The Four Day Summit Climb led by Nick Hunt reached the summit of Mt. Rainier early this morning. The team had clear skies and light winds. They have started their descent and are en route to Camp Muir.
Congratulations to today's Team!
The Four Day Summit Climb led by Peter Whittaker and Ed Viesturs reached the summit of Mt. Rainier early this morning. Peter reported a smooth route, clear skies and winds of 10 - 15 mph. The team has started their descent and are en route back to Camp Muir.
Congratulations to today's team!
We are in our tents taking a little break before dinner. About two hours ago hail and rain caught us on the tail end of our training day at Ishinca Base Camp.
Before the afternoon storm we took advantage of our incredible venue to learn knots, anchors, rope ascension and rappelling. The huge glacial erratics just outside our camp provided the perfect place to rappel and ascend on overhanging terrain. Just as we were coiling up the ropes to head back to camp, pea sized hail began to pelt us. We retired to our mess tent where we were greeted with hot chocolate and popcorn.
We're heading back there shortly for dinner, hoping it's as good as last night's feast. Hilario our cook ended dinner with one of the best chocolate mousses I've ever had- it's going to be hard to top that!
RMI Guides Zeb Blais, Chase Nelson and team
At daybreak today, we could finally get a look at our spectacular surroundings. The clouds were gone from overhead, and it seemed that the ones under us were miles below. Machame Camp, nestled within the giant heather, seemed a fine place but we were anxious to go higher. We got on the move a little before nine and quickly found ourselves on a steady and steep hill climb. There were plenty of big steps through broken volcanic rock but eventually we crested a ridge and followed that toward the majestic upper slopes of Kili itself. At about 12,500 ft we deviated from the ridge and moved north, traversing toward a new horizon on our left. We crested that at 12,800 ft and caught our first views of the Shira Plateau stretching out to the West. We then dropped a few hundred easy feet to our new home... already built and waiting for us at 12,600 ft. The afternoon was spent resting, eating and drinking. Each time out of the tents we were a little startled by the gigantic views... of Mt. Meru standing at 16,000 ft to our west and of Kili standing at 19,000 ft immediately to our east. We'll head straight toward Kili tomorrow morning.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Sometimes you get thrown a total curveball, which was the case with our Mt. Elbrus expedition today. Apparently there has been a stomach bug simmering in the group, and it reached its boiling point last night. With most of the team suffering and feeling less than 100%, it was an easy decision to stay put and rest and recover today. That ended up lining up well with the forecast, as the next couple of days look better than today or tonight. So with that positive note, we'll get a good night's sleep so that we wake up ready to get back to work.
Best,
RMI Guides Pete Van Deventer, JM Gorum, and team
We woke this morning to sunshine and French toast for breakfast... and coffee of course. Not a bad way to wake up. After our leisurely breakfast we geared up and headed out on another acclimatization hike this time to nearly 15,000'. We were on the trail for around 3 1/2 hours and over the course of the hike the weather gradually deteriorated. We felt a little bit of hail on our way back to camp but nothing terrible. Still, there are signs of the snow forecasted for tonight and tomorrow starting to show up. We won't mind a little weather on our last training/rest day before heading on our summit push Friday. Friday's forecast is looking good so we have our fingers crossed that it won't change. After our hike the gang went down to the cafe at the top of the gondola and hung out a bit... Good times over here in Russia.
Til tomorrow!
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
After a spending a rest and acclimation day at Camp Muir, the Five Day Summit Climb led by RMI Guide Solveig Waterfall reached the summit of Mt. Rainier early this morning. The team had clear skies all the way to the summit.
Congratulations to today's team!
The Four Day Summit Climb led by RMI Guide Tyler Reid reached the summit of Mt. Rainier early this morning. Tyler and team climbed above the clouds today and had clear and sunny skies.
Congratulations to today's team!
Hello, this is the Artesonraju team calling from Moraine Camp, (high camp). Unfortunately we cannot celebrate a summit, but we were short of it today. We had to bail 150 meters prior to the summit, that's roughly 450 feet, given the bad snow and ice conditions that we had on the head wall, but we did put up a fight on a challenging climb. Everybody's doing great here. Looking forward to getting down to basecamp and eventually to Vaqueria tomorrow. So stay tuned for our full report on the trip in a couple days. Hopefully all are doing well at home. Thanks for following. Bye.
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos calls from Moraine Camp.
Welcome down, safe & sound!! Kim, you (and the team) are amazing adventurers! I try to imagine that amount of effort for that many days in that frigid cold and wind, and needless to say, it’s impossible. Great job on all fronts and congratulations on this tough climb!!! XXX Trish
Posted by: Trish on 8/12/2016 at 4:01 pm
Hi Kim , We are very proud of you & the entire team!!! It must have been a very exciting climb! We look forward to hearing all about this expedition & of course seeing the amazing photos!! Travel safe & stay well!! Love, Dad
Ahh how nice it is to finally be settled into a camp in the mountains. The lowlands have treated us well but this is what we came here for! This morning we boarded a bus and said goodbye to Huaraz and began our hike into the Ishinca Valley. Mule assistance kept our packs light and views of the Cordillera Blanca inspired our trek all the way to basecamp.
We built camp in a grassy meadow at 14,300 ft. flanked by our climbing objectives for the coming days. We're enjoying a bit of relaxation and adjusting to our new altitude at camp, before the real training starts tomorrow!
RMI Guides Zeb Blais and Chase Nelson
So exciting! Congratulations to the entire team!
Posted by: Molly G on 8/11/2016 at 3:37 pm
View All Comments