Entries By adam knoff
May 26, 2015 - 7:24 pm PT
I gave the team a general idea of when we might start breakfast this morning at dinner last night. I bet we get hot water started at around 8, then start pancakes and coffee shortly after that I said. I didn't even open my eyes until almost nine. While in the middle of working your way up this mountain day after day none of us realized how much we could use a rest. Today it became clear. We sat in the cook tent making fresh Pete's coffee and watching Andy flip flap jacks until almost noon. Then we took naps and soaked up the sun we haven't really seen clearly this entire trip. Now we are cooking quesadillas and packing up for our potential move to
14 Camp tomorrow. Everyone is happy to be caching dirty underwear, smelly socks and unneeded stuff for the upper mountain. It has been a beautiful rest day here at 11 Camp but after getting a great view of the upper mountain yesterday, the team feels super psyched to push this climb higher and see what unfolds.
Check in tomorrow for the outcome of our hopeful move.
Team Knoff saying goodnight.
RMI Guide Adam Knoff
On The Map
May 26, 2015 - 10:08 am PT
Today is Memorial Day. With the simplicity of life on this mountain taking charge, many of us don't even know what day it is. The process of get up, get dressed in close quarters, make your way to the cook tent dug into the side of the mountain, eat breakfast, pack you bag and climb, come back to the tents, eat dinner and go to bed is a process where days don't matter. So if birthdays are missed, anniversaries are forgotten about, we are not to blame. Despite having digital doohickeys with us, looking at calendars and keeping track of days becomes arbitrary. Today as it turns out wasn't Memorial Day up here, it was
Windy Corner day. This legendary gateway to the upper mountain is famous for its heinous wind, scary rock fall and tricky crevasses. We are happy to report our carry around the corner to 13,500 feet went as smooth as we could have asked for. Again we lucked out with weather because as I wrote earlier our early morning wake up calls got us going into clear skies but as soon as we arrived back in camp seven hours later it was snowing as hard as it has all trip. There is much to be said for walking into a camp that is waiting for you. We will rest tomorrow and eat pancakes and drink fresh coffee until nap time. We can't wait.
Hello to Mrs. Vradenburg's class at Lamotte School I hope Liam is behaving. Stay tuned.
RMI Guide Adam Knoff
On The Map
May 24, 2015 - 11:48 pm PT
Hello again from 11,000ft!
We woke up this morning to a fresh dumping of snow at camp, covering our tents and cook tent. First order of business this morning was getting everything dug out and reinforcing our snow walls.
The weather was still looking a little squirrelly afterwards, so we opted for a bit of a relaxed breakfast while we continued to watch what was going on outside. After a couple hours, our patience was rewarded and things cleared up enough for us to get organized and take off downhill to retrieve our cache at 9800'. We made down, grabbed our cached goods, and jammed back uphill in good time. This is a strong team! Everyone just keeps going and is having fun!
Once back at 11,000' with all our gear, the weather made a turn for the better. The skies cleared out, the winds died down, and the sun warmed us as we relaxed for the rest of the evening. If all goes well, we'll push up to 13,500' tomorrow to cache our gear around Windy Corner in preparation for our move to 14k.
Goodnight for now!
RMI Guide Nick Hunt and the rest of the team
On The Map
May 23, 2015 - 11:00 pm PT
In the real world the saying goes"the early bird gets the worm". This season on
Denali, the early bird gets the weather window. Now I've never been a bird before so I'm not gonna judge on how good a worm must taste, but I have been here before and I can tell you that moving camp in clear weather is much tastier than moving in a storm. So, with a clear but windy morning we scarfed down a warm granola breakfast cached some unneeded gear and quickly broke camp. Our team is getting very proficient at this skill so we were rolling by 9:15. Nick led the team out and in 2.5 hours of sustained up hill travel had us all sitting at 11,200 feet. It wasn't long after we began building a fresh camp that the weather had enough of being nice and took a quick turn for the worst. It held out just long enough to get camp built and then really started snowing and blowing. The forecast is calling for up to a foot of snow by the end of tomorrow so we feel blessed to be in a good spot to wait things out. Everyone sends big hugs to those following the blog and little hugs to those who aren't.
From from Camp three.
RMI Guide Adam Knoff and team saying goodnight.
On The Map
Saturday, May 23rd 12:44 am PDT
I would like to dedicate this dispatch (one of many I'm sure) to my six year old son, Liam, who's kindergarten class will be following the blog as our adventure unfolds. Hi kiddo! Daddy misses you a lot!
