Entries from Expedition Dispatches
Posted by: Dave Hahn, Mike King, Zeb Blais
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mt. McKinley
Elevation: 14,200'
Thursday, July 11, 2013
We couldn't have asked for a much nicer day, but we'd have loved to have used it differently. It was clear and sunny from start to finish at 14,200' ft, just as we'd hoped it might be to settle the slopes above us. But I'm sure every climber on the team would rather have used such sparkling and fine weather to climb, rather than for waiting to climb. It was a bit of a tough day for the team as we had two climbers descend with Mike King, bound for base and Talkeetna. Their problems, a head-cold and a sore foot, were relatively minor, but 14,200' is not the best place for such issues to resolve and we had a golden chance to team Mike up with a descending team led by guides we know and trust. But we are sorry to not finish the entire climb together. It has been a great team. We can't say for sure that we ourselves won't be headed down in a day or two, but we cling to a slim chance for getting to the summit. Zeb and I went on a short recon mission on the suspect slopes and found things better than we'd expected. Good enough that we will make an attempt on 17 camp in the morning if the weather cooperates. We are still getting reports from those at 17,000' that the route to Denali Pass (18,300 ft) is presumed to be avalanche prone and impassable at present, but we'll just try to solve one set of problems at a time.
The National Park Service rangers at 14,000' used the fine day to remove their seasonal base. A B3 helicopter flew laps for several hours to get the gear and personnel down. Camp -and the mountain in general- is getting very quiet as we near the end of the climbing season.
Best Regards
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
On The Map
Posted by: Mark Tucker
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Elbrus Southside
It is tough to leave the Baksan Valley, what a gorgeous range of mountains. After another wholesome breakfast we loaded up the van and made the three-hour drive to Mineralnye Vody. Once there we said good bye to Jonny, our local guide, who shared the adventure on the mountain with us. He will be going back up the mountain very soon and we wish him all the best.
We arrived in St. Petersburg with all our bags and a van ready to take us to the center of town. We are all pretty good at packing and unpacking,so a quick stop at the hotel and we were off to start exploring this city of so many sights. After another very nice meal, we enjoyed wandering around the neighborhood. Since we are so far north, at this time of year we had a beautiful sunset over St. Isaac's Cathedral at around 10 PM. This is a town surrounded by water with many canals running through it. There were many people taking boat rides late into the night. Tomorrow we will explore some of the historical sights topped off with an evening canal boat ride.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
Posted by: Pete Van Deventer, Geoff Schellens, Robby Young
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mt. McKinley
Wow! The close to expeditions happen so quickly. After spending two weeks working our way into position, and then waiting for our summit window, the descent flew by. After a day of waiting for winds to die to leave 17k, we left camp in much more moderate winds, but with moderate snowfall added to the mix. The group did a great job of working down the exposed sections of the West Buttress and down the fixed lines to 14k. We ran into Dave Hahn's group there, and traded stories while sorting and organizing our cache, and then continued on our way down to 11k for the evening. Once again the weather moved in, and we arrived at 11k with a chilly wind and snowfall. We set a hasty camp, dug our cache, and ate a hot dinner, before heading to bed. With snow in the forecast for the next day, and hoping to have some visibility, we opted to wake in the dawn hours of morning. The day turned out to be perfectly clear and calm, and we walked out under warming conditions, arriving at Basecamp just in time to see five K2 airplanes land to take out 24 climbers that had been waiting to leave for several days. We were next in line, but spent the day on standby, as K2 launched plane after plane to come get us, only to have to turn around due to clouds and obscured visibility in the passes that allow access to the Alaska Range. Finally, at 8 pm, we got word that the last flight for that evening had turned around and that we would spend another night on the glacier. We set a hasty camp, and cooked up a big dinner out of all of the tasty looking ingredients we could pull from our remaining meals. The next morning dawned clear, calm, and warm, but again, clouds hung in the passes, preventing planes from making it to us, until later in the afternoon. Finally, we had planes on the runway, but the pilots hurried us along, saying it wasn't going to last, and sure enough, as we headed out, pass after pass had shutdown with big white banks of clouds. As we rounded the corner of the Pica Glacier towards Pica Pass, we say the hole we needed and scooted through, with gray rock and white glaciers giving way suddenly to bright green forest and bog lands. Landing in Talkeetna is always a shock to the senses, as smells of grass, trees, pavement, jet fuel, and everything else come flooding in. We stepped off of the planes Tuesday evening to a warm, bright, scented scene, excited to be off the glacier, and gratitude to K2 for trying so hard to get us off.
