Greetings from Quito!
Early this morning (or rather late last night), our team set off to try to climb Cotopaxi. When we woke there was a little precip, but we knew we could handle it and continued with our preparations to go see what we could do. Breaking trail through the new snow for hours this morning did little to slow down this team and we found ourselves high on the mountain before the sun had risen. At around 18,400 feet above the sea, crossing a reactive windslab above a gaping crevasse stopped us in our tracks, too risky to chance a crossing and our high point today. The team impressed me with their dedication to safety and a good time in the mountains over standing on a summit and Cotopaxi rewarded our judgment with a break in the storm to take in the sights of this beautiful mountain. Crossing crevasses, down climbing ice steps and navigating seracs in the early morning light was a real treat and we appreciated these features of the route even more as the weather rolled in for our last few moments before returning to the hut. A short nap and then down to the bus in the snow, so much for life in the tropics. It has been a real treat to share these climbs with such a good team, thanks everybody.
RMI Guide Jake Beren
The February Mexican Volcanoes trip has officially wrapped up. This morning we all woke up out of our coma-like slumber and enjoyed our last meal together in Mexico. After a shirt and sweet wrap up celebration we hopped back in our trusty van for the three-hour drive back to Mexico City. We all said our final goodbyes curb side. It's been a a great trip with tons of excitement but now it's time to head home. Here's a photo from the summit of el Pico de Orizaba yesterday.
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
As planned we were up early and started climbing just before 1 a.m. The weather was clear, calm and not too chilly. Surprisingly we were one of the last groups out of camp this morning and thankfully had little traffic issues on the ascent. The weather stayed nice all morning and it was just a little breezy on top. After a long 8 hours of climbing uphill we had the entire group on the summit of Kilimanjaro. We only spent about 20 minutes on top before heading back to high camp. Where we spent about an hour eating, drinking, and getting things packed up and have all safely descended down to our last camp of the climb.
Tomorrow is hot showers and clean clothes, then we're off to safari!
RMI Guide Casey Grom
Hello, this is Jake Beren in Ecuador calling in for the RMI team down here. We had a fantastic day yesterday just resting and recouping after a pretty big week so far here in Ecuador. And this morning we're going to head up to the hut on Cotopaxi. And with any luck, tonight we will be making our bid for the summit. So wish us luck and keep sending those good weather vibes down here and I will check in tomorrow.
RMI Guide Jake Beren
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
Orizaba summit! After yesterday I didn't know what to think. We had driven through a forest fire on the way to the mountain and the forecast was for a snow storm to move in during our planned summit bid. Things were getting interesting to say the least. But as it turned out our luck was impeccable. The forecasted storm actually did roll in, as a low level drizzle that put down the small fire whilst we climbed to the summit in perfectly clear conditions. We had a long and tough day for sure but everyone gave it their all. It was a great final climb on what's been a fantastic trip.
RMI Guides Seth Waterfall & Solveig Waterfall
Hey this is Seth calling from el Pico de Orizaba, third tallest peak in North America and tallest in Mexico. We had a long but beautiful climb, great weather and we are hanging out in great conditions on the summit. We'll check in again when we get back to Piedra Grande. That's it. That's all.
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall calls from the el Pico de Orizaba summit!
congratulations to the climbing team and their guides on the climbing and summiting of the two mountains in Mexico. I sure wish I was a few years younger as I would have enjoyed those climbs also. Cant wait to see the pictures and hear the stories about your trip.
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 have just finished our 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 the goal is to be walking at 1 a.m. If all things go according to plan, then we should reach the summit sometime around 8 in the morning.
We had another trivia challenge that will allow the winner a one minute call from the summit. So, if you live in Texas and your nick name is "ZuZu" 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
Hello, this is Jake calling in from Ecuador. Just to let everybody know that after our successful climb of Cayambe today, we have made it safely, soundly and well fed back to Chilcabamba where we will be spending tonight and tomorrow resting to get ready for Cotopaxi. All's well after a big day and we're looking forward to a little bit of R&R.
RMI Guide Jake Beren
RMI Guide Jake Beren checks in from Chilcabamba Eco Lodge.
Well, we're at the hut on Orizaba getting ready to climb tonight. It was an interesting drive up here, for sure. It's been very dry here recently and some forest fires have sprung up down low on the mountain. Normally this wouldn't worry me too much but one of the fires is within a mile of our access road. There are firefighters working in the area and our local logistics company is on top of the situation so at this point it's just a minor concern. One thing that's looking good is that there seems to be a weather system building which would help the fire situation out a ton. The downside of that is it will make climbing more difficult if we are faced with a storm.
So that's basically our situation... there's a few things that are out of our control, so we're just doing what we can to give ourselves the best shot at the summit. We're prepping to go up but not at the risk of climbing in a dangerous storm or getting stranded at the hut. We'll be making the safest call, of course. I'll call back early tomorrow and update everyone on our status.
Wish us luck, we could use it!
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall & Team
.JPG)
Brilliant decision, team and leaders: L’chaim!
Posted by: nsb on 2/19/2013 at 5:41 am
Hurray! Great job, everyone!
Posted by: Caroline on 2/18/2013 at 1:22 pm
View All Comments