Greetings from Pampa de Leñas! Our team enjoyed one last night in a bed and awoke this morning to beautiful sunny skies. Seemingly, a great day to begin our long journey. The team thus far has been exceptionally well organized and we were able to enjoy a relatively stress free morning putting the finishing touches on our packing and stashing a bunch of city clothes in the Grajales packing facility. We caught a quick ride over to the trailhead at Punta de Vacas and after checking in with the guardaparques began our journey. Relatively calm winds and scorching temperatures in the nineties caught us all a little off guard and forced us to stop frequently and soak our clothes in the river to cool off! Even after a complete soaking, our shirts were dried off completely in ten minutes! Well, despite the heat we persevered and even made good time into our first camp.
More info to come as our expedition develops,
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
RMI's Expedition Skill Seminar - Winter is a go! And the first thing we are doing is the 1st principal of Leave No Trace...plan and prepare. Adam Knoff and I are busy with the team organizing and packing gear, practicing knots and hitches, and teaching various self rescue techniques all in the comfort of RMI BaseCamp in Ashford.
We have a decent forecast and our hope is to make a big push up to Camp Muir tomorrow. Will we summit? How high will we get in the frigid snows of Rainier? Stay tuned to find out.
One thing is for sure, we will be having fun while going through advanced training for big mountain climbing.
RMI Guide JJ Justman
Tim and Frank, my super-charged awesome inspirations: come home safe and happy and with lots of good pics. Can’t wait to hear all of your fun stories and see your smiling faces. We are all so proud, and love and miss you guys tons. HIGH FIVE!!! XXOO
We are all back at the tents after a beautiful summit day on Aconcagua! The weather was even better than forecasted, with no wind, clear skies, and warm temps. This let us leave a bit later, just as the sun was rising, and we enjoyed its warmth for the whole day. I personally have never had better conditions on the summit than today: just a light fleece, no gloves, and a vista that stretched for hundreds of miles in all directions. Congratulations to the team for a huge effort, and standing on the roof of South America. The guides would like to thank the whole team for such a successful and fun trip. Tomorrow we descend back to base camp, and get ready for the trek out and a return to Mendoza.
Cheers
RMI Guides Pete, Leon, Mike, and the climbers
Today gave us a chance to check out our rain skills.... We spent our time hiking to the Refugio de Horizontes on the Illinizas was great and somewhat dry. The weather was all over the place with showers and sun on a repeat cycle. But luckily the skies parted when we reached the hut and we were able to dry any wet layers and enjoy some time at 15 and a half thousand feet. A leisurely cruise back to the trail head, and it was off to the Chilcabamba Eco Lodge for the night. We arrived at the lodge in a lightning storm and checked into pre-heated rooms and settled in for hearty meal and a good night's rest. Tomorrow we ride higher and take our perch at the Jose Ribas on Cotopaxi. Wish us luck and good weather for the next few days.
RMI Guide Jake Beren
RMI Guide Jake Beren checks in from the Cotopaxi Express Expedition.
Hey All,
This is Pete Van Deventer, we are calling in from the summit of Aconcagua, top of South America, top of the Americas and highest peak outside of the Himalaya. We had a beautiful day coming up here almost dead calm, sunny and warm. We have had a wonderful day. Everybody is psyched. We summitted about 2 o'clock Mendoza time. We are going to spend another 15 minutes or so up here. And then we are going to book it back to the tents and get down into some fatter air. So, everybody here says hi to everybody back home and sends our best. We'll see everybody soon.
RMI Guide Pete Van Deventer
RMI Guide Pete Van Deventer checks in from the summit of Aconcagua.
A hearty hello to everyone out there following along as RMI's February 1st Aconcagua Expedition gets started. Most of the team trickled in to Mendoza yesterday afternoon and hit the ground running despite being weary from long stretches of airline travel. We held a team meeting followed by a fantastic dinner at one of the local restaurants. I can assure you that large quantities of beef and wine were consumed as we made our last efforts to pack on a couple pounds before heading onto the mountain. The guides packed group gear late into the night and after a brief nap we rose early to finish up our permitting process and run a few last minute errands. We're headed for Penitentes this afternoon where we'll finalize our packing and help ready the mule loads before spending one last night in a bed for a long time. Busy busy!
More to share as our program continues... Stay with us!
RMI Guides Billy Nugent, Garrett Stevens and the rest of the gang.
The team is safe and sound after our successful summit of Kilimanjaro - and a little tired at 10,000'. Everyone did great and we are ready for a little sleep after 15 hours of climbing. It's been a wonderful experience the last six days and we are all looking forward to the icing on the cake - safari and more importantly SHOWERS!
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
RMI Guide Casey Grom checks in from the summit of Kilimanjaro.
Buenas Noches from Quito!
Today was a great day by all accounts. We hit the trail early today, catching a ride to the teleferico for the first can up the mountain. A quick ride and we were perched well above Quito, looking down from 13,500 feet above the sea. As we readied ourselves for our hike, Cotopaxi even graced us with an appearance. Solid start to a day.
Walking towards Rucu Pinchincha we spent a few hours ascending to 15,500 feet. The team did a fantastic job today, brushing up on some skills and generally impressing Ben and I. A great day of acclimatizing is never complete without a cup of coffee for the ride down to town, so we obliged happily.
After an afternoon rest it was dinner time and we enjoyed our best meal so far, carbo loading like champs in fine style and waddling home to rest up for our trip to the Illinizas tomorrow. Off to a great start over here.
RMI Guides Jake Beren & Ben Liken
We made the big trek to Camp 3 today! It's not actually that far, about three hours of walking, but there aren't too many O's at 19,000 feet, and we had a pretty decent wind gusting at us from all directions. Needless to say, we are happy to be in our tents in camp, and pumped for the summit push tomorrow morning. We'll see how much sleep we can get in the thin air up here first, and hopefully we'll give a call from the summit tomorrow afternoon.
Cheers,
RMI Guides Pete Van Deventer, Leon Davis, Mike King, and gang
We're at high camp!
It was another beautiful morning and the team made good time to our high camp which sits just over 15,000'. We are currently sitting in our hot tents awaiting lunch. Then we'll have a summit talk to make sure we are all prepared for tomorrow. Everyone is feeling well and looking forward to tonight's climb. We'll be up early and try to be walking just after 1:00 a.m. If all things go according to plan, then we should reach the summit sometime after 7:00 and hopefully before 9:00 in the morning.
We had a trivia challenge that will allow the winner a one minute call from the summit. So, if you live in Texas and your significant other has uttered "my bad baby" then keep your phone handy. And remember Texas is 9 hours behind.
That's all for now. We'll try to call from the top.
Wish us luck!
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
Watching your posts; watching the clock. Hopefully you have reached the summit by now. Congratulations to the entire crew on a fantastic achievement! Love you, Dan Man.
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Woohoo!! Conquer that mountain guys! <3
Posted by: Roz on 2/5/2013 at 8:01 pm
Tim and Frank, my super-charged awesome inspirations: come home safe and happy and with lots of good pics. Can’t wait to hear all of your fun stories and see your smiling faces. We are all so proud, and love and miss you guys tons. HIGH FIVE!!! XXOO
Posted by: Dusty on 2/5/2013 at 6:22 pm
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