Most Popular Entries

Climbers heading to Rainier often ask the question, “water bottles or hydration system?” If you look around your local trail, chances are that most runners, hikers, and general recreationists are using a hydration system. Are these systems best suited to mountaineering, however?

In the past, many guides simply asked their climbers not to use hydration systems, but to carry water bottles instead. The belief was that the drawbacks of hydration systems outweighed the benefits. As hydration systems have improved to be less prone to leaking or punctures, this stance has shifted. There still are drawbacks to hydration systems, but given the right conditions, precautions, and expectations, they can be used effectively in mountaineering for a climb such as Rainier.

The main concerns we see with hydration systems are:

• The hoses freeze: During midsummer climbs with high freezing levels, this doesn’t tend to be as much of a problem. On cooler climbs, however, ice buildup in the hose can quickly block any water from getting through. The neoprene hose insulators are not particularly effective, and it doesn’t take much ice buildup to completely block the flow. Blowing the water back through the hose after every drink can help, but still isn’t 100% effective. The best practice is to bring an empty, water bottle (even if only ½ liter capacity) that you can pour the hydration bladder into should it freeze so that you still have access to water.
•  
• Rationing water: Climbers can only carry so much water for a climb before the weight becomes cumbersome. Typically we recommend 2-3 liters of water for a Rainier summit day. This is plenty, but requires climbers to ration it; for example, 2 liters allows a climber 1/3 of a liter of water at each break. If climbers are sipping more consistently from a hydration system, often they lose track of that rationing, and find themselves partway into a climb, with no water left. Diligent attention is the only way to solve this, and this is difficult when you can’t actually see how much water you have left.
•  
• Distractions: Trying to turn a hydration hose on and off and drink from it on the fly distracts from the climbing, the terrain, and the overall situation. When climbers are roped up and climbing, each member of the team is relying on all of the others to remain vigilant to catch a fall and to not cause a fall. A hydration hose is a distraction from this, and the solution is to either keep the hose tucked away inside the pack (where it is inaccessible) in climbing terrain, or for climbers to carefully assess the hazards of the terrain they are in at that moment, and to choose benign stretches to get their hydration.

Hard, plastic water bottles have been the standard in mountaineering for decades and still provide the simplest method of carrying water. They generally do not freeze, it’s easy to see how much you are drinking, and they are away in the pack while climbing. That being said, since they are tucked away in the pack, they are inaccessible and do not allow a climber the opportunity to get a quick sip of water on a long stretch. Hydration systems may have a place in your mountaineering kit, but practice with them, have a plan and know how to minimize the drawbacks. If in doubt, water bottles will still work fine!

_____

Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!

The Expedition Skills Seminar - Muir led by RMI Guides Brent Okita, Hannah Smith and Avery Parrinello reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today.  Brent reported a beautiful day with windy conditions and challenges.  The group has spent the last several days training at Camp Muir.  Tonight will be their final night at the 10,000' camp and they will descend to Paradise tomorrow.  We hope the team enjoyed their time on the mountain.  Congratulations on reaching the summit!

RMI Guides Josh Geiser and Evan Sather joined many guide services last weekend in the first annual Sandy Camp clean-up project. Josh had the following to say about their weekend on Mt. Baker:

"We had a great time representing RMI for the first annual Sandy Camp cleanup on Mount Baker. After a summer of heavy use, it was great to put our Leave No Trace (LNT) principles into practice helping to clean up an area that we all share. It was also nice to see guides from so many other companies coming out to help and make new connections across guide services. In total, we cleaned up 74 used blue bags as well as a bunch of other trash scattered throughout the camp.”

Sandy Camp is an alpine camp used along the Easton glacier route of Mt. Baker, one of the most popular standard routes on Mt. Baker. All recreational activities including climbers are expected to pack out what they pack in and dispose of their waste properly (LNT Principle #3). Leave No Trace (LNT) principles are an important part of recreating, especially in the Mt. Baker National Recreation Area, operated by the USDA Forest Service. This includes all kinds of waste, especially human waste. The Sandy Camp clean-up event spent a lot of the focus on improperly disposed of human waste and toilet paper.

