Entries from Locations
Posted by: Tyler Jones, Robby Young, Brent Okita
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'
RMI Guide Eric Frank calls in from the Mount Baker summit.
Dear Team, I hope that the weather goods are smiling and that you are making steady progress - be safe from head to toe! Feli (Wolf’s wife)
Posted by: felicitas funke-riehle on 7/20/2015 at 3:05 pm
K-nice work !!! Told you that blue skies await you ! Warm up get dry and conquer that summit:-). Then get your butt back stateside !!! Be safe and have a blast. Take care of your stomach bug. M
Posted by: Michael on 7/19/2015 at 3:04 pm
Dear Lori and Dave - So great to see your smiling faces ontop of Mt. Kiliminjaro today!! You made it!! Wow!!
Have a great rest of the trip!!
Love,
Leslie
Posted by: Leslie Busch on 7/19/2015 at 1:36 pm
WOW - great job - so proud of Derick & the whole team!
Posted by: wayne and catherine salkowitz on 7/19/2015 at 12:49 pm
RMI Guide Casey Grom calls from the Kilimanjaro summit!
On The Map
Lori and Dave….So good to see you made it to the top! Love you and been thinking of you often! Have a great trip!
Gosheroo Donna:)
Posted by: Donna Connors on 7/20/2015 at 10:20 am
Woo-Hoo!!!! Congrats Mark and Tom…love the pics…way to go team Grom!
Posted by: Wendy on 7/19/2015 at 7:06 pm
This is a message for Wolf and all the others of the team:
I wish you all the best, stay safe and the whole family is sending its best wishes from Berlin to all of you.
Stay safe and get back healthy, greetings from Germany,
Eva, Reinhard, Justus and Valentin
(nice of Wolf)
Posted by: Eva on 7/19/2015 at 8:35 am
Rumor has it Kara is soaking wet from the cold damp weather. I think you will get some well deserved sun on Sunday/Mondsay. Have a great climb to Moraine Camp and summit that baby on Tuesday will ya?
Posted by: Michael on 7/18/2015 at 9:04 pm
Posted by: Mark Tucker
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Kilimanjaro
RMI Guide Mark Tucker calls in from Kilimanjaro.
Posted by: Win Whittaker, Mike Uchal
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'
Go ALA Team & Congratulations!
Posted by: Sue Newby-House on 7/19/2015 at 8:19 am
Thanks RMI for another great ALA climb! We appreciate your special care and partnership.
Posted by: Joe on 7/18/2015 at 10:02 pm
- My friend, Dave Campbell, and I drove a VW bug up the Alaska Highway, which in those days included 1200 miles of unpaved surface (dirt!). His V-dub gave up the ghost in the Yukon, about 100 miles short of the Alaska border, so we hitch-hiked to Anchorage and took the Alaska Railroad to Talkeetna. Two guys in a pick-up, moving to Alaska after time there in the army, went hundreds of miles out of their way to deliver us to Anchorage. That anybody would pick up two straggly dudes along with 1,000 lbs of backpacks, food and gear, left a most favorable impression with me.
- Later in April, my first day in Talkeetna. It was snowing mightily as I stepped from the train and observed a wedding procession passing by the Fairview Inn on Main St. The bride and groom were mushing a sled dog team to the delight of revelers lining the street. Being a ‘Cheechako’ (tenderfoot/greenhorn/newcomer) I couldn’t help but wonder if the couple planned to honeymoon in a nearby igloo.
- Our 4-man team brought 30 days of food: breakfast, lunch and dinner for four, packed inside two dozen 3-gallon metal containers (to thwart cache-raiding birds). As it turned out, we needed every morsel as we were on the mountain a total of 33 days (and didn’t make the summit; must be some kind of record!)
- We had elected to fly with Don Sheldon’s competitor, Cliff Hudson. Cliff headquartered out of his home; a quonset hut, strewn to the absolute brim with various electronics and innumerable airplane parts (plus, his wife Ollie, and four young sons). There was no Talkeetna State Airport that I remember. Rather, we took off and landed from the ‘village strip’ across the street from the Fairview (a wind sock was strategically placed on the roof).
