The Four day Summit Climb led by RMI Guide Billy Nugent reached the summit of Mt. Rainier along with climbing teams led by RMI Guides Leon Davis and Lindsay Mann. All teams were descending from the crater rim as of 7:50 am PST this morning. The teams will return to Camp Muir for a short time and then continue down to Paradise.
Congratulations to today's Summit Climb Teams!
This morning we woke up early had breakfast, packed and then waited. We experienced some logistical snafus in communications with our donkey drivers and horse handlers, but only a minor hiccup. We started hiking down valley and in a couple hours came across our animals. While the donkeys continued on to base camp to collect our duffle bags we mounted our horses and began riding down valley. It turns out our team of expert climbers are also amazing rodeo cowboys. We all laughed and hollered riding our horses we named Mr Ed, Alpa- caballo, EFrank, Stumbles, and Chuck.
We arrived to Cashapampa, the trail head, a couple hours before our donkeys and found a beautiful shady porch to rest on and enjoyed a couple cervezas. A three hour van ride had us back to our hotel in Huaraz where we quickly showered and are currently enjoying a delicious dinner.
Thanks for following along on our incredible trip.
We'll see you all soon,
RMI Guide Geoff Schellens
Glad to hear that you have your heads back out of the clouds and that you found your “asses”!!!! Enjoy your last hours celebrating your success and good times in Peru , before your journey back to reality!
Thank you Geoff, for another successful climb!!!
I love you John!!!!!
Posted by: Patty Stenderup on 8/2/2015 at 10:24 pm
The Four Day Summit Climb teams led by RMI Guides Win Whittaker and Elias de Andres Martos reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning. Win reported hazy skies and a light wind. The teams are on their descent from the summit en route to Camp Muir. Once at Camp Muir the climbers will repack their gear and continue their descent to Paradise. Today's climbers have spent the last several months raising money for The American Lung Association in Washington's Climb for Clean Air.
Congratulations to the climbers for their efforts of fundraising, training and climbing!
We all slept very well after our successful summit climb yesterday and didn't get up until 8:30 this morning. After casual breakfast and coffee we slowly packed camp all the while looking up at the astounding route we had just climbed. It was impossible to ignore to smiles and feeling of accomplishment throughout the group. Eventually, by about 11:30 we hoisted heavy packs again and began our descent to Base Camp. Late in the afternoon we arrived to popcorn, chips and guacamole, and black corn juice (very tasty). We shuffled gear around a bit and then sat down for dinner and Peruvian wine! Truly a celebration.
Tomorrow we will finish packing duffel bags for the mules and choose our horses for our ride back to Cashapampa and then on to Huaraz. Though our trip here is almost over everyone is already talking about the next adventure.
Thanks for staying with us throughout this incredible trip.
RMI Guide Geoff Schellens and the Alpamayo Team
Everyone, congratulations and enjoy the trip down. Please take pics of the farmboy on the horse. John, I hope your horse is nicer than your dad’s pony Tony. Love Tante
Posted by: Lisa Stenderup on 8/2/2015 at 2:37 pm
Glad to hear you all are safe and enjoyed your expedition. We cant wait to see you home!!! Love Angela, Liana, Avery, Bella and Buster Brown.
Hello again everyone!
It started as a beautiful day here on Kilimanjaro but once again the clouds enveloped us as we left Karanga Camp and made our way uphill to our high camp, Barafu Camp. This camp sits on a ridge line around 15,000 ft which eventually leads to the summit of Kilimanjaro. It's a relatively large camp spread up and down the ridge and we are sharing it with all the other climbers using this route; I'd guess that there are ~100 other climbers here with us.
Everyone is doing very well and we are excited to start our climb early in the morning. The team will have a early dinner and if all goes according to plan we hope to have breakfast and be hitting the trail shortly after midnight. We'll have a nice slow pace that should take us around 8 hours to reach the summit. So keep your phones handy as I said, one lucky climber will get to call home from the "Roof of Africa." That will be around midnight for those of you on the east coast.
Fingers crossed!
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
Hi Giulia - so you´ve reached the top of Africa - well done - hope you get a wonderful view up there & a good celebration & rest before the descent. Great to get your PC- Look forward to seeing a Photo of you all up there. Take care - love Tessa
RMI Guides Dave Hahn and Solveig Waterfall led their Four Day Summit Climb teams to the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning. Dave reported perfect weather on the summit - clear, calm, and sunny. The teams began their descent to Camp Muir just after 7:30 am. They will continue their descent to Paradise this afternoon.
Congratulations climbers!
Peter….Wow! Congrats to you for such an accomplishment! We are proud of you…hope to toast to you sometime soon.
Posted by: zoppetti - fischbachs on 8/1/2015 at 1:48 pm
Jeff, we are sure the sights make all the training worthwhile. Hayden was sure she saw you on the mountain last night when we viewed it from the Wallmart Parking Lot and Indi recognized your green eyes in the photo.
Summit day.
This morning we got up a little after midnight to a starry calm night. We ate breakfast and put the final touches on our packing and just before two o'clock in the morning we marched out of camp. Within 40 minutes we encountered steep snow slopes and began pitching it out. We slowly worked our way up our route climbing close to 2,000 feet of beautiful ice and snow. The whole team did a fantastic job today. We reached the summit of Alpamayo just before 8:00 AM. Tired as we were, everyone stayed focused for our decent and we walked back into camp tired but extremely happy. We will begin our descent to Base Camp tomorrow.
Thanks so much for following along on our climb. It has truly been an honor to climb such a beautiful peak with such a great group.
RMI Guide Geoff Schellens
Congratulations to the team! Well done! It seems as if we crossed paths just yesterday. Happy trails out.
Posted by: Wolf Riehle on 8/1/2015 at 7:11 pm
Excitement and “Vivas” !!!
Congrats and pat on the back for each of you… GREAT JOB!!
A huge hug from your family, Jesse
Mom, Dad, Virgie, Evencio Jr, and Zelda
<3 you!
Jambo Everyone
Things are going well and the team is doing great here on Kilimanjaro.
Today the team had a leisurely start as we wanted the sun to warm us up before our only semi-technical part of the climb. The trail out of camp starts off relatively mellow and then quickly ramps up as we ascend the great Barranco wall. It's truthfully not as intimidating as it looks, but when does a thousand foot cliff ever look easy. Thankfully the route winds its way up the cliff through ramps and small rock steps and eventually on to easier terrain. Everyone did a great job of taking it easy and I actually think they all enjoyed the challenge we had. It was a very busy day and there was fair bit of traffic on the route as all the porters and climbers slowly made our way to the next camp here above the Karanga Valley.
Today was a relatively short day for us as this will be our last camp before we move up to our high camp tomorrow.
As usual we've had a trivia challenge that one lucky winner will receive a satellite phone call from the summit. It won't happen until we reach the summit, but that's not too far away. I'll let everyone know when that might happen on tomorrow's dispatch. So stay tuned!
We are spending the remainder of the day relaxing and enjoying the royal treatment by our gracious staff here on Kili.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
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♠️J♠️ Mt Rainer another of your accomplishment…. See you soon
Posted by: Karmen on 8/8/2015 at 9:31 am
Congratulations to Frank Harris and the entire team on your successful climb today!! All your hard work has paid off!!
Posted by: A. Harris on 8/4/2015 at 8:07 am
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