Entries from Locations

The Four Day Climb August 10 - 13 led by RMI Guide Hannah Smith reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning.  The team reported sunny skies with a light breeze and a very nice morning. The teams started their descent from the crater rim around 6:15 am.  Once back at Camp Muir, they will repack and continue their descent to Paradise.

Nice work today team!

Sunday, August 13, 2023 - 7:24 am PT

We had an extremely nice day for going to the top of Africa. Waking at 11 last night it was dead calm and when we unzipped the tents and looked out, the lights of Moshi and a hundred other towns and villages in Tanzania were winking up at us.  The ever-present cloud deck wasn't present. Overhead, the Milky Way dazzled us.  We ate a quick "breakfast" and got climbing by midnight. The cold temps were a challenge, but less so without wind. We marched up through the night, taking quick hourly breaks in the lava, gravel and pumice.  We were at Stella Point on the crater rim when the sun rose at 6:35 and magically it was still calm on the mountaintop.  It was a beautiful walk in the morning light over to Uhuru, the summit of Kilimanjaro.  We celebrated up top and took plenty of pictures. We'd just begun walking down when one of the remaining summit glaciers calved with a thunderous crash into a pool of meltwater. We were stunned by the action, but also by the fact that a sizable pool of unfrozen water existed at 19,000 ft. We slid down the rock scree of our ascent route, reaching high camp just after 10 AM. Our staff sang and danced to give us a memorable and fun welcome. We finished the day with a rugged hike down to Mweka Camp at 10,000 ft, arriving at 3:30 PM under sunny skies. The team is getting set for a final night on the mountain. Our team did well, placing seven of nine climbers on top and crucially nine of nine safely down afterward. Our support team blew our minds with the quality and quantity of help they provided as we pursued our dream summit. 

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Sunday, August 13, 2023 - 1:10 AM PT

A quick check in from RMI Guide Dave Hahn with the photo above to let us know the team reached the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro at 7:15 am local time.  The team has safely descended back to High Camp, Barafu, as of 10:15 am local time.  They will continue their descent to Mweka Camp, their final mountain camp of the trip.

Congratulations team!

RMI guide, Henry Coppolillo, checked in from our camp this afternoon after their 100% successful climb of Mt. Baker. The team will enjoy a beautiful night in the North Cascades before descending back to the trailhead and heading home.

Nice work team!

We are at high camp! 

Barafu -which means ice in Swahili. We got here nice and early, just after 11 AM.  It only took about three hours to gain the two thousand vertical feet from Karanga Camp.  The team came in smiling and all together and excited to finally be here, in place for a summit bid.  The day ended up a little cloudy, with a snowflake or two in the air but that hasn’t bothered us.  Benson treated us to a nice lunch and then we sat down with Naiman -our lead guide- to talk in detail about the summit and how we’ll prepare for it. 

We are resting and organizing this afternoon, getting used to the altitude and catching up on our hydration.  An early dinner is in order -Spaghetti at 5:30- and then we’re going into the tents for a rest.  It will be an Alpine start; we aim to be walking at midnight. 

Wish us a little luck, please. 

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn & Team

The conclusion of a climbing trip is always a bittersweet affair. We're looking forward to getting back home to loved ones, yet we're sad to end a great adventure with some new friends. 

Our last day saw the group split up with Mike and Heidi flying out from an airstrip near our lodge in the park and the Corcorans needing to beat feet for an early flight home. Plenty of animals were seen on this half-day safari, with Mike and Heidi seeing another leopard! Our day rooms at our nice hotel back in Arusha were key for us to be washed and rested for our long flights home. 

As I reflect on this trip from the modern Schiltpol Airport in Amsterdam I'm reminded why we do this stuff. Cool adventures, physical challenges of the type 2 fun variety, and most importantly, climbing (and safari-ing) with a special group of folks that I look forward to doing stuff within the future. 

Thanks for reading these posts. See you in the mountains! 

RMI Guide Brent Okita 

The Five Day Climb led by RMI Guides Dominic Cifelli and Sam Hoffman reached the summit of Mt. Rainier on Friday Morning. The team took advantage of the cooler temperatures which made for good climbing on the route. They spent the night at Camp Muir sharing stories and soaking in their success and all the views. The team will descend to Paradise in the early afternoon today.

Congratulations team! 

This morning at Barranco, the clouds were lapping at the mountain just a hundred feet below us, but it was crystal clear up above.  We were out of camp just after 8 AM and doing battle with the Great Barranco Wall. Climbing through this section requires hands on some careful holds and feet on some well-chosen ledges in the lava.  We cruised it. We pulled over the top of the wall (at 14,000 ft) in about an hour and forty minutes.

Somehow, Benson, our chef, had beaten us to it and had a picnic table set up with refreshments. We lounged about in the sun and took pictures with Kibo’s impressive south face as the backdrop. Then we traveled on, traversing several shallow valleys.

Finally, we dropped down a steep hillside into the Karanga Valley and then up the just-as-steep opposite side of the valley. This climb took us into Karanga Camp where we ate lunch and rested and told each other tall tales for the afternoon.

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn & Team

Land of elephants. Tarangire National Park has one of the largest concentrations of elephants in the world. And we saw plenty, along with most every other animal to be seen on safari. It was a great day of wildlife viewing in a park very different from the Ngorongoro Crater. This park is huge. A vast savanna broken up by a few river systems that provide much need water in this very parched environment.

Eric's big objective was to see a leopard, and our guides Chacha and Jacob didn't let us down. High in a leafy tree, camouflaged so incredibly well, was the cat! How our safari guides can pick these critters out of beyond me. We can only see it with binoculars, but there it is, with part of a carcass it had been feeding on. 

The animal sightings continue regularly as we make our way to our luxury tent camp in the park. We celebrate our final night together with another wonderful dinner and a few glasses of nice South African wine. 

We're off to get in a few more hours of wildlife viewing before having to get back to Arusha where we'll enjoy our day rooms for a few hours before our evening flight home. 

Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky and get into the big cats again on our way out. 

RMI Guide Brent Okita and Team

The team had a fine day of climbing to reach Barranco Camp at 13,100 feet.  When we woke and ate breakfast at Shira Camp this morning, there was a mean looking lenticular cloud on the summit of Kilimanjaro.  It looked like it would have been a very difficult day to summit.  Luckily, we had different plans for the day.  We set out at 8 AM walking toward Kibo (the central peak) and gaining altitude gradually.  Before too long we passed 14,400 ft and shattered the previous high altitude records for everyone on the team.  We cruised right on up to the Lava Tower at 15,200 ft and rolled down the other side to where our amazing chef Benson had prepared a picnic lunch for the team.  By this point the clouds had cleared and we had full views of Kibo’s ice fields and massive cliff faces just above.  We got walking again after lunch and made fine time hiking down into the gardens of Barranco Camp.  At 3 PM we cruised through the last of the Giant Senecios and into our camp.  We switched to relaxing with tea time followed by a nice dinner in our colorful dome tent.  Tomorrow we take on the great Barranco Wall. 

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

The Four Day Climb August 7 - 10 led by RMI Guides Andy Bond & Jess Wedel did not reach the summit today due to gusty winds.  The teams left Camp Muir on their alpine start but turned around at Ingraham Flats due to wind.  The teams returned to Camp Muir and climbed Muir peak to enjoy the sunrise. Photos above are from RMI Guide Calvin Jiricko.

The teams plan to descend from Camp Muir after 9 am today.  We expect them to return to Rainier BaseCamp in the early afternoon.