Entries from Locations

Tuesday, May 27, 2025 - 9:53 pm PT

Once upon a time in a land far far away,

7  Denali climbers were sleeping dreaming of the next day. 

Before sun had risen they awoke to a rattle,

loud stoves were a burning, breakfast before the next battle.

They packed and readied getting out of warm beds,

The climbers excited for the next challenge ahead.

Folks started with cold toes up the steep mountain side,

But quickly warmed as legs churned and turned their tide.

Up the fixed lines to the climbers next cache,

They reached the spot, oh boy what a dash?!

Back down they went making truly great time.

Home for ramen dinner while the sun did still shine.

Now back in their tents, the days sure do fly by,

Dreams of the summit with hopes set sky high!

Farewell for now as guides need sleep too,

The team will check back tomorrow with updates for you!

RMI Guide Jackson Breen

The Five-Day Climb led by RMI Guides Casey Grom, Tatum Whatford, and Brooks Ordway-Smith reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today at 12:50 p.m. Taking advantage of calm winds and clear skies, the team successfully ascended to Columbia Crest at 14,410 feet. They spent about an hour on the summit soaking in the views before beginning their descent.

The team is now safely back at Camp Muir, where they will spend one more night before continuing their descent to Paradise in the morning. Congratulations to all climbers on a fantastic summit day!

May 23–28 Expedition Skills Seminar – Emmons: Summit Success!
The Emmons Seminar team, led by RMI Guide Sam Hoffman, successfully reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today via the Emmons Glacier route. Over the past several days, the team has been hard at work training and refining their mountaineering skills.

Early this morning, they made an alpine start from Camp Schurman and reached the crater rim around 8:15 AM. After enjoying their time on the summit, the team will descend back to Camp Schurman, where they will spend the night. Tomorrow, they’ll make their final descent to the trailhead and return to Rainier BaseCamp by late afternoon.

Congratulations to the entire Emmons team on a strong and successful climb!

Tuesday, May 27, 2025 - 12:10 am PT

After a big day yesterday and sleeping at 17,000' still, we slept in to get what recovery we could. It was a cold morning, but we eventually roused, downed some breakfast, and got all of our things in packs and headed down. It’s been a funny day of environments. Weather at 17,000 was frigid and clear this morning. Passing through 14,000' Camp felt like we were at the beach, and we said Hi, Good luck, and See ya to our friends with RMI Guide Seth Burns and team.

Moving below 14,000' across the Polo Field, everything was white, muffled, and there was ~24” of new snow on the ground and it was snowing hard. We are now at 11,000' Camp, pausing to sleep and enjoy the warm and oxygen rich climes. It’s not at all how they felt on the ascent! Tomorrow, we’ll pack things one more time, and walk out the Kahiltna Glacier to base camp. We’re excited and ready.

RMI Guides Pete, Nick, Ben, and team

Tuesday, May 27, 2025 - 12:02 am PT

Day 10 of eating our way across Denali brought to you by RMIGuides.com…as we all lay in our tents in the frigid cold morning air, waiting with bated breath for the verdict go/no go for the day, are we going for a stroll up to 17,000' Camp or will we chill at camp for another day waiting for our perfect window and eating as many snacks as humanly possible? The more important thing we were all waiting to hear is “breakfast in 5”. Because snacks are definitely not enough calories obviously for this group.  These words drive us all to struggle out of our cozy sleeping bags, and put on our puffy pants and jackets, hats and boots as quickly as possible to see what delicious 5 star Yelp meal awaits us to start our day…this morning, they had me at “bacon”.  This word is special to me as I live with the most incredible vegetarian on the planet, my spouse Dr. Lauralynn Jansen, who is an amazing cook and human being, but there is no way in hell she is ever cooking bacon in our kitchen. Gotta get it when I can! Love ya babe!  We stagger out of our tents making our way to the warm cook tent like we haven’t eaten in days and get settled shoulder to shoulder and all check in on each other and on our sleep for that night, sipping a hot drink as we wait for our gourmet bagels and BACON!!

Jason apparently got a full 7 hours and was bragging just a bit. Said he was amped to get the acclimatization hike and summit attempt all knocked out today and call it good.  He may need to lay off the moxy a bit or the rest of us need to get on board and step up our game! I think the rest of us were not necessarily on the same page….as far as my sleep, the outstanding loaner inflatable mat allowed me about a good solid 15 minutes of comfort as it proceeded to slide right out from under me like it was greased up with Crisco prior to me using it.  I relished that precious 15 minutes however.  I’ll take the short stints of comfort when I can get it. 

After breakfast we decided to take a walk around the camp to stretch out the legs and do some meet and greet with other climbers which ended up being bartering for toilet paper and kielbasas (shocker) as we certainly need to make sure we do not run out of food or TP at this stage of the game. That kielbasa could potentially save our lives for sure in the long run and you know, that TP speaks for itself.  We also had a nice visit with the Park Rangers and we made our way back to camp to some yoga, stretching, pushups, 7-min abs, and some squats to get the blood pumping. Oh how I miss going for a run, but this will do for now as the energy expenditure and effort is about to go up exponentially in the next few days much to our chagrin. Welcome to the reality of why we are here. 

Some home renovations also took place today for our three musketeers tent that needed some leveling work for sure. Team effort, supervised by Task Master Juan (much less critical than previous Project Manager Ethan for sure) provided a much needed leveling upgrade to our snow flooring which will hopefully keep me from unintentionally violating tent space as I roll off my mat. We were also super pumped to see our RMI Team come in from their summit that gave us hope for our team and the effort it will take to reach the top.