Proper disposal of human waste helps to avoid negative impacts on water sources, minimize the possibility of spreading disease, and maximize the rate of decomposition. As the fragile alpine settings of Mt. Baker and the surrounding trails are becoming more popular, it becomes increasingly important to practice Leave No Trace principles to ensure the long-term sustainability of these beautiful places.

Join us in practicing Leave No Trace principles while recreating! You can learn more about Leave No Trace principles at lnt.org.

RMI Expeditions is excited to be partnering with Uphill Athlete to provide our clientele what we believe to be the best training information and coaching available. We invited Steve House to introduce Uphill Athlete to our blog readers, which is what follows. RMI does not receive any financial compensation from Uphill Athlete, nor vice versa. We simply believe wholeheartedly in the effectiveness of the coaching and information that Uphill Athlete provides. 

Mountaineering Training and Uphill Athlete

By Steve House

“Man discovers himself when he measures himself against an obstacle.” – Antoine de St. Exupery

Mountains are, metaphorically and physically, the obstacles by which we measure ourselves. When you get to the base of the mountain you want to be ready. You want to be safe. You also may want to emerge as a changed person. If you agree with these statements, you are the reason my long-time coach, Scott Johnston, and I write books and a blog dedicated to how to train for mountain climbing.

The gist of what we wanted people to know is this: There is no magic to endurance training. Instead, there are 100 years of history and a well understood intellectual framework behind the theory and application that applies to the full spectrum of endurance sport. 

In 2002 as a professional climber I began training under Scott Johnston. Scott is an accomplished endurance coach with an extensive background as both an alpinist and high-level endurance athlete, During the ensuing years I, alone and with partners, achieved many landmark ascents. The training process transformed me from being merely good, to becoming one of the best in the world.

In 2010 a serious climbing accident cut short my high-level climbing career. Soon thereafter Scott and I decided to undertake a project to educate the climbing public about training for mountain climbing. Three years of work culminated with the 2014 publication of our best-selling book Training for the New Alpinism followed by the 2015 publication of The New Alpinism Training Log, and the 2019 publication of Training for the Uphill Athlete, our book aimed at mountain runners and skiers. 

All training is exercise but not all exercise is training

One important thing to understand is the difference between training and random exercise. Every effective training plan must adhere to these cardinal principles:

• It must be gradually progressive in loading the athlete.
• It must be individualized to the athlete.
• It must modulate the athlete’s training load.
• It must be applied consistently to the athlete.

Training is the structured and systematic application of specific amounts, types, and durations of exercise aimed toward achieving a performance result. It does this by increasing your capacity for physical work in the several realms that make up your event, whatever that is for you. When the time is right you will be able to utilize your hard earned exercise-capacity to its fullest extent and achieve your big mountain goals.

There are a lot of people selling exercise programs as training programs. The hallmark of an exercise plan is random physical activity. There is nothing wrong with an exercise program but don’t be fooled into thinking you are training by using that approach. Which one you choose determines not only your path but also your destination.

Today, our books and our website are the continuation of our mission of openly sharing proven training knowledge for the outdoor sports we love.

If you are ready to have your training transform you and explore your own boundaries, myself, Scott and the coaches at Uphill Athlete will be honored to share our knowledge and help you do the most effective training to meet your big-mountain goals.

_____

You might also be interested in the following articles:

• The Roots of Uphill Athlete by Steve House
• The Roots of Uphill Athlete by Scott Johnston

Comments? Questions? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!

            Black Lives Matter. This isn’t a belief or personal opinion; it is a fact. And here at RMI we feel it is time for us to speak up about it. The last few weeks have been incredibly painful and emotional, but for the Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color (BIPOC) communities in our nation, the last few weeks are representative of daily life – this is just one of the times the rest of us decide to tune in. The murders of George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless others are not isolated events. They are the painful and violent windows into the systemic racism that underlies nearly every part of our lives. It is especially noticeable in the outdoors.

