Sasha DiGiulian is already a champion climber, but now the 22-year-old is scaling the dangerous and deadly Eiger mountain in the Swiss Alps. In the summer between her junior and senior year at Columbia University, DiGiulian is hoping to pad her resume by becoming the first woman to scale the alpine peak with the nickname "murder wall." 
 
 The 6,000-foot vertical sheet of grey limestone is considered one of the world's most dangerous climbs. Dozens have died trying to reach the top. 
 
 After a long day scaling the mountain, DiGiulian Skyped with CBS News Tuesday night from her makeshift bed perched on the edge of a cliff. 
 
 "When you're alpine climbing, you're dealing with factors like unanticipated weather, which means storms can roll through," DiGiulian said. "It's really full on. You're facing like 12 to 18 hour days." 
 
 In his book "Eiger Dreams," mountaineer Jon Krakauer wrote, "The rockfall and avalanches that rain continuously down...are legendary. ...This makes the Eiger North Face one of the most widely coveted climbs in the world." 
 
 DiGiulian is attempting to become the first woman to reach the summit. 
 
 "When other women open the floodgates to showing that something is possible then all of a sudden you see progression in a sport," DiGiulian said, explaining why this climb was important to her. 
 
 DiGiulian, who's been climbing since she was 6 years old, won three national rock climbing championships and was female overall world champion. She's traveled to dozens of countries to compete and climbed some of the world's most difficult rock formations. 
 
 But when she decided to attempt Eiger, she said she faced more resistance than she expected. 
 
 "People saying like, 'Little girls don't belong on the Eiger.' Actually like in real life being laughed in my face when saying I was trying something on the Eiger," DiGiulian said. 
 
 That hasn't stopped her. Nor has the fear she admits she sometimes feels up there. 
 
 "I think that it's wrong to think that people can be fearless. I think that fear is inevitable, but I don't think that fear needs to be inhibiting," DiGiulian said. 
 
 Fear certainly hasn't inhibited her. DiGiulian hopes to reach the summit sometime next week, but it could all depend on the weather, which can be brutal there. Her father, who died last year, used to tell her three things before every climb: have fun, be safe and do your best. ||||| An Argentine mountain climber is stranded alone about halfway up Canada's highest peak, braving high winds and awaiting a rescue that may still be days away. 
 
 Natalia Martinez, 37, was nine days into a solo traverse of Yukon's Mount Logan (5,959 metres) when a pair of earthquakes rattled the territory on Monday morning. The quakes — magnitudes 6.2 and 6.3 — set off a series of avalanches on the mountain, sparing Martinez but leaving her surrounded by unstable terrain. 
 
 "Right now, she's doing her best to stay safe, keep the camp safe, to keep the tent sound," said her partner Camilo Rada from Vancouver, where he is a student. Rada has been keeping in touch with Martinez by satellite phone. 
 
 She's now camped at an elevation above 3,000 metres. 
 
 "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." 
 
 Martinez, 37, is an accomplished mountaineer. 'She knows how to make a camp strong and to keep it safe in a storm,' said her partner Camilo Rada, also a skilled climber. (Arran Whiteford via Icefield Discovery Tours) 
 
 The weather, though, is not co-operating. A helicopter rescue won't be possible until it clears and Rada said that is not expected to happen until Friday. 
 
 Martinez is a highly accomplished climber — back home, she's a professional ski instructor and mountaineering guide — and Rada says so far, she's handling her situation well. 
 
 Last night, he says, she had to go out every few hours with a shovel to keep her camp from being buried in the blowing snow. Today, she's exhausted and nursing a sore back, but otherwise OK. 
 
 "She had a really tough night keeping the camp safe, but she managed to do it," he 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." 
 
 Argentine climber trapped on Mt. Logan after quakes, avalanche 0:36 
 
 'The mountain was falling apart' 
 
 Rada says Martinez was camped high above the clouds on Monday morning when the first earthquake hit, early in the morning. 
 
 "Of course, she didn't know it was an earthquake, she only knew it was, like, the mountain was falling apart," he said. 
 
 "She felt that all the ground under her camp subsided and moved a lot, and of course she was very scared." 
 
 Martinez's planned route, up Logan's east ridge to the summit, then down through King's Trench. She's now camped at an altitude above 3,000 metres. (Icefield Discovery Tours/Facebook) 
 
 Martinez emerged from her tent to see evidence of "huge" glacial serac avalanches all around. A serac is a chunk or ridge of glacial ice, which can often be unstable. 
 
 She had chosen her campsite wisely, though — it was untouched. 
 
 Nevertheless, she realized that continuing her journey was out of the question. The terrain was still highly unstable. She made contact with Rada, and they immediately began planning for her rescue. 
 
 Then the second quake hit, Rada said, and it was also clear that the rescue would not happen right away. Martinez moved her camp to a narrow ridge that offered more protection from any falling debris, "so it was a safe place, in that sense," he said. 
 
 Dangers lurking 
 
 Sian Williams of Icefield Discovery Tours, the outfitter that flew Martinez to her initial base camp, says Martinez is now in a "relatively safe location," but still surrounded by danger. 
 
 "I mean, the St. Elias [Range] is a very wild part of the world. We're expecting storms with high winds over the next couple of days, and she is still up on the ridge," Williams said. 
 