Meanwhile, the cook tent was transformed into Casino Royale with Ocean’s 15 blowing up (minus Brad Pitt and George Clooney- sorry guys) as Farkle die were flying and high stakes betting was taking place for Snickers, gorp, sausage, Oreos and other high value items that we certainly don’t have enough of already.  If memory serves me correctly, Senior Juan put the smackdown on the other players and holds bragging rights until the next game fired up.  In addition, Christmas came early as Seth showed up later in the day with an additional inflatable mat for us to use so we will be living large in Musketeer Central.  A special thanks to Grace for burning the incense as it’s getting a bit ripe in these parts let’s be honest and it was lovely to the smell…We have really enjoyed this down time to enjoy each other’s company and continue to rest, hydrate and of course eat… speaking of eating, we hear the hot water brewing as our Master Chef Seth once again prepare the evening meal of Jambalaya and Oreo Cheesecake deliciousness. Shut the front door!  Thank you again to our fearless leaders Seth, Jackson and Ray.  Especially for taking care of my feet. I continue to embrace and appreciate each and every moment of this journey and look forward to what tomorrow brings to this team. 

Thanks for all of your support! It is greatly appreciated!

-RMI Climber Shannon

Monnday, May 26, 2025 - 8:09 am PT

Mt. McKinley Summit!

It was a splitter morning, so we prepped for a big day and left at 10:15 with sun on camp and the Autobahn in the shade. For that reason we were wearing pretty much everything we had. There had been maybe one other guided team above 17,000' this year, and not much traffic overall, so the infamous Autobahn needed quite a bit of foot scuffing and picket hammering as we passed. It made for tough work, but we were across to Denali Pass. Light wind and clouds that were in and out were the rest of the day, and at 6:15 AK time, we walked onto the summit. It’s always emotional reaching a big goal, and we took it in before turning our attention downhill. Moving down under the late Alaskan light we made good time and were back at camp at 10:15. A late dinner, recovery, and sleep are in store.

Tomorrow we’ll start the descent to the airstrip, which is always incredible in its speed.

RMI Guide Pete, Nick, Ben, and a very happy and tired team.

Sunday, May 25, 2025 - 10:16 pm PT

We continue to hang at 14,000' Camp, acclimatizing, resting, going on small walks to stretch our achy legs, and working on the skills that we will need to ascend the higher reaches of the mountain. After a leisurely morning, our guides had us practice using our ascenders, clipping in and out of anchors, clipping in and out of anchors, and descending the fixed lines using the trusty arm wrap. We repeated until Seth was confident that we could perform these drills with cold hands.

As the pace of life has slowed during this phase of the expedition and we have many (many) hours in the tent with our own thoughts, I’ve curated my top 5 life hacks from the top of North America:

      1. Say goodbye to dish detergent and sponge - fresh powdery snow makes a great all-natural scrub for cleaning your single bowl, mug, and spork. Just step outside, grab a handful of nature’s Dawn, and get to work! Please be sure you select a patch of snow that is indeed white.

       2. Alternatively, forget the dish washing routine altogether and embrace the complex layerings of flavor that can only be experienced when you brew tea in the same mug as last night’s corn soup, or slurp Cinnamon Toast Crunch with undertones of Madras Lentils.

      3. Worried that your sticky-fingers roommate will take your last slice of leftover pizza, or a sneaky coworker will swipe your oat milk creamer AGAIN? Here’s what you gotta do: wrap your precious perishables in a trash bag and bury it deep in the snow! Your goodies will stay cold and fresh, and hidden from greedy scavengers. Just budget a good 20 minutes to dig it up when you need it.

      4. Too lazy to take dry clean only items in for a proper cleaning? Just set dingy laundry like sleeping bags and boot liners out in the sun to sanitize. At least, we think it’s working - our noses have become desensitized to our collective eau de parfum naturel.

        5. Lastly, to all my nocturnal urinators: A pee bottle is the greatest luxury you can add to your life. Not only does the pee bottle save you a trip outside the tent in the middle of a cold night, but you can then tuck it in your sleeping bag as a sort of cozy hot water bottle. Just make sure it has a spill-proof lid. 

In all seriousness, we love and miss you all back home! Sending so much love to ma and pa in Vancouver, David in NYC, Grammie and Granddad and family in Nova Scotia, all the fam in Toronto and Boston, and our supportive friends in Seattle!

A special shout out to our youngest reader, Gene, burgeoning outdoorsperson and super rad human! Say hi to your mom for me!

Love,

RMI Climber Grace

Monday, May 26, 2025 - 12:07 am PT

Summit success for the Mt. McKinley May 8th Expedition!  Yesterday Pete Van Deventer and team reached the highest point in North America.  Pete checked in when the team had safely returned to 17,000' Camp.  More details will be coming soon (we hope).

Congratulations team!

Sunday, May 25, 2025 - 9:48 am PT

We are all set up at 14,000 Camp acclimating and waiting for our weather window.  After a breakfast of bagels and bacon we went and picked up our cache at Windy Corner.  The next few days look to hold plenty of rest as we expect some weather to move in.

RMI Guide Seth Burns
 

Saturday, May 24, 2025 - 9:03 pm PT

We made the big move and started the final push. Things looked good this morning so we got things running early, packed all the necessities for going up high, and walked out in the shade. Soon the sun was on us, and cold became very hot. We made good progress up the fixed lines, across the West Buttress and into 17,000' Camp. We’ve got camp built, stoves are roaring towards dinner, and we’ll wake up and see what tomorrow brings.

Best,
RMI Guides Pete, Nick, Ben, and team