            We have always seen nature, and specifically the mountains, as the ultimate equalizers. The mountains do not care about your race, ethnicity, gender, economic background, sexuality, or disability. If the mountains do not want you to summit, no amount of wealth or privilege will get you to the top. But the mountains, and their equalizing power, come at the end of the approach, and what we often forget is that the approach is much longer for some of us than for others. So many of us take our privilege for granted, the privilege that allows us to simply put on our boots and start climbing. But for millions of Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color, there are countless barriers between them and the mountains. Economic restraints, white-washed media, a lack of outdoor education, subtle racism on trails and in parks, and a plethora of other issues conspire to keep BIPOC out of the outdoors. According to a 2014 national park study,  91% of all national park visitors in the Pacific Northwest are white. This needs to change.

            We have been asked, rightly so, why we have not released a statement clarifying our position sooner. We did not feel it was right to say something without first educating ourselves and understanding the barriers faced by BIPOC in the outdoors. The need for this education can be seen as an indictment of our own complacency over the years. A few weeks is not enough time to call ourselves fully educated on the topic, but we are trying. Here at RMI Expeditions, Whittaker Mountaineering, and Bight Gear we are now in the process of gaining that education with the goal of taking significant actions to reduce barriers and increase representation of BIPOC in the outdoors.

            We want to use our voice and our capital in a more meaningful way than a one-time donation or post, because this issue is endemic.  To design and implement the kind of long-term, high impact program we have in mind, we need time. We will be releasing an action plan in the coming weeks and look forward to your suggestions and ideas, as we still have a lot to learn about our privilege and the ways we can best help our BIPOC outdoor community. And once our action plan is released, we ask that you check in on us and hold us accountable, whether that is in two months, two years, or two decades.

            The mountains have the potential to provide adventure, fulfilment, growth, and wonder to people of all races, ethnicities, genders, and sexualities. It is high time we help BIPOC communities grasp that potential.

Sincerely,

Peter Whittaker

Owner of Bight Gear, RMI Expeditions, and Whittaker Mountaineering

Lost in the noise of the next great exercise fad and short cut to greatness are truths that endurance coaches and athletes have known for about a century, gained through hundreds of thousands of hours of trial and error. An important one for mountaineers to remember is that there is no substitute for aerobic base training, gained through many hours of long, slow work. The aerobic base is the key to being able to maintain activity for hour after hour, climbing stretch upon stretch to the summit and descending safely back down. When the proportion of training is off and an athlete does too much high intensity training and not enough aerobic base training, the result is a condition coined by Dr. Phil Maffetone: Aerobic Deficiency Syndrome or ADS.

How does ADS manifest itself? These athletes may feel that they are at peak fitness. During their hardest workouts, they lift more, move faster, and break their own PRs, because of the focused high intensity work that they have been doing. When they make it to the climb however, they are surprised by how quickly their heart rate rises with a relatively slow pace. A few hours into the climb, they are running out of gas, they feel the lactate building up, and they can’t keep the pace. These athletes have a well trained anaerobic system, but their aerobic system is woefully lacking.

When we don’t train the long slow miles enough, we don’t stress the slow twitch muscle fibers, the backbone of endurance. Slow twitch fibers are responsible for a cascade of physiological events that lead to endurance performance: slow twitch fibers have a remarkable ability to oxidize fat into ATP, leading to energy without the buildup of lactate, and the mitochondria they contain can metabolize the lactate that results from oxidizing glycogen (carbohydrates). Even the leanest amongst us carries hundreds of hours of fuel in our bodies in the form of fat, and have the capability to go for incredibly long distances without fuel, provided that we stay in our aerobic zone. The question, then, is how best to optimize our aerobic system.