This trip brought together seven climbers who previously had never met to attempt and test themselves on the tallest peak in North America. The group did an amazing job quickly coalescing into a very functional team. We moved over the mountain efficiently (critical for the weather we would see in the second half of the trip), set camp quickly and solidly, and everyone supported everyone else. It was a pleasure for the three of us guides to work with the group, and their dedication showed as the conditions became more challenging, and everyone persevered despite.
Thanks for tuning in and watching our adventure progress. Until next time,
RMI Guides Pete Van Deventer, Geoff Schellens, Robby Young, and team signing out!
Hello again from Russia!
We woke to clear skies and cool temps which made for nearly perfect hiking conditions on Mt. Elbrus. After a wonderful breakfast of porridge and mini pancakes prepared by our friendly Russian cook, we set out on another acclimatization hike. The team did great and reached an altitude of just over 15,000' in a little under 4 hours. On our descent the clouds came in and almost like clockwork began sprinkling on us right as we pulled back into camp. Lucky us!
We had another delicious lunch and some of us played a little cribbage, while others retired for a nice siesta.
Everyone is in good spirits and looking forward to having a rest day before our upcoming climb.
RMI Guide Casey and crew
On The Map
Casey, I’d recognize that jacket anywhere. Larry, the beard is looking great. Hope you are having a blast. Missing you and all the gang. Looks chilly there. It’s 98 degrees in the shade in Houston. Enjoy.
Posted by: Cindy Calder on 7/12/2013 at 7:43 am
Hey Casey and Larry!!!! You guys look great!!! We will be following y’all all the way to the top.
Posted by: Holley Harris and Cindy Calder on 7/11/2013 at 8:47 pm
RMI Guide Brent Okita led the Four Day Summit Climb teams to the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning. Brent radioed from the summit shortly after 7 am as the teams were crossing the crater. They reported cold temperatures with moderate winds and clear skies. The teams began their descent from the crater rim around 7:40 am. They will return to Camp Muir for a short break and then continue down to Paradise later this afternoon.
Congratulations to today's climbers!
Great job all of youo for achieving your goal!
Posted by: Don Haase on 7/13/2013 at 6:35 pm
Tom & Molly, you take my breath away! What an adventure! What an accomplishment!
Can’t wait to hear all about it! I am so proud of you & love you more than you will ever know! Your sister Colleen—in Portland
Posted by: Colleen Keenan D'Arcy on 7/11/2013 at 10:25 am
Posted by: JJ Justman
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Elbrus Southside
Hello everyone from Team Texas in Russia! St Petersburg to be exact. Look... I'm going to be honest with you, we don't want to make you jealous. However, ending the trip in St Pete's is indescribable. So! To give you a tiny idea of how spectacular it is here, take a look at our slide show of today's events.
And don't go to far. I will have another slideshow of our canal tour later tonight. Stop dreaming and come to Russia!
RMI Guide JJ Justman
Hi Scott,
With all that snow you’re getting, I bet you’d be happy to see a little sunshine. It’s nice and warm down here in the Chicago area. Wish we could send some sunshine & warmth your way.
Hope you’re able to get some good photos of the climb between the snowfalls. Can’t wait to see them.
As far as the home front goes, Summit’s doing good although Mom’s a wreck, but what do you expect! As you know, I’m the one that has to suffer through all this, so I hope you appeciate what I’m going through.
Anyways, take care and look forward to your return. Best wishes also to your fellow climbers.
Dad
Posted by: Wayne Adaska on 7/11/2013 at 9:41 am
Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Last night's snow shower turned into the "heavy fall of snow" that we've been promised on a daily basis by our forecasts these last ten days. It snowed, it snowed and then it snowed some more here at 14,200 ft. We estimated that it was coming down at a rate of 3 inches per hour. Zeb got out at three to rally a shovel brigade in retaking the camp from the tent-bending powder deluge. We could hear great avalanches roaring repeatedly down the steep and icy flanks of the West Buttress. It didn't ease until around nine in the morning, by which point we figured about 24 inches had fallen overnight. Needless to say, today was not a climbing day for us. The wind was still pulling huge streamers of snow off the route we'd hoped to trace along the crest of the Buttress. And the slopes leading to the ridge were now all suspect in terms of snow stability. So much snow falling so quickly doesn't give the stuff a chance to settle. One of the ways it settles on a mountainside is to avalanche. There was plenty of visual evidence (when the clouds parted for a minute here and there) that a number of avalanches had already occurred on the route to the fixed ropes, but there were also still vast stretches of undisturbed deep new snow. We needed a hot and sunny day to glue things in place and to make it all safe again. But you can't always get what you need. Our day was mostly cloudy with light snow showers. Zebulon gave a great lesson in basic snow science, demonstrating how to identify weak layers in the snow pack, how to compare the hardness of those layers, and in how to conduct a "compression test" on an isolated column of snow in a study pit. Our climbers then dug their own pits and made their own observations as a way of understanding our challenge in these next few days. We need to figure out the level of hazard that exists on the slopes above us without exposing ourselves to that very hazard. And we don't have much time to do it in. We only have a couple more days of food available. Our greater cache of food is now the one sitting above the suspect slopes... In perfect position for our summit bid, but out of our reach until we determine that the avalanche hazard has diminished. Lots to figure out on Denali. We aren't alone though. The other teams, mostly at 17 camp have similar dilemmas What we all need, first and foremost, is a break from continued bad weather. As is normal, we need a little good luck. Despite the challenges, the team is still in good spirits. Today, we went over the blog comments together. We can't surf the web with our setup, but the RMI office was kind enough to cut and paste the comments into an email for us. Thanks, from the entire team, for keeping us in your thoughts.
Best Regards
Dave Hahn
On The Map
nice pic! brrrrrr!
Posted by: michelle on 7/12/2013 at 3:10 pm
Happy Birthday Mike! Here with Abby at the bakery wanting to make you a cake! Stay safe…enjoy the summit cuz ya know its up there!
Wendy
Posted by: Wendy on 7/12/2013 at 8:03 am
Posted by: JJ Justman
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Elbrus Southside
Hello RMI family! It is Team Texas from Russia. Today we flew to St. Petersburg and we are enjoying this amazing city! We are celebrating our safe and successful trip on Elbrus. And believe me, everyone deserves to rest, relax and enjoy the good life that only sea level altitude provides!
Stay tuned for tomorrow's video dispatch of St. Pete's!!!
RMI Guide JJ Justman
The team checked in from the Baksan Valley today. They are taking a well-deserved rest day after their successful summit climb of Mt. Elbrus yesterday. We hope they enjoy their time in Cheget shopping and site-seeing.
They will spend their final night in Cheget this evening. Tomorrow they will transfer to Mineralnye Vody and take a flight to St. Petersburg, the final stop on their tour of Russia and one of the highlights of the trip.
On The Map
.jpg)
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Not too much to report on our scheduled rest day at 14,200' on Mt. McKinley. It was calm and sunny, despite the persistent storm forecasts, but it did seem to be getting progressively more cloudy as the day went on and it started snowing at a good clip while we ate dinner in our cozy POSH tent. The team did an excellent job of taking it easy today. We caught up on hydration and sleep, rested sore muscles and dried out boots and socks. We pared down the personal gadgetry and entertainment systems for the hard move up to 17,200' and tried to figure out any clothing or gear that would not be useful up above.
The number of teams around or above us has been steadily diminishing and as is normal for this point in July, the National Park Service climbing rangers have been packing up their seasonal station at 14 and getting loads ready for helicoptering. It has been fun visiting with the other teams, but it is also quite enjoyable to have the mountain in its natural state -quiet and uncrowded.
If it doesn't snow too much tonight and we get a decent shot tomorrow, we'll move to high camp.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
On The Map
Scott’s family - We have closely been following your climb. Praying all of you have a wonderful, successful, and safe climb and summit.
Posted by: Michelle Adaska on 7/11/2013 at 7:07 am
Tell macca (Sean) that we miss him, especially Archie. Go hard haradinko!
Posted by: Gem and Luke on 7/11/2013 at 5:05 am
-640x480.jpg)
-640x480.jpg)
take great care! good luck!
Posted by: michelle on 7/12/2013 at 3:16 pm
Good luck and be safe.
Rachael
ABQ Uptown 985 NM/CO
Posted by: Rachael C. Lujan on 7/12/2013 at 9:59 am
View All Comments