Up here on the mountain, day two was again a well executed day. We packed up camp at 7,800 feet and made a
single carry of all of our things up to 9,800 feet were we are camped for night. We each moved well over one hundred pounds divided between our sleds and packs. From here on up we begin to split the loads, taking some up the mountain in one carry and then returning the next day to retrieve the rest. The weather here is well below freezing at night and we have strong gusty winds that are blowing snow around. We got lucky to move into a camp that already had big snow block walls built to protect us a bit from the heavy gusts. Tomorrow we will decide what the plan is after we have breakfast and check the weather. So far so good.
RMI Guides Adam Knoff, Nick Hunt, and Andy Hildebrand
On The Map
May 21, 2015 - 10:46 pm PT
The team has made it to Camp 1 in almost perfect style. I am on my seventh
Denali climb as a guide and have never gone from Base Camp to Camp 1 with such seamlessness. No one had a single sled issue or cursed my name for giving them so much gear. No one got a blister or fell behind a single second. Like I said earlier, I am very pleased with this team. One day down, who knows how many more to go.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's report.
RMI Guide Adam Knoff
On The Map
Thursday, May 21st 10:02 am PDT
We got the call this morning at breakfast that base camp is clear and the light is green. We are on the plane now ready for an adventure of a lifetime! Wish us luck and send us love.
Our next dispatch will be from
Mt. McKinley.
Rock and Roll!
Wednesday, May 20th 4:18 pm PDT
Our team is doing great up here in Talkeetna, AK.
We are swamped in gear, doing an inspection that would make the FAA proud. Nothing is going unseen and I am proud to announce that everyone is passing with flying colors. Overall I couldn't be more happy with the first impressions of what should be a strong team. Let's hope it stays that way. One never knows what can happen on Mt. McKinley. Prayers for good morning weather for flying tomorrow.
Bye for now from Talkeetna.
RMI Guides Adam Knoff, Nick Hunt, and Andy Hildebrand and Crew
We are thrilled to report that today's challenging climb of
Cotopaxi, elevation 19,348 feet, was a complete success! Things started off a bit shifty when more than twenty climbers and guides all prepared to begin climbing the glacier at the same time. The opening three hours of this climb are extremely steep and without any relief. Our team's strong and steady pace uphill proved their readiness both with skill and acclimatization. Despite some lessening of the slope angle, I would say this mountain takes the cake for difficulty. After an hour or so the crowds spread out and all we had to do was climb. The weather changed two or three times from steady snow fall to cold and windy to picture perfect. We could not have asked for a better day! This was truly ending on a good note.
We then packed up at Tambopaxi, ate a great lunch at an amazing road side pizza place and are now rushing for the showers at the Ancient and haunted Hosteria of La Cienega. We need to get some sleep because there is a big day of football ahead when we head back to Quito.
GO PACKERS!
RMI Guide Adam Knoff
On The Map
Greetings from the beautiful Eco Lodge of Tambopaxi, located inside of
Cotopaxi National Park. We are all resting nicely despite our elevation being well above 12,000 feet. In the ten days we have been in Ecuador, eight of them have been spent living or climbing above 14,000 feet so despite this lodge being higher than any staffed tourist joint in the US, we are all feeling dandy. It is amazing how after three days away from civilization the internet can trump even a shower. But now that we all got our fix, 19,400-foot
Cotopaxi is taking center stage in our heads and out the window.
It is quite a quick transition from mountain to mountain but the team's successful summit of Antisana, the first by any
RMI team, is proving a strong motivator to push our tired legs upward one more time. Our legs won't be the only tired things because with the famous Cotopaxi hut closed for the time being, Tambopaxi sits a short 45 minutes away from the trail head, which in turn sits a short 45-minute hike from the mountain's normal starting point so our wake up call will casually be at 9:30pm. We expect a long night and day so resting now is crucial. We will be taking dinner in an hour then getting ready for our final mountain climb. We will report tomorrow with the outcome.
Wishing all of our families and friends the best. We miss you all and look forward to coming home soon.
RMI Guide Adam Knoff
Summit of
Antisana! Adam Knoff and team called in to let us know they were at Antisana's Basecamp after a successful summit. They had great route conditions clear skies, stars and a beautiful moonrise. The climb was engaging with steep headwalls and crevasse crossings. The team did a fantastic job. At about 17,000ft the winds picked up and temperatures dropped enveloping the summit in a cloud layer. As the team started their descent, they broke out of the clouds. They are breaking down camp and will be taking a short walk back to the bus, which will take them to Chilcabamba Eco Lodge where the team will have well-deserved rest for the night.
RMI Guide Adam Knoff
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Greg:
So glad to hear you are all doing so well and that you took a day to rest! Can’t wait to see how the next move goes!
Sending love from home!
Nic and Jek xox
Posted by: Angelica on 5/27/2015 at 10:36 pm
Shannon and team, hope you enjoyed your rest day. Pancakes always good to warm the belly. Climb on. Looking forward to the next post.
Posted by: patty & mark on 5/27/2015 at 12:19 pm
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