 The ice fields of Yukon's Kluane National Park, with Mount Logan in the distance. At 5,959 metres, it's Canada's highest peak. (Cheryl Kawaja/CBC) 
 
 "Hopefully everything that was loose came down already, but there could be other dangers that are kind of lurking there that are just on the edge of going. So the route condition has become very unstable. 
 
 "I'm sure it must have felt like the whole world was coming to an end, with serac falls and avalanches all around her." 
 
 Rada is doing his best to stay calm and positive, trusting in his partner's skills and experience. 
 
 "Of course it's worrying," he said. "But I'm positive, in the sense that she will do everything that is possible to stay safe and she [will] know what to do. 
 
 "All of her family knows — she's a really strong woman, so she won't give up, and she will stay put there, and strong." ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video 
 
 HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. -- The search continues for a Littleton police officer who went missing while mountain climbing in Russia last week. 
 
 Steven Beare hasn’t been heard from since Friday. He was attempting a solo climb of Mount Elbrus, the highest peak in Europe. 
 
 “His goal is to complete the seven world summits,” his wife Olivia Beare said. 
 
 The high school sweethearts have been together 14 years. They have a toddler and another baby on the way in January. 
 
 “That’s not the only reason I need my husband home, but it’s definitely a big reason," she said. "I can’t raise two babies by myself. He is everything in the world to me.” 
 
 Beare is an Army veteran, a member of the Colorado National Guard and has been an officer with the Littleton Police Department for 1 1/2 years. 
 
 "We are keeping officer Beare and his family in our thoughts and prayers. Steven is a highly respected officer for the LPD and all of us are hopeful he will be located quickly," police said in a statement. 
 
 “When circumstances appear hopeless, you fight through and win, no matter what,” Chief Doug Stephens said. “That’s what cops do and I am confident that Steven is doing that now.” 
 
 Beare developed a passion for mountain climbing five years ago and has summited difficult peaks such as Mount Kilimanjaro. 
 
 “He was ready for this climb,” Olivia Beare said. “He felt confident in his skills and his equipment that he has.” 
 
 She said the two have a rule that Steven Beare always calls home when he is finished climbing a mountain. He was due back down Friday but never called. 
 
 A massive snowstorm blanketed the mountain while Beare was climbing. A nearby group has reported seeing him go up but lost sight of him when they were forced to turn back because of low visibility in the snow. 
 
 “He does have other equipment for getting water and through all of his military training, he’s got a ton of mountaineering experience and survival skills," Olivia Beare said. 
 
 "He knows how to hunker down in snow and make a hut. But if he’s injured, I don’t know if that’s happening." 
 
 She said she is hopeful, but worried. 
 
 “The biggest obstacle right now that my husband faces is the cold and the 4 feet of snow that was dumped in this blizzard,” she said. “I’m just worried he’s going to freeze to death.” 
 
 Now it’s a race against the clock. Olivia Beare has been coordinating overseas rescue efforts from her living room in Highlands Ranch. 
 
 There happens to be another climber from Littleton at Mount Elbrus who has been able to facilitate communication between Beare’s family and Russian rescue teams. 
 
 Search and rescue had to call off the search on Sunday because of poor weather. 
 
 “They’re conservative in their search and rescues to protect their own men,” Olivia Beare said. 
 
 Colorado Rep. Mike Coffman sent a letter to the Russian ambassador to the U.S. on Wednesday asking for additional help. 
 
 In the meantime, Olivia Beare has also hired private rescuers to continue the search. However, progress is slow. 
 
 The man she hired to search by foot hasn’t been approved for a visa to enter Russia. And the helicopter teams she hired haven’t been able to deploy because of whiteout conditions on top of the mountain. 
 
 “They are hoping to go out at sunrise (Thursday). The storm is not fully cleared but it’s getting clearer,” she said. 
 
 The only thing Olivia Beare has left to do is hope. 
 
 “I hope he knows that I’m doing everything I can do find him,” she said. “I hope that he’s really pushing himself to be stubborn and strong and stay alive.” 
 
 The private rescue helicopters cost $2,500 per hour. They have already paid for five hours of searching, but might need more. 
 
 The family is asking for donations to help cover costs.
– Between semesters at Columbia University, Sasha DiGiulian is summering at the Mordwand in the Swiss Alps, which sounds like a lovely getaway until you find out "Mordwand" is German for "murder wall." Per CBS News, the 22-year-old world-class climber is trying to become the first woman to scale the 13,000-foot Eiger mountain the hard way: by ascending the dangerous north face of the peak, a sheet of limestone that's more than a mile high and that was once described by a British mountaineer as "an obsession for the mentally deranged." Even DiGiulian, who's been tweeting terrifying pics of her climb as she goes, acknowledges the task before her—one that's claimed dozens of lives—telling Sports Illustrated, "This is the hardest route up the Eiger." Not that DiGiulian's an amateur. She's been climbing since she was 6 and nabbed top honors in national and world rock-climbing championships, CBS notes. Yet she still gets discouragement on her attempt, which she hopes to complete next week. "People saying like, 'Little girls don't belong on the Eiger,'" she told CBS last night in a video chat from the mountain. Not that it's stopped her, even with unpredictable weather and 12- to 18-hour days. "I think that fear is inevitable, but I don't think that fear needs to be inhibiting," she says. She also keeps in mind her late dad's advice ("Have fun, be safe, and do your best") and her dream to be a female pioneer. "When other women open the floodgates to showing that something is possible, then all of a sudden you see progression in a sport," she notes. (Hundreds were stranded on Everest in April).