank & Trust, Santa Barbara City College President Peter
MacDougall, Jeff Dozier, dean of UCSB's Donald Bren School of Environmental
Science and Management, KEYT-TV anchor Debby Davison and Patty Wiessner.

Wiessner and Bryant climbed Africa's Mount Kilimanjaro on New Year's Day,
also to raise funds for the drug center.

Santa Barbara philanthropist Lady Leslie Ridley-Tree manned a Bylot Island
base camp (and brought jerky, fresh bananas and Sneddon's lost hiking boots
to the climbers, according to a journal on the group's Web site).

Climbing steep, rocky terrain, the Santa Barbarans reached the summit of
the peak, their goal, on Saturday at 3 p.m., naming it Mountain of Hope, or
Niriungjik in the native Inuktituk language.

That night in the base camp, it began to rain, which continued for 36 hours
as the hikers walked several hours in snow. At a rain-swollen stream,
Dozier, expedition leader Dan Ortolani and his brother Art formed a human
chain to help the group across. Returning by boat to the town of Pond
Inlet, they circled an iceberg, according to the Website journal.

The trip was injury free except for blisters and a few minor aches, Bryant
reported. No estimate was yet available on how much money the trek raised.

The group spent Tuesday night in Pond Inlet, where they had hot showers.
This morning, they were to fly out on a two-day return flight home via
Iqalui, Nunavut and Ottawa and Toronto, Canada. A homecoming is scheduled
for the group's return to the Santa Barbara Municipal Airport 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, said Maria Long, media and special events director for the
Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse.

"We're really proud of them," she said. "I know it took a lot of stamina."