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Entries By leon davis

Aconcagua: Beren & Team Relax and Ping Pong in Los Penitentes

Posted by: Jake Beren, Leon Davis, Zeb Blais | December 20, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Aconcagua
Elevation: 9,000'

Hola from a stone’s throw from the Chilean border!  Our team is currently relaxing at our hotel, enjoying coffees and catnaps before dinner.  Our gear is packed and weighed for the mules who will help us out by schlepping our kit all the way to Aconcagua’s Basecamp. Tomorrow we will hit the trail, tagging in after our friends with RMI Team the First (who we stopped on the road to visit on our way here). Time for one last meal without doing our own dishes and an evening in a “real” bed.
    Tomorrow we ride,
        RMI Guide Jake Beren
PS. After a fantastic meal here at the Hotel Ayelen the team discovered the hidden ping pong table. Dios mio man. Turns out the entire team is pretty darn good with a paddle. Let’s call it our first acclimatization cycle.

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Aconcagua: Beren & Team Getting Started in Mendoza

Posted by: Jake Beren, Leon Davis, Zeb Blais | December 19, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Aconcagua

Greetings from Mendoza!  The entire team has arrived with all bags accounted for and after a siesta, team meeting and feast we are ready to head out tomorrow. When we get up we’ll hopefully have a busy day, securing permits and driving to Penitentes to load up our gear for the Mulas and enjoy one last restaurant meal before hitting the trail. Wish us luck for our last bit of off-mountain logistics. It feels great to be one step closer to getting on the hill.

RMI Guide Jake Beren

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Mt. Rainier: September 24th Summit!

Posted by: Leon Davis, Seth Waterfall | September 24, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'

The Four Day Summit Climb September 21 - 24 is our last Summit climb of the 2012 season.  This morning they reached the crater rim of Mt. Rainier just before 8:30 a.m.  RMI Guides Seth Waterfall and Leon Davis reported clear skies above 13,000’ with light winds.  The teams will spend a bit of time on top before starting their descent to Camp Muir.  After a short break to re-pack their gear and re-fuel, they will continue down to Paradise.  We look forward to seeing the teams this afternoon at Rainier BaseCamp.

Congratulation to today’s teams!

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Mt. Rainier: September 5th Summit!

Posted by: Brent Okita, Leon Davis | September 05, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'

The Four Day Summit Climb September 2 - 5 reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning.  RMI Guides Brent Okita and Leon Davis and their teams were approaching the crater rim just after 7:00 a.m.  The teams reported a beautiful day with warm temperatures, clear skies and no winds.  They will spend some time on top enjoying the views before starting their descent to Camp Muir.  After a short stop at Muir they will continue down to Paradise.  We look forward to seeing them at Rainier BaseCamp this afternoon.

Congratulations to today’s teams!

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Mt. Rainier: August 22nd Summit!

Posted by: Dave Hahn, Leon Davis | August 22, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Mount Rainier
Elevation: Summit

Our Four Day Summit Climb Team led by Dave Hahn and our Five Day Summit Climb led by Leon Davis both reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today.  Dave reported great conditions with winds at about 10 - 12 mph from the southwest and the cloud deck at about 7,200’. The teams are going to spend some time on the top enjoying the view before making their way back to Camp Muir.

Congratulations to today’s teams!

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Mt. Rainier: August 18th Summit!

Posted by: J.J. Justman, Leon Davis | August 18, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'

RMI Guides J.J. Justman and Leon Davis led their teams to the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning.  The Four Day Summit Climb teams reported very warm conditions with little to no wind and clear skies.  They were able to spend some time on Columbia Crest before starting their descent.  As of 7:37 am they had descended to the top of Disappointment Cleaver en route to Camp Muir.

Congratulations to today’s teams!

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Mt. McKinley: Okita & Team On Their Way Home

Posted by: Brent Okita, Leon Davis, Lindsay Mann | June 17, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Mount McKinley
Elevation: 358'

We all finally got off the glacier yesterday afternoon as our flight service, K2, did a wonderful job getting everyone out when conditions seemed like they might close in and shut down flights.

After a remarkable twelve days at 17,200’, we are all skinny and inhaled large portions of meat, fish, and beer last night. I write this last dispatch as we are riding to the airport to return home to loved ones, and put this remarkable trip behind us.

Huge kudos go out to a very strong and committed team of climbers, and to two incredible guides, Leon Davis and Lindsay Mann, who worked so hard to make this trip safe and enjoyable, and who were there at the end when the climbing got really tough and the mountain could not have been harsher.

