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Mt. McKinley: Billy Nugent & Team Move to 11,000’

Posted by: Billy Nugent, Kel Rossiter, Levi Kepsel | May 22, 2013
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Mount McKinley
Elevation: 11,000'

In the movie “Spinal Tap” there’s a comical part where the rock god explains to an interviewer that, whereas most amplifiers only go up to ten, his “goes to eleven” in case he’s really rocking out and “needs that extra push.”  Well, our strong team definitely needed no extra push in making it to 11K camp today.

After a calm night at 9600’ we woke to clear skies and prepared to “go to eleven.”  After caching some gear and food in a snow hole ( which we’ll pick up tomorrow) we enjoyed the feeling of dramatically lightened packs and sleds as we moved up.  Arriving in camp the team had its first experience with building a true Denali-style fortified camp.  Some people were shoveling, some were cutting blocks, some were carrying them:  everyone was working hard and in an hour or so we had a veritable Great Wall in place. Everyone enjoyed the upper body workout and the concrete results.  The sun sets late at 11K (it’s about 10pm now and still brilliant) and folks are settling in to a well-earned sleep.

Tomorrow will be a “half-rest” day: we’ll be making a three-hour trek to retrieve our cache, but without the work of breaking down and setting up camp we’ll be able to also rest and acclimatize.

RMI Guide Kel Rossiter

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Mt. McKinley: Nugent & Team Establish Camp 2

Posted by: Billy Nugent, Kel Rossiter, Levi Kepsel | May 20, 2013
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Mount McKinley
Elevation: 9,600'

Another beautiful day and another strong effort from our crew! We took advantage of more amazing weather and single-carried all of our gear and supplies up Ski Hill to set up shop at Camp 2, which sits at about 9,600’ on the upper reaches of the Kahiltna Glacier. Our guys clearly trained hard and the long hours on the stairmaster paid dividends today hauling massive loads. We rolled into camp around 4:30 which made for a leisurely afternoon getting situated and taking in the amazing views. After a hot dinner of tortellini alfredo, we all crawled into the tents and are currently waiting for the bitter cold to set in once the sun dips behind Kahiltna Dome.

That’s all for now, we’ll check in again tomorrow!

RMI Guide Billy Nugent

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Mt. McKinley:  Nugent & Team “Walking the Pigs”

Posted by: Billy Nugent, Kel Rossiter, Levi Kepsel | May 19, 2013
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Mount McKinley
Elevation: 7,600'

“Pigs” is the term of endearment climbers use to describe any heavy load on a climb.  On Denali our “pigs” are our sleds, and today we took them for their first walk.  The team woke to a bluebird day—welcome after the days of gray—learned about packing, strapping, and roping up our sleds, and then took them out on the trail from Basecamp to 7,600’.  Day one of “walking the pigs” can often be a porcine rodeo with lots of grappling and twisting going on, but this crew made it look more like walking poodles at the Westchester Dog Show.  We’re now at the base of Ski Hill, firing the skillet with fajitas, enjoying the stunning scenery up the Northeast Fork of the Kahiltna, and getting ready for tomorrow’s push into steeper terrain—this crew is ready for it.

RMI Guide Kel Rossiter

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Mt. McKinley: Nugent & Team Fly on to the Kahiltna Glacier!

Posted by: Billy Nugent, Kel Rossiter, Levi Kepsel | May 19, 2013
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Mount McKinley
Elevation: 7,300'

Hey everybody, checking in from the Southeast Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier where we are settled into Basecamp after a day of exciting weather. We woke this morning in Talkeetna to a couple inches of new snow on the ground and thought it was going to be another day of waiting around for flyable weather. But when I checked in with K2 at 8:00 they said it was actually clear at Basecamp and that as soon as the snow showers in town stopped we’d potentially be on our way.

Well, the clouds broke around noon and our intrepid crew loaded up onto a pair of otters and headed for the Alaska Range. Clouds enroute nearly forced us to turn around but our pilots were able to make it happen and delivered us safely to the Southeast Fork. Some unfortunate planes were forced to turn around after the runway shutdown because of a bank of clouds that rolled in soon after our arrival. These folks eventually made it in later on in the evening when everything cleared up. The views here are breathtaking, if a little humbling.

Wish us luck as we head out on the route first thing tomorrow!

RMI Guide Billy Nugent

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Mt. McKinley: Nugent & Team Have Another Day in Talkeetna

Posted by: Billy Nugent, Kel Rossiter, Levi Kepsel | May 18, 2013
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Mount McKinley
Elevation: 346'

Woke up this morning to snow on the ground and sleet falling from the sky.  It turns out that this doesn’t make for the safest bush flights or glacier landings so we spent another day hanging out in Talkeetna.  We ate a lot of food, hung out some, practiced crevasse rescue, hung out some more, and some of us even drank a couple beers. Tomorrow is calling for more of the same but with a chance of partial clearing later in the day.  We have our fingers crossed…

More to come as our expedition gets off the ground,

RMI Guide Billy Nugent

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Mt. McKinley: Billy Nugent & Team Waiting Out the Storm in Talkeetna

Posted by: Billy Nugent, Kel Rossiter, Levi Kepsel | May 17, 2013
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Mount McKinley
Elevation: 346'

Update 10:34 am PST
Billy called from Talkeetna to give us an update:  It is snowing in Talkeetna and the team will not be flying today.

