RMI Expeditions Blog

All agreed that it was a beautiful day to be walking in the Himalaya.  As expected, it was a little cooler waking up in Thame but the sun came around and made everything cheerful and warm.  We walked north toward Tibet for about six hours along a charging, churning, frothing glacial river.  We finally got high enough to see real live yaks and marveled at the labor that had gone into their stone corals and pens.  It was a day spent above tree line and the morning sun was intense.  That gave way to dramatic clouds by afternoon.  They only seemed to exaggerate the height and steepness of the peaks towering on all sides.  Our own path today was just a steady and gradual gain to 14,300 ft.  Relatively easy walking compared to yesterday’s ups and downs.  The snowline from the recent cyclone that hit Nepal is just a few hundred feet above us now. 

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Another day, another high, beautiful valley.  We came up from Namche to Thame, passing about 500 waterfalls and getting first views of another dozen 22,000 foot mountains. 
It was a pleasure to walk out of Namche in the opposite direction of most tourists and trekkers. We’ve been alongside wonderful people, but today it was just great to be by ourselves on the path less traveled.  We got our last chance (for a while at least) to walk in the shade of trees as we passed through lush pine forests.  We crossed another high cable bridge over the angriest of rivers just before reaching Thame.  It took about five hours, with a nice stop for tea, but then we rolled in to Paradise -our tea house at 12,600 ft.  The walls of this valley are the kind that hurt your neck to look at… but they are pretty good for the soul. 

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

We called it a rest day, but there wasn’t much rest. It was the perfect morning for acclimatizing though, and so we hiked to the top of town for a grand view of Mt Everest and Lhotse and Ama Dablam, to say nothing of Tawoche and Thamserku and Kwangde.  We went a bit higher to around 12,600 ft for tea in a relaxing yard in the strong sunshine.  Then it was down to Namche to rest.  But still nobody actually rested.  It was too much fun strolling the “streets” of Namche and shopping. 

Tomorrow it is back to work, we’ll be moving on.

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

With excitement to return to the comforts of our homes and the companionship of our loved ones back home, we leave this expedition behind. Our final day in Tanzania began at an eco lodge, where we were greeted by watching the sun rise in bed and listening to the birds chirp through the walls of our tents. One final game drive yielded an elusive cheetah sighting (which cost me $35 on the spot, a long story about an excellent safari guide) before heading back towards Arusha and eventually the airport.

We have all had some time to reflect along the way, but perhaps the magnitude of it all may set in later. We often had little time to catch our breath, proverbially and perhaps a bit literally. Journaling fell behind and books remain unfinished, a telltale sign of an action-packed adventure. 

This entire group deserves recognition for sticking with it through the challenging times and reaching the summit of Kilimanjaro. It would have been easy enough to let all of the difficulties add up and have thrown in the towel, but nobody did that. Give them a congratulations yourself the next time you see them!

RMI Guide Dustin Wittmier

Seven and a half hours of good walking got us all the way up to Namche Bazaar.  Phakding was a wonderful place to spend the night.   The roar of the river made for perfect “white noise” and team members reported progress in dealing with jet lag. Despite the great night and a fine breakfast we were excited to get walking along the Dhudh Kosi and toward the high country.  The steep steep sides to the valley we were hiking in allowed tantalizing views of 20,000 ft snow covered summits to motivate us.  We crossed into the Sagarmatha National Park and made our way to the fabled Namche Hill.  We’d already done a fair bit of climbing when we crossed a high swinging bridge to set foot on the actual hill.  Then it was a pretty steady gain of 2000 vertical feet to get us into Namche.  We were able to sneak a brief view of the very top of Mt Everest off in the distance at one turn of the trail. 
The entire team did an excellent job on what turned out to be a hot day for climbing.  The comfort we found waiting at Camp de Base -our Namche home for the next two nights- seemed like the perfect reward.

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Now we’re talking!  We made it into the mountains.  It wasn’t easy, the helicopter pilots in Nepal are working overtime these days and so it took longer than anticipated for our three loads of people and gear to get in.  But the weather was nice and the team was patient.  By 1 PM we were all in Lukla at 9300 ft.  After a little lunch we hit the trail.  A benefit of coming in “late” was that we virtually had the trail to ourselves.  We strolled along the ridiculously turbulent rapids of the Dhudh Kosi and ultimately crossed the river on a swinging cable bridge.  The team pulled into the Sunrise Garden Lodge in uptown Phakding just as the sun set.  Day one is in the books. 

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Well, we have come to the last night of our trip, which is to be spent glamping within Tarangire National Park. It was a long day of safarying, but we pushed through the doldrums of a hot afternoon to see three beautiful, male lions and then a leopard right at dusk! Big Five complete; and a huge shoutout to Steve, our excellent safari driver.

Tomorrow a touch more safarying, a bit of shopping and then we're off to the airport to return to the United States of America.

RMI Guide Dustin Wittmier

We managed to assemble our entire trekking team in Kathmandu today.  Ten trekkers and two guides joined forces far from home to begin a new adventure in the Himalaya.  It was a busy day, to be sure.  We met after breakfast to do introductions and to go over strategies and priorities for our trek to Gokyo. Then we embarked on a Kathmandu city tour with a fearless driver and a very knowledgeable city guide, Nraj.  The team was amazed at the seemingly chaotic traffic patterns and the creative electrical circuitry hanging from each pole.  We started with a thorough tour of Bodinath -the largest Buddhist stupa in Kathmandu.  We visited a school of Thanka art and made a circuit (clockwise) of the great central dome.  We then survived a ride to the other side of town to visit the Monkey Temple, to see the critters and the fabulous view of the city from the hilltop perch.  As fascinating as the city is, it was considered important to get back to the Yak and Yeti hotel for packing and prepping for tomorrow’s early departure. We conducted equipment checks and talked over how to pack.  We rested and then got together for a last “big city” dinner.  We hope to fly first thing tomorrow. 

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Apologies for missing a couple days worth of blogs, we have been bumping around in an extended Land Cruiser, completely distracted by looking at animals.

Yesterday, we left the comfort of the Rivertrees Country Inn, which has made a great home base throughout the expedition, and ventured to Lake Manyara National Park. The wildlife being described as sleepy in this park is somewhat laughable to anyone who has never been to East Africa. But either way, it is a good place to get acquainted with “safarying”: figure out the focus in the cameras, know when you need a soda or coffee as a pick me up and just generally understand what it feels like to bump around in a car all day while looking at animals.

At Lake Manyara we were treated to quite a nice show of elephants, these being the African Savannah Elephant, the largest land animal in the world. We even spotted a handful of Masai Giraffe, the tallest land animal in the world. In fact, Tanzania is the land of giants. Today in the Ngorongoro Crater we saw the Kori Bustard, which is possibly the heaviest bird that can fly and we also had an up close encounter with mating Southern Lions and the White Rhino, not to mention plenty of massive Cape Buffalo. In fact, that leaves us just a leopard shy of seeing the Africa’s Big Five safari animals. Maybe tomorrow…

In the morning we will head for Tarangire National Park and spend our last night in Tanzania at a lodge in the bush!

RMI Guide Dustin Wittmier

The whole team reached the summit just before 8am and we are safely back at Barafu Camp, with plans to descend to Mweka this afternoon.

RMI Guide Dustin Wittmier