Entries from Expedition Dispatches

Your first night at 15,000ft, you almost never sleep well. The team slept like babies last night. We woke up for five minutes, went to sleep for 15 minutes, tossed and turned for another five, until it was time to get up. Today is a training day, we’ll walk up to the glacier to review some glacier travel, rope, and crampon skills prepare us for our climb tomorrow. Time to make our summit bid!

RMI Guide Seth Burns

Wednesday, November 2, 2022 - 7:10 pm PT

Today was mostly a travel day. We woke up, ate breakfast, and packed out of the hotel at a leisurely pace and headed to the Otavalo market to enjoy some local wears. This market is bustling on Thursdays and Saturdays, but seeing its Wednesday, we enjoyed a nice, quiet peruse through its pathways. A few food stops and a couple hours of driving later, we're moved into the hut at the base of Cayambe, gearing up to start our climb. Tomorrow we review and practice our glacier travel skills to prepare for our summit bid.

RMI Guide Seth Burns

Today we left the comfort of Quito to start our travels toward the main objective of the trip, Cayambe.

While the trip is originally a Cotopaxi Express the team had to pivot to a new itinerary after Cotopaxi showed too many signs of activity for mountaineering. We're going to trust the scientists on this one and not go take a peek into the crater ourselves.

Today was another day of acclimatization. We climbed the hills outside of Otovalo to summit the second objective of the trip, Fuya Fuya. The weather treated us to cloudy, moody views that kept us the perfect temperature during our climb. While shorter in stature than Rucu Pinchincha it still serves as a great opportunity for acclimatization and sets us up well for Cayambe. Tonight, we enjoy our final night in town.

We ship off to the base of climb tomorrow. Wish us luck!

RMI Guides Dominic Cifelli, Seth Burns and Team

Today was the real first step of the adventure. We woke up early to catch one of the first rides on the gondola and we’re glad we did. The team enjoyed beautiful views of the surrounding volcanoes, Rucu Pichincha itself, and the cityscape of Quito to start our morning up in the hills. The weather out here in Ecuador is notoriously unpredictable though. Shortly after we set out, we were surrounded by clouds and a breeze that chilled us for the remainder of the climb. Still thankful for no rain, we climbed on and reached the summit in style. The best part of the climb? Well of course it was the coffee and donuts that awaited us at the top of the gondola. The Euro-style café there has sprawling views of Quito and coffee that tastes extra good after a hard day’s work. The team is headed back to Quito for our last night here before we head out to our next peak, Fuya Fuya.

RMI Guide Dominic Cifelli

Sunday, October 30, 2022 - 7:08 pm PT

The members of the team arrived safely in Quito with all our luggage. Today, we ventured out into Quito for a city tour.  At an elevation of over 9,000 ft, this was the perfect acclimatization activity for Day 1. The first (and generally favorite) stop on the tour was at the Mitad del Mundo museum, which means "middle of the world". This museum is located on the equatorial line and the tour guides show us some cool demonstrations along with some interesting history of the region. We balanced an egg on a nail, got our passports stamped and went off to tour Old-Town Quito to see the historic churches and buildings the city had to offer. Tomorrow we are looking forward to a warm-up hike on Rucu Pichincha!

RMI Guide Dominic Cifelli

The Fisher Chimneys climb led by RMI Guides Matias Francis and Sam Marjerison had beautiful summit weather yesterday. They reported great route conditions and enjoyed the SE Ridge to the top. The team spent last night on the mountain and will be descending this morning. They expect to be back at the cars in the early afternoon. They will conclude their program with a celebratory meal and wrap up! 

Hey,

This year, the monsoon has not been kind to the climbers on Manaslu. Snow, rain, and more snow have prevented most climbers from going higher than Camp 3 (22,000’). Fortunately, we were able to fit our second rotation in between two storm fronts and have some beneficial days on the mountain. Though our plan for rotation 2 was to cache gear at Camp 4 (24,000’) in preparation for our summit push, we were happy and fortunate to reach Camp 3 in good weather. 

Two long nights were spent sleeping at 21,000’. We saw every hour come, and every hour go. Getting a good night's rest becomes more difficult as you go up the mountain, but it’s all part of the process. We have to let our bodies adjust to the new altitudes we’re asking it to rest at, which often involves climbing higher than we sleep at night. Climbing without supplemental oxygen takes more time and patience than climbing with. The body is highly stressed; it needs more time to acclimate and more time to recover. We’re trusting the process and our bodies as we prepare for the summit push. 

We’re back down at basecamp resting, playing cards, Backgammon and seeing how much caffeine the human body can handle. We’re hopeful for a weather window opening up towards the end of September/early October. The summit awaits. Wish us luck!

RMI Guides Dominic Cifelli,  Dustin Wittmier, and JT Schmitt

The Mt. Shuksan Sulphide Glacier Team led by RMI Guides Joe Hoch and Dan May reached the summit on Thursday, September 22, 2022. The team had great weather, smoke free skies, and a great climbing route. With incoming rain, the team descended a day early to beat the deteriorating forecast.

Congratulations Team!

Hello everyone,

Today we headed to Tarangire National Park known for its abundant animals and plentiful elephants, and it didn’t disappoint. Not sure how many elephants we saw, probably several hundred at the least. It wouldn’t seem like we could get tired of seeing elephants, but there were so many that eventually we had to keep driving so we could see other animals. There were lots of giraffes, impalas, monkeys, ostriches, and many others. One of the highlights was seeing a male Lion up close, only about 30 feet away. He was just relaxing under a big tree with some shade and a nice breeze, hardly seemed to notice us.

We are spending our last night here in Africa at Lolkisale Camp, which has beautiful, tented rooms with screen windows to allow the sounds of the African night in. Everyone is doing great and hoping to see a few more big cats on our way out tomorrow. Then it will be back to our main lodge near Arusha for a quick shower before catching our evening flights home.

Come join us for an adventure sometime!

RMI Guide Casey Grom and the Safari Crew

Hello again everyone,

Today we visited the famous Ngorongoro Crater, one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. The crater is roughly 100 square miles and is home to more than 25,000 animals that reside here year round, as its one of the few places that has natural springs. We started early with hopes of catching a few big cats before the heat of the day sent them in search of shade.

We saw many hyenas, jackles, ostrich, plus countless other huge birds, and even managed to get close to a large pride of lions with very full bellies. There was a Black Rhino spotted not to far off of the road also which was a highlight.

We wrapped up the day with a visit to a Maasai village not far from the crater's rim. The Maasai people are a semi-nomadic tribe that exist almost entirely off of their cattle. The team spent time asking questions and enjoyed being shown around their small and simple village.

We have just finished another wonderful meal here at the plantation lodge and the team is off to bed after a long, but very rewarding day on safari.

RMI Guide Casey Grom and the safari crew