Update from 5/16/13 at 11:00 pm PST
Checking in from a rainy Talkeetna… We woke up early this morning and headed over to the hangar after a quick breakfast at the Roadhouse hoping to finish up our last odds and ends and fly on to the glacier. While we were weighing the last of our luggage for the flight, the K2 staff told us the bad news: snowing at basecamp, flat light, and a low cloud ceiling. Translation: no go for us. So we hung out most of the day today eating food and worrying about what we forgot to pack while the rain gradually built up all day. Unfortunately, it’s not looking good for tomorrow either so we may have to organize a pingpong tournament in the hangar. Despite the crummy weather the team is in good spirits and looking forward to our big adventure. We’ll check in tomorrow, hopefully from Kahiltna Basecamp.

All for now,
RMI Guide Billy Nugent

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Mt. McKinley: Billy Nugent & Team Ready in Talkeetna

Posted by: Billy Nugent, Kel Rossiter, Levi Kepsel | May 16, 2013
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Mount McKinley

Hi all, today kicked off the official start of the second RMI Denali expedition of the 2013 season!  We spent the day dealing with the more unsavory and tedious parts of mountain climbing in our preparation for tomorrow’s flight into the range. Namely, we checked (and re-checked) gear, completed our orientation and permitting process with the NPS, and packed up and weighed all of our food and equipment for loading the planes.  We enjoyed a team dinner on what is hopefully our last evening in civilization.  The team is psyched, strong, and maybe a bit nervous but certainly ready to go - we just need the weather to cooperate tomorrow morning so we can get into Basecamp.

we’ll see…

RMI Guide Billy Nugent

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Mt. Rainier: Winter Seminar Training Above Camp Muir

Posted by: J.J. Justman, Casey Grom, Billy Nugent, Ben Liken | March 13, 2013
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Mount Rainier
Elevation: 10,000'

RMI Guide JJ Justman checks in from Camp Muir with a video and photos of their day of training.

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Aconcagua: Nugent & Team Celebrating Back in Mendoza

Posted by: Billy Nugent, Garrett Stevens, Mike King | February 18, 2013
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Aconcagua

Hey All!

Checking in one last time here from Mendoza where our intrepid crew has just checked in at our hotel, dusty and stinking from 15 days on the trail. After our rough awakening at Camp Cólera and rallying “lights and sirens” style to save our camp we had a relatively uneventful walk down to Basecamp where we were greeted by the great staff at Grajales. Then there was yesterday’s walk from Basecamp to Pampa de Leñas which is normally a bone-crusher, this time it was all gravy after our battle up at Cólera. The herrieros (mule drivers) at Pampa de Leñas treated us to a delicious asado that was mostly beef tenderloin, salted and grilled over wood coals! The crew was very appreciative after so many days of hard work. After sleeping out under the stars last night, today saw another seven miles of easy walking til we hit the road and loaded up for our shuttle to Mendoza. We are certainly tired but, again, very psyched on our accomplishment and intend to spend the next several days enjoying Argentine cuisine and wine. The gang is even going to head out on a group winery tour in a couple days since we’re kinda stuck here with our early arrival from the mountain. Lotsa love from way down south, signing off…

RMI Guide Billy Nugent

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Aconcagua: Nugent & Team Safely Back to Basecamp

Posted by: Billy Nugent, Garrett Stevens, Mike King | February 17, 2013
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Aconcagua
Elevation: 13,800'

Hey everyone, Billy calling checking in again. Had a really rough day coming down the mountain yesterday, but everyone made it down in one piece. We got back to High Camp with nice weather and then the weather just kinda gradually turned for the worst through the evening. And by about 5 In the morning, we were fighting about 80 mile an hour gust of winds just battling to keep our camp in one piece. And at first light, around 6:30, we pretty much had to get out of the tents and we’re just battling hurricane force winds and to get everybody’s stuff together and we got everything out of Camp Cholera.  Moved on down to our Camp 2 and reput up tents and cooked breakfast and filled water bottles and recuperated from the hellish evening.  And after that everybody walked on down to Basecamp last night and we enjoyed an awesome steak dinner, courtesy of the great Basecamp staff at Grajales. We are all geared up, everything’s been loaded on mules and we’re now headed for Pampa de Lenas and tonight will be our last night on the trail and tomorrow we are headed to Mendoza.  We’ll check in one more time tomorrow, after we’ve made it safely to the road.  Ciao, ciao.

RMI Guide Billy Nugent

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