Entries from Expedition Dispatches
Greetings from
Chopicalqui High camp! What a day... This mountain is no joke: five 60-degree pitches at 20'000ft, no visibility for the upper half of the mountain on ascent, and no visibility on the entire descent! But we did it! We reached the summit of Chopicalqui! The team needed to put up a fight and they did. Everyone stood on top shortly after 8:00 AM on a seven hour uphill strenuous push. We rolled into our sleeping bags after an early dinner that our porters had ready upon arrival. Tomorrow we're looking forward to town and well earned rest.
RMI Guide ElÃas de Andres Martos and team
Hello Everyone!
Things are well here in Russia! Most of the team arrived in
Moscow yesterday evening after some very long flights and are still adjusting to the massive time change, so we kept things simple with a little round of introductions before stepping out for a short walk and a nice dinner not too far from the hotel.
Today we started with a visit to Lenin’s Tomb, which takes a bit of time as there are thousands of other tourists visiting. We then met up with our kind, local tour guide Victoria, who gave us a wonderful tour of the nearby Red Square, the Kremlin, and several churches including the iconic St. Basil's Cathedral. The team also visited the famous Moscow metro, which moves millions of Moscovites daily. It’s incredibly efficient, with 228 stops, many of which are elaborately decorated.
After our tour we took a short break and then headed out once again for an amazing dinner and a nice walk. Everyone is doing great and looking forward to heading to the mountains tomorrow.
RMI Guide
Casey Grom and team
RMI Guide
Solveig Waterfall and the SheJumps
Four Day Climb stood on the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning. Solveig reported windy conditions and a busy route. Once at the rim of the summit crater, the team crossed over to Columbia Crest, the highest point on Mt. Rainier. The team is descending back to Camp Muir and will return to Ashford later this afternoon.
Congratulations SheJumps climbers!
After a few delayed flights and minor complications, all members of the Mongolia climbing team have arrived and are getting settled here in Ulaanbataar, Mongolia.
We are all a bit jet-lagged but this morning after a quick breakfast meeting, we struck out to see the sights and sounds of city. The Sukhbaatar Square, the National History Museum, first Buddhist temple and Russian Friendship Monument filled our morning. After a quick pit stop for lunch, we journeyed outside of the city to witness the
Nadaam festival.
Nadaam is the Mongolian celebration of their three main sports: wrestling, archery, and horsemanship. We were treated to front row seats for all three competitions. After the archery competition, they even invited us to try pulling the bows and shooting a few arrows. Suffice to say, they make it look a lot easier then it was for us.
A traditional Mongolian dinner rounded out the day and we are in bed early to prepare for morning flight to Olgii on the other side of the country.
RMI Guide
Eric Frank
We made it to the top of Europe this morning! The weather forecast turned out to be horribly wrong, but in our favor. What was supposed to be a pretty marginal day turned into one of the best weather days we’ve seen this whole trip. After we hit the top of
Mt. Elbrus, we boogied back down to camp, packed up our things, and moved back down into town. We’ll have our celebration dinner down here tonight, after some well earned showers. Everyone sends their best!
RMI Guide
JM Gorum
On The Map
Hello from high camp on Chopicalqui! We're perched up here at 17,716' (5400m) after an early start this morning. The early start allowed us to arrive at
high camp with enough time so we can give our bodies the rest they need before our summit push tonight. We're currently making dinner and we're shooting to be in bed way before sunset. The weather has changed a bit on us, but we how to have a good window for tonight. Keep your fingers crossed for an update from the summit!
RMI Guide
Elias de Andres Martos and team
Well, we had our fill of pizza, thick air, and dance remixes of American top 40 pop songs. We’re back on the mountain now, preparing for our summit attempt tonight. We just enjoyed dinner and a movie, chicken and couscous while watching a Russian overdubbed version of Twilight. The weather is better than it was last time we were here, but I wouldn’t say it’s remarkable. We can’t control what the weather does, but we can give it our best and see what happens.
Wish us luck tonight, and we’ll check in tomorrow!
RMI Guide JM Gorum & Team
The
Four Day Summit Climb teams led by RMI Guides Tyler Jones and Ben Ammon reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning. Tyler reported chilly temperatures with winds of 25 mph. The team will spend some time celebrating on the summit before starting their descent.
Congratulations to today's team!
Good afternoon from Chopicalqui Camp 1. We waved goodbye to our cook and base camp infrastructure this morning, and with the help of our invaluable porters, we ventured uphill. Four hours of straight climbing brought us to 16,075'. Now we are perched on an incredible terrace with a view of what will be our route the next couple of days. Chopicalqui sure is a more intimidating peak but we're bringing our A game in anticipation of
Huascaran. We're keeping our fingers crossed for good weather as we venture above the 20,000' mark here soon.
Stay tuned for more!
RMI Guide
Elias de Andres Martos and team
Last night a large electrical storm passed over
Mt. Elbrus. It brought hail, strong winds, and shaking thunder. We woke up this morning to find a few inches of fresh snow at our doorstep and a lack of electricity flowing through our local power grid. After our standard 8:00 AM breakfast, the winds and snow picked up considerably until it became unpleasant to venture beyond the impenetrable comfort of our repurposed shipping container homes. The forecast for tomorrow showed no improvement in weather.
We decided that instead of sitting in the wind and snow doing nothing for two days, we would ride the lift back down to town, eat pizza, and sleep in real beds. That’s precisely what we did, and it has been nothing but enjoyable. We’ll spend the tonight in Cheget, and tomorrow afternoon we’ll ride the lift back up to camp in preparation for our summit attempt on Sunday.
RMI Guide
JM Gorum
On The Map
So proud of you guys! Great job!
Posted by: Terry Wisler on 7/15/2019 at 2:07 pm
Yay! Congrats Kim and team!!!
Posted by: Ally on 7/15/2019 at 12:40 pm
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