To build aerobic base capacity, the important piece is a large distance volume, done at zone 1 and 2. These workouts may not seem exciting, they certainly aren’t sexy, but as you accumulate those miles, the aerobic system's ability to do work increases and the base expands. Elite endurance athletes can build enormous aerobic bases, such that their aerobic threshold (the intensity at which they begin to accumulate lactate and start the countdown clock to a performance decrease) is incredibly high, perhaps only 10 or 15 beats per minute below their lactate threshold. The depth of their aerobic base allows them to do more work, for much longer, at a much higher intensity. It seems to run counter, but for these athletes, their speed comes from their long, slow training, not from intervals.

Including some intensity work helps to round out the training equation and reach maximum performance. With a well established aerobic base, some intensity training helps the body to optimize the systems that remove lactate, which is an endurance athlete's performance limiter. The amount of intensity training needed is generally far less than commonly assumed, however.

Remember that there are two main physiological systems for athletic performance, defined by metabolism: aerobic and anaerobic. Both can be trained, but in peak condition, optimizing one system comes at the expense of the other. For us in the mountains, chasing long summit days and lofty goals, the aerobic system is what we rely on.

_____

ADS, its causes, and its remedies are described well in the book Training for the Uphill Athlete, by Steve House, Scott Johnston, and Kilian Jornet. Also check out these articles from Uphill Athlete, and from the original describer of ADS, Dr. Phil Maffetone.

Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!

RMI Guide Adam Knoff originally wrote this for the training blog a few years ago. As we have all been more or less stuck in our homes, with life looming front and center for many, Adam's message again seemed apropos. 

Today I was surprisingly asked a question that, as far as I can tell, is as old as human curiosity, parental affection and plain ol’ sibling rivalry. This may seem strange because I only have one child, and my somewhat unhinged three wingnut dogs can’t speak and honestly don’t care about the answer as long as they are fed and played with. As you may have guessed, the question so abruptly put on me this morning was: “daddy, who’s your favorite?” Harder to guess was, who asked it? 

Things started normally enough; I made breakfast for my kiddo before packing him up and carting him off to preschool. I fed my dogs and chickens, cleaned the kitchen, and prepared for a day of light recreating before my afternoon duties began. It was when I entered the garage, home to my all important man cave and location of all my beloved fly fishing and climbing gear that things took a bizarre turn. Standing in front of me (I kid you not!) side by side, with puppy dog eyes looking up, stood my 12’6” Echo spey rod and my carbon fiber, oh so beautiful, Cobra ice tools. These sorts of things don’t just happen so I double checked my reality button. Dreaming? No I don’t think so. I have been up for three hours, had my coffee, and still felt the throb in my left big toe where I slammed it into the chest at the side of my bed. Ok, I’m awake. Drugged? No, I quit taking hallucinogens in high school and my wife, I think, genuinely cares about me. Then what? My two favorite activities in life, swinging flies for big trout with my spey rod and ice climbing, which is now doable in Bozeman, Montana, have come to a head. With a few free hours, my fishing rod and ice tools came alive and wanted me to pick favorites. Sheeesh! What’s a guy to do? 

As time stood still, I began to reflect on the week long steelhead fishing trip I took just two weeks prior to the Grand Rhond, Clearwater, and Snake rivers. Ohhh, the joy of that trip made me quiver. It made me want to reach out, grab my spey rod child and declare my love for him. 28 inch ocean run rainbows on the swing, the thrill of the next hook up, not wearing a heavy pack; the reasons almost overwhelmed me. Yes, yes, you will always be my favorite!!! Then I saw my ice tools. Hyalite Canyon is in! I can’t wait for the thrill of running it out on newly formed thin ice over a stubby ice screw, waking up before the sun, and realizing this day was bound to hold everything but the predictable. Ohh, ice tools, you are my favorite, “let’s go climb something!” I think you understand my dilemma. 

Parenting has taught me much in the five years that I’ve been at it. Love, patience and compassion are always at the forefront of dealing with children. Frustrations always arise. Liam spills my wine on the new rug, my spey rod whips bullets at the back of my head leaving welts the size of cheese curds on my scalp, ice tools rip out unexpectedly and send waves of sudden panic through me that make me want to puke. All part of the landscape I guess. So how did I answer the question, “who is your favorite”? Here I leaned on the invaluable lessons gleaned from seven years of blissful marriage. I compromised.