That’s all for this year. I need to see my wife and play with the dog. And I’m sure the lawn needs mowing. Thanks for following us on this unprecedented trip. I’ll be back next year for a shorter, and less exciting expedition.

RMI Guide Brent Okita

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Mt. McKinley: Brent & Team Summit!

Posted by: Brent Okita, Leon Davis, Lindsay Mann | June 14, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Mount McKinley
Elevation: 17,200'

Hi, this is Brent from 17,000’ on Mt. McKinley and I just wanted to report that we did summit here last night and we actually just going to bed right now, [it’s] about 3:30 in the morning. It was a bit of an epic night with some trail breaking and some cold winds but everyone did really well and we are all safe back at camp. So congratulations to the team here, we will be descending down to probably 11,000’ [camp] tomorrow. Alright, talk to you later. Bye bye.

- RMI Guide Brent Okita

On The Map

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Mt. McKinley: Okita & Team - War and Peace

Posted by: Brent Okita, Leon Davis, Lindsay Mann | June 12, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Mount McKinley
Elevation: 17,200'

Held hostage by the fickle nature of the weather for ten (or is it eleven now?) days at 17,200’ my brain is in hardly any shape to draw all the parallels to that epic saga and our own story here. But some stand out:

Ours has become a very long story of the challenges we face when not all elements in our world are in our control. And in our struggle to deal with these challenges, we face a bit of an emotional roller coaster as optimism fades when a new reality asserts itself.

This morning the hope of a nice summit day came crashing down as we received heavy snow and high winds starting in the wee hours of the morning.  Tyler Jones at 14,200’ camp reported over two feet of new snow and 50 mph winds.

So, once again we dug out camp with face protection, heavy gloves or mittens, and ski goggles on before breakfast. It was here that, given what we’ve been through up here, and the reality of just how long a human being can actually live at this altitude and harsh environment, we chose Thursday as our ‘up or down’ day.  But, this still gives us a chance to summit. Tomorrow might not be perfect, but, Thursday has been forecasted to offer ‘light and variable’ winds.

I’m generally an optimist, but at this point even I can succumb to a heaviness in my outlook after having so many of my summit plans thwarted.  But, as we discover in Tolstoy’s classic, sometimes what matters most is not some obvious achievement, but rather a deeper sense of accomplishment or understanding that comes with living life well, and to the fullest.

Let’s hope tomorrow our dispatch will be a bit more succinct. Like just one word.

Love, kisses and heavy thoughts from your team at 17,200’.

RMI Guide Brent Okita

On The Map

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Mt. McKinley: Okita & Team take walk towards summit

Posted by: Brent Okita, Leon Davis, Lindsay Mann | June 10, 2012
Categories: *Expedition Dispatches *Mount McKinley
Elevation: 17,200'

Well, we’re still here at 17,200’, day 7 up here and no summit in sight. In my 22 years of doing this I’ve never stayed here over seven days. I guess there’s a first for everything.
But the team is still strong and committed to tagging the summit despite our little weather delays. And it’s still only day 17 for us, so we’re still well within our time frame for these trip.
This morning was nasty, so we relaxed in our tents until 11:00am and had the brunch that has become all too familiar these days. At that time the wind and snow abated somewhat and I entertained for the first time doing an evening climb of sorts. With a bit of a cloud cap over the summit conditions were not ideal, but we had been having some rather consistent clearing in the afternoon and evenings, and with daylight throughout the evening, late starts are not unheard of.
So, we set out for the summit knowing full well that if we encountered worsening weather we’d simply turn back. The important thing for us was to get in some walking to maintain out strength, acclimatization, and mental health.
The route that we had punched in the day before was gone, so we had to plow through 1-2’ of snow to establish the route. Luckily the snow was quite stable and allowed us to reach almost 18,000’ before I made the tough call to turn back in the face of some increasing winds and certainly not improving conditions.
But, we had reestablished the route and gotten in a little exercise. And everyone had climbed well! We’ll be ready when the weather gods finally allow us to climb.
Back at camp over dinner we discussed just how long we might stay here at 17,200’ waiting for our opportunity. Wednesday seemed like a date that would be reasonable to make our last day here. We have food and fuel to go beyond then, but for those of you wondering when your loved one will be coming back, I would say a few days after that would be reasonable. That being said, we do have some on the team that are willing to stay on beyond then. And for them, I guess I’d have to say that I too would be willing to stick around.
But… Let’s not go there quite yet.

Kristen would like to wish Billy a happy birthday. And Gary would like to send Angela hugs and kisses from 17,200’ camp.

All for now. Thanks for reading our dispatches!

RMI Guides Brent, Leon , Lindsay and the rest of the team

On The Map

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