- Climbers did not pay a Special Use fee, but the NPS required each party to have a radio capable of reaching Talkeetna from Base Camp. It was rented from ABC Communications in Anchorage, and required a $500 deposit (a fortune to us at the time). Cliff Hudson provided the necessary 12-volt car battery and jumper cable to power the radio, as well as a dozen 12’ spruce boughs (which he crammed into the fuselage of his Cessna 180, along with our food cans, group and personal equipment, and finally, us!). The small Cessna’s that pilots preferred in those days meant multiple trips to and from the mountain, transporting climbers.
- Base Camp was approximately 7300’ on the SE Fork of Kahiltna Glacier. We dug a snowcave for leaving the radio, battery, spruce boughs, and misc. personal affects. We marked the roof circumference with willow wands and a 15’ section of PVC pipe (it snows a lot there), adorned with a small flag, to denote the cave entrance. Over three weeks later we returned and located the cache (which required extensive digging to excavate). The spruce boughs were lined up in a row on the glacier surface, and radio antennae wire strung from the cave to each, like a telephone pole in the middle of nowhere. Power was connected to the radio, and we commenced trying to reach Cliff in Talkeetna to inform him we were ready to be picked up. If the radio didn’t work (some years it wouldn’t) our backup was the CB radio (Citizens Band), potentially capable of reaching a passing aircraft. In those days, bush pilots were acutely aware of location and progress of ‘their’ groups on the mountain, in order to guesstimate when pick up from Base Camp would be needed (in case the radio didn’t work).
- In 1972 sleds were not in vogue, and the four of us carried back and forth in between camps to fully stock the next, higher, site. That required as many as three days of stockpiling. In retrospect, we wasted a lot of good weather while low on the route, and experienced unsettled conditions during the time we spent at high camp.
- Underway, we observed three people descend from Kahiltna Pass, early-on in the trip. It turned out their fourth member had been evacuated from 14K with suspected pulmonary edema. These were the last human beings we saw for the better part of the next three weeks, until we were descending the ‘infamous’ fixed line between 15,000’ – 16,000’ (we met a party coming up the rope; worst spot on the whole route to pass!).
- All nine RMI Denali expeditions reached the summit of Mt McKinley (May, June, and July).
- 87% of our 2015 Denali clients reached the summit.
- The vast majority of guides and climbers jet to Alaska and ride a shuttle to Talkeetna.
- K2 Aviation’s fleet of de Havilland Beavers and Otters can transport an entire team to Base Camp in a single flight.
- Satellite phones and daily dispatches of expedition progress take the guess work out of when to pick up climbing parties.
- RMI expeditions averaged 18.4 days roundtrip this season.
- Guides and climbers alike raved about the new Expedition Sleds.
- There were no accidents or injuries requiring evacuation or hospitalization on any RMI Denali expeditions this season. _____
Joe Horiskey began guiding for RMI Expeditions in 1968 at the age of seventeen. Since that 1972 expedition, Joe has participated in 23 Mt. McKinley expeditions and has 235 summits of Mt. Rainier along with expeditions to peaks across the globe. Joe is a co-owner of RMI Expeditions and director of our Mt. McKinley expeditions. Have a question or thinking about climbing Mt. McKinley? Call our office and talk to Joe; he loves to talk all things Alaska!
Well joe , I have a dvd copy of our climb of Denali, less the sound track
But just throw on some moody blues
While watching. Tim really did a outstanding job producing this 30
Some minutes of our historic climb.
You can reach me anytime @
360 746 - 5867
Old climbing buddy Dave C
Posted by: Dave Campbell on 8/19/2022 at 12:12 am
Wow Joe ! What awsome surprise to stumble apon
Your story of back in the early days” very very enjoyable & congratulTions on your recollection on the details that long ago” I too remember it well. Sure be great to talk sometime or g-mail me anytime”
Your old climbing buddy
Dave Campbell
Ph (360) 961-7641
Posted by: Dave Campbell on 12/22/2015 at 8:39 pm
Way to go Bud!
Love,
Mom and Dad
Posted by: Tracy Avalos on 7/20/2015 at 10:28 am
So happy and proud of you Jim!
Love you,
Shellie
Posted by: Shellie on 7/20/2015 at 8:19 am
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