That day I took the ice tools out for their first climb of the season. I packed them up with the rest of my climbing gear all the while psyched I had just promised my fishing rod we would get out tomorrow. It’s a difficult web we weave, balancing work and play. I honestly felt troubled that I had to recreate two days in a row, climbing then fishing, but then again parenting is also about sacrifice. 

As readers of the RMI Blog, most of you are probably cracking a smile but are also curious how this story is relevant to the mission of mountain climbing, training, and/or preparing for an upcoming goal. Here is how I connect the dots: Fishing for me is the yin to my climbing yang. It is a glorious mental escape which allows me to shelve my daily stresses and exist purely in the moment. Everyone needs this periodic meditation to reset and clear the mind. For many, exercise accomplishes the same release but regular exercise does not necessarily constitute “training”. The expectations I put on myself when climbing on my own are very high and the specific training schedule I follow can at times be demanding, painful, and sometimes unpleasant. Here is where we tie in sacrifice. Everyone’s life is managed by time. Somewhere on that big round clock is time you can utilize for yourself. If you have a goal of climbing a mountain, running a marathon, or bench pressing a Ford truck, you need to prioritize and then commit! Finding enjoyment and purpose in life comes when these commitments are made. Being a husband and father keep me grounded. Being a passionate climber and guide keep me psyched and motivated, and the hunt for big fish calms me down. In the big picture I think I have found some balance. Remember it takes the black and the white, the yin and the yang, to complete the circle. The web you weave and balance you seek are your own, but seek it with conviction and purpose and you will be just fine.

_____

Comments? Questions? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!

Expedition leader Lou Whittaker and several members of the 1982 China-Everest Expedition gathered on May 18, 2022, to commemorate the climb’s 40-year anniversary and pay homage to Marty Hoey, our dear friend and fellow RMI guide, who lost her life on the trip. May 18, was Marty’s birthday. Marty’s 90-some years young mom, Mar, was in attendance along with Everest team members Eric Simonson, Dan Boyd, Joe Horiskey, and Jim Wickwire. Marty, 31 at the time of her death, was a tenured RMI guide attempting to become the first American woman to summit Everest. Marty started guiding on Mt Rainier in the early 70’s, and led expeditions to Denali, Aconcagua, and the Fairweather Range in Alaska. A Memorial honoring Marty and 1963 Everest climber Lute Jerstad is located on the Gig Harbor waterfront at the Bogue Viewing Platform, http://www.cityofgigharbor.net/177/Bogue-Viewing-Platform. Others in attendance included Peter and Kerry Whittaker, Lou’s wife Ingrid, Joe’s wife Marjorie, John Kalbrener, Kip Kalbrener, Leslie Kalbrener, LeRoy Kingland, Randy & Kathy Sackett, Tori Withington, Mary Martha, Craig Reininger, and Christopher Lynch. Christopher’s dad Jerry co-founded RMI with Lou Whittaker in 1969.

May 18, 1980, is notorious, of course, for the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. Pete and Joe recalled their learning of the event while tent-bound in a blizzard at 14,000’ on Denali. Unfortunately, it was to be our ‘high point’ on that particular Denali climb.

Of personal significance is that May 18, 1974, RMI guides John Kalbrener, Laury (Ape) Bye, and Joe Horiskey reached the summit of Denali for the first time! 18 days to the summit and 2 days down. Cliff Hudson flew us off the mountain, we jumped into our waiting 1965 Mustang (prepared to drive back down the Al Can Highway), and immediately ran out of gas! Ray Genet saved our bacon, offering a syphon hose and inviting us to take all we wanted!

Our get-together in Gig Harbor yesterday was a memorable and fitting tribute to a special day, May 18.  

RMI Guide and Owner Joe Horiskey