Entries By casey grom
The Four Day Summit Climb teams were approaching Mt. Rainier's crater rim at 7:30 am. RMI Guide Casey Grom reported clear skies, cold temperatures and very little wind on their summit climb today. The cloud deck is around 9,500' and its beautiful above. The teams left the crater rim just before 9 am to return to Camp Muir. They will continue down to Paradise later today.
Congratulations to today's climbing teams!
Posted by: Casey Grom, Kel Rossiter
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'
Our Four Day Summit Climb Teams led by RMI Guides Casey Grom and Kel Rossiter Reached the Summit of Mt. Rainier early this morning. The team reported moderate winds of 20 – 30 MPH and a bit of light Snow. The team was able to spend a brief amount of time on the Crater Rim before starting their descent. The team is en route to Camp Muir and will be back at Ashford Basecamp this afternoon.
Today also marks the 200th Summit of Mt. Rainier for our lead Guide Casey Grom. Casey has been a guide with RMI Expeditions for over ten years, and has successfully reached the top of many peaks all over the world including Mt. Everest. Congratulations to Casey on a very successful climbing career, we look forward to sharing many more summits with you!
Congratulations to the team and to the guide for his superior performance on such a grueling mountain. Climbing it one time is a dream of mine.
Posted by: Kevin Stone on 5/16/2016 at 11:44 am
Congrats! Just curious, were ladders required or put in place over crevasses?
Posted by: Amanda on 5/15/2016 at 12:21 pm
Posted by: Casey Grom
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Ecuador
Hello again everyone
All is well here in Ecuador. Today the team spent the morning relaxing a bit and enjoying the beautiful surroundings and practicing some technical rope work that will hopefully come in handy tomorrow. Then a few folks went on a horseback ride while the rest of us relaxed around the hacienda. We wrapped the afternoon with a little more training and good conversations.
Our plan is to head to bed soon and get up around 5am to start our climb which is just a few miles down the road. If the weather continues we hope to summit and make our way back to Quito by mid to late afternoon.
It's sad to think our adventure is nearly over, but I am sure everyone is excited to return to their loved ones.
We'll check in again tomorrow. That's all for today.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
Posted by: Casey Grom
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Ecuador
The team is well rested after our long climb on Cayambe. It took us about eight hours to reach the summit and another four to safely descend all the way back to the hut. Everyone was very happy, but also very tired from such a long day.
After descending from the mountain we had a wonderful lunch before arriving at Hacienda Guachala, the oldest hacienda in Ecuador, which dates back to 1580. Everyone slept very well and enjoyed the hot showers to say the least.
Today we had a nice big breakfast and had a team meeting to discuss the upcoming climb on Chimborazo. Currently the climbing conditions here in Ecuador are less than ideal on several mountains including Chimbo. The local guides and I discussed the difficulty and hazardous conditions that awaited us there and decided it's a little more than we are willing to risk.
The team was a little disappointed we weren't going to climb to 20,000+ft, but everyone agreed it might be best to choose a safer option.
Our new plan is to climb another mountain that hasn't been affected by the unusually dry weather, yet still gives us a challenging ascent.
We have relocated to a quaint little place in the countryside not too far from our next climb Rumiñahui. It's not the big mountain we were hoping for, but I'm certain we will all enjoy the climb.
We'll spend the day doing some training here tomorrow and getting prepared for our next adventure.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
The Ecuador's Volcanoes January 19th trip reached the summit of Cayambe today at 18,977', RMI Guide Casey Grom said it was a tough climb and the ascent was 8 hours. The team descended safely back to camp and then packed up their gear and loaded vechicles toward their hacienda for the night. They were looking forward to hot showers and a good night's rest.
Congratulations to all the climbers for their great effort today.
On The Map
Well done guys. It sounded like a tough climb so I hope you are all feeling good about your achievements so far!
Have fun on the rest of the trip! good luck and stay safe.
Posted by: Peter Williamson on 1/26/2016 at 8:22 am
Congratulations Dave, John & the rest of your team. I was thinking about you when I was in PT yesterday. Glad you are having a good trip. Gambatte!
Posted by: Jean on 1/26/2016 at 4:25 am
Hey everybody, this is Casey Grom checking in from the Ecuador's Volcanoes trip to let you know that we had another nice day down here on the equator. We woke up this morning at about 6 and had a quick breakfast and then tried to get out the door as close to 7 as we could. We hiked for about an hour and a half up to where the start of the glacier is here on Cayambe and took a nice break. We spent the next couple hours reviewing some basic climbing techniques and trying to do a few advanced things and just getting ourselves prepared for tonight's climb. The team is doing great, we just wrapped up dinner not too long ago. