Greetings from Aconcagua's Basecamp!
Started the morning with an early, very cold, stream crossing to head up the Relinchos Valley from Casa de Piedra. Today was the first day with views largely dominated by the mountain, and finally entering the high alpine environment. Strolling into Plaza Argentina Basecamp for the first time is quite an amazing sight, between the camp and the surrounding cirque. The team is getting settled in, and everyone is looking forward to a well-deserved rest day tomorrow!
RMI Guide Chase Nelson
100% on the Cotopaxi summit! Everyone is safe back at the hacienda. Once we are back in Quito, we'll check in again.
Congratulations team!
RMI Guide Casey Grom
Now we feel lucky. It was another perfect day at Vinson. We were out of the tents at high camp by 8 AM and out of camp itself by 10. There wasn't even a hint of wind to distract us from the hard work of descending the fixed ropes with heavy packs. We made it down to low camp, took off the crampons and repacked for hauling sleds. Snow conditions were ideal for walking and there were rumors of aircraft anxiously anticipating our basecamp arrival and so we didn't waste too much time in transit. Arriving at VBC at 3:20, we had to then hurry in yet another gear sorting extravaganza to be ready for flight. The Twin Otter came in, we loaded up and took off into the cloudless sky. Exiting the plane at Union Glacier then seemed like a walk in the park compared to life back in the big mountains. True, it is still a snowy park, and we had to put up tents one more time, but we also got to sit at tables and eat excellent "real" food that we didn't need to start stoves or melt snow to produce. Life is easier at Union. Before the evening was out, all the teams had caught their own flights and the dining tent filled up with happy and successful climbers and adventurers. We are all right on schedule for tomorrow's Ilyushin flight... Should the weather allow it. At the moment, most are figuring it will happen, but most are still pretty excited to be in Antarctica.
Best Regards ,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Hello again everyone.
We've spent the last two days relaxing in Chilcabamba and are finally ready for our next climb. The team packed up this morning and headed closer to Cotopaxi. Our home for the next few hours is another nice hacienda call Tambopaxi, and sits just a short distance from the base of Cotopaxi and will be our launching point for tonight's climb. Our plan is to wake up around 10pm, have a quick breakfast and hopefully be out the door close to 11. Then we'll hop in our bus and drive to the base of the mountain where we'll begin our climb.
Based on how well this group did on Cayambe, I'm guessing it will take us around seven hours to reach the summit if all goes well.
Keep your fingers crossed for us!
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
Hello from Casa de Piedra at 11,000 feet. Team Aconcagua reporting in! The team had another great day trekking now even closer to our objective. As a matter of fact, today we received our first glance of The Stone Sentinel. Another great highlight was seizing several giant jack rabbits during our trek. It is rather windy now in camp so we are going to sign off. Tomorrow base camp here we come!
RMI Guide JJ Justman
Hola from Ecuador!
Things are great here on the equator. We had a fantastic climb on Cayambe in the most amazing weather I've ever had. We started our climb by waking up at 11pm to ensure we had plenty of time for the day ahead. Everyone did a good job of getting ready in our tiny hut that was a little cramped for the 11 of us. Once the team was ready and had plenty of fresh coffee we were out the door at midnight as expected. The weather was clear and calm all night which was perfect, and the team saw dozens of shooting stars and even an amazing lightning storm far off over the Amazon. We made our way steadily up the mountain climbing close together and stopped for short breaks every hour to eat and drink. The sun rose shortly before we climbed the final steep section where we took a little time to snap pictures and put on our sunglasses. We summited just after 6am with the entire team and spent about a half hour enjoying the unbelievable view we had. Not a cloud in the sky and all of the mountains in view, it was spectacular to say the least.
The descent went relatively smooth and before long we were back at the hut tired but very happy. We took a short break then packed up all of our gear and then headed south to the always wonderful food and hospitality of hacienda Chilcabamba. Check it out for yourself.
After some much deserved and needed sleep the team spent the day relaxing around the hacienda. Everyone enjoyed the day watching the endless hummingbirds visit, playing lots of cribbage and a few of us went on a short horseback ride in the countryside.
Everyone is in great spirits and looking forward to another good night of sleep before tomorrow night's upcoming climb.
Buenos noches from Ecuador!
