RMI Expeditions Blog

The Expedition Skills Seminar – Paradise, led by RMI Guide Joe Crawford, culminated its week of training with a successful summit of Mt. Rainier this morning at 6:30 a.m.

The team spent four nights and five days training on the lower slopes of Mt. Rainier, developing essential mountaineering skills including glacier travel, crevasse rescue, anchor and belay systems, and establishing and living in a mountain camp. Yesterday, they moved up to Camp Muir to prepare for their summit attempt.

They were rewarded with a beautiful day on the mountain and enjoyed some time in the summit crater before beginning their descent. The team is now making its way back to Camp Muir, where they will take a short break to repack and rest before continuing the final 4.5 miles to Paradise later this afternoon, concluding their program.

Congratulations to the entire team on a fantastic week of training and a successful summit of Mt. Rainier!

It's another beautiful day on Mt. Rainier and more teams are reaching the summit.  RMI Guide Dan May and team reached the summit at 6:30 am today.  The route is really nice and the weather is clear.  The team enjoyed an hour in the summit crater before starting their descent to Camp Muir. Once back at Camp they will get a short break before continuing the final 4,000' to Paradise.

Nice work team!

Luedtke and team enjoyed a successful ascent on Mt. Shuksan via the Fisher Chimneys. The team had 100% summit success on a blue bird day, nice work!

Hola!

Today we climbed up to Runkurakay, our third pass of the trip, a smaller ask than yesterday’s monster but still not nothing at this altitude.

The ruins there are round, almost like a watchtower, and it’s wild to think Inca messengers once used spots exactly like this as rest stops while running the length of an empire on foot. Meanwhile we needed a full snack break.

From there, into the cloud forest. Colonies of orchids appearing out of nowhere.  Some so tiny you needed a magnifying glass to see. Hummingbirds doing their impossible physics. The trail itself turns into pure engineering, stone causeways, a tunnel some ancient crew carved straight through solid rock.

Sayacmarca was a highlight: a ruin perched on a cliff edge, reachable only by one narrow staircase, tall rock wall on one side and a straight drop on the other. Edgar walked us through what it might have been, part checkpoint, part ceremonial site, nobody’s entirely sure.

We stopped for lunch at our fourth and final pass of the trip with views looking straight at Machu Picchu mountain and beyond. The clouds began to build (as they have most afternoons) but this time instead of dissipating, they got darker.

So we packed up and started the long descent into our camp for the night. And even though it is “dry season” the rain poured down. By the time we made it to camp it was a full on thunderstorm.

We piled in the dining tent, played our nightly Scum games and enjoyed our final dinner on trail. Tomorrow morning we wake up and hike to the Sun Gate. Cross your fingers these clouds clear so we can see Machu Picchu!

- RMI Guide Jess and the Machu Picchu team

Four day teams reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning at 5:40 am. The teams reported good visibility to the north and south and 20 mph winds as forecasted.

They were leaving the high point and starting their decent to Camp Muir at 6:30 am.

We'll see them back in Ashford this evening to celebrate.

Nice work climbers!

Avery's team made it to the summit this morning around 11 am after a rainy day yesterday we woke to clear and beautiful night and perfect climbing conditions. We cruised to the top and walked all the way out to the trailhead today. 

The RMI team led by guides Will Ambler, Miles Watson, and Oliver Sperin had a sunset ascent of Mt Baker via the Easton Glacier. The team went 100% to the top! They are currently on their descent back to the trailhead. 

Great work everyone!

The Four Day climb led by RMI guides Eric Frank and Sam Hoffman made it to the summit of Mt Rainier around 6:15am this morning. They were leaving the crater around 7am on their descent back to Camp Muir. They will return to Ashford this afternoon. 

Great work up there!

After dinner I asked the team what some of their highlights were from the day:

• One had fun learning and playing Scum (Scum is the chosen card game of this group — we’ve been playing every night and I’m happy to report we saw our first female president who served two terms, iykyk.)
   
• Some said they enjoyed waking up at 5:00am to the symphony of dogs barking and someone else chimed in “or not sleeping to dog’s barking” and then I reminded them I asked for highlights…
   
• There was consensus that the lasagna dinner served with deep fried cauliflower was a top notch moment.
   
• One mentioned that passing every other group on the trail was their highlight. Now before you think we were zooming, dear readers, we weren’t. We were moving in our uphill formation slow and steady. You know what they say, smooth is fast and fast is slow. That was definitely proven true today.
   
• Many mentioned that skipping and/or running down the many rocky stairs was the highlight. With caution! No injuries! But it was fun.
   
• But the top highlight was climbing the 430 flights of stairs (more than 4,000 vertical feet) to Dead Woman’s Pass, the highest point on the whole Inca trail, named because the ridgeline lays out like a woman on her back against the sky. And seeing down into the valley below — the views were 10/10.

 - RMI Guide Jess and the Machu Picchu team

Wedel and team send pictures before they start the Inca Trail and lose service.