RMI Guide Casey Grom
Hunny, you have this! Listen to your body and be safe. It’s okay to take things a bit slower for extra precaution. I can’t wait to hear how it went on Friday when you get back and am so proud of you! Love you!
Posted by: Liz on 12/17/2014 at 6:13 am
What a great post!!
I hope Dale got on a horse (he’s never ridden one before!) Enjoy Cotopaxi, team!
Erin
We are feeling quite lucky today. It was extremely good weather for going to the top of Mount Vinson. And there was no mystery about it. From the time we got out of the tents at high camp this morning, it was obvious that conditions were stable and that we'd be able to simply concentrate on climbing well. The team did exactly that. We left camp at 9:35 and were on the top at 3:45 PM. In fact, we passed most of the teams that had left before us, although that certainly wasn't our goal. We just wanted to move efficiently in this cold environment. On a day when about 30 climbers were going for the top, it was also quite nice for us to have the summit to ourselves for a time. Gary and Bob had the added significance to the occasion in that Vinson was the seventh continental summit for each. We could see up and down nearly the full length of the 200-mile Ellsworth chain, but our eyes were drawn continually to the sharp and lofty summits just north of Vinson, to Shinn, Tyree, Gardner and Epperly. We left the top at 4:20 and arrived back at high camp by 7 PM. Dinner was a comfortable session in our POSH tent and then we headed to bed early. Tomorrow will be another big day as we descend to Basecamp.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
The gang is all here! The Aconcagua season is officially under way! Today after final preparations the team began trekking into basecamp. First stop, Leñas at 9,000 feet. The sun was shining, the condors were chirping and everyone had a great day hiking!
We now plan on enjoying our first night in the Andes. Why sleep in a tent when you can cowboy up and sleep under the stars!! Speaking of cowboys...we are hanging out with our team of Gauchos as they start the fire. The steaks just went on, the salad is made and our drinks are on their way!
Ahh yes, this is the life!
RMI Guide JJ Justman
Hey this is Dave Hahn calling from the summit of Mount Vinson, 16,067 feet above sea level, highest point in Antarctica. Our whole team is here! We got here at 3:45 local time and we're still here at about about 10 minutes after 4:00. It is just beautiful, windless, sunny, clouds, but just a few of them. So we're feeling very lucky. Beautiful day up here. We'll be in touch from High Camp.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Congratulations to Gary Johnson & Bob Sullivan who have now reached the summit of each of the highest mountains on all seven continents. An impressive accomplishment! And congratulations to Dave Hahn on his 35th summit of the Vinson Massif.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn calls from the Vinson Massif summit.
A great day for climbing, at last. We were out of the tents just after the sun broke the big freeze at Low Camp. Conditions looked much better today, so we ate breakfast, tore down the tents and hit the trail. Actually, we broke the trail, which wasn't too big a deal. The fixed ropes were under about two or three inches of hard wind blown snow. It was a long time on a steep angle but most of the way, the surface was perfect for our crampons. We worried that the wind might come up as we topped the ridge, but we cleared that area fast and escaped the big chill. Five and a half hours of hard work brought us in to beautiful "High Camp" at 7 PM. It was perfectly calm and sunny at 12,150 ft and we set to work building a comfortable and secure camp. We like this one to be secure since we are right on the edge of a dramatic and profound drop-off. One doesn't have to go but 75 feet to be staring straight down the 3000 ft to low camp. Looking out to the west is a shining sea of ice and low cloud stretching seemingly forever.
We ate dinner and prepped our packs for tomorrow. It just might be our summit day.
Best Regards
RMI Guides Dave Hahn
Good luck daddy! This is the moment you’ve been waiting for! Stay safe!
Love,
Tilly
Posted by: Mattie Sullivan on 12/16/2014 at 8:12 am
Hey - this must be a beautiful view: 3000 ft into the deep!! I hope weather will stay good and you´ll have an unforgetable summit-day!!!
Wish you all the best and take good care of yourselves.
And of course a special wish to Hans!!!
Ute
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So glad to hear everyone made it.
Great job Team.
Looking forward to seeing you back home.
Daddy
Posted by: Roger Osmun on 12/19/2014 at 4:01 pm
Congrats….great photos and blog. And hugs to Jared from Maine.
Posted by: Crystal on 12/18/2014 at 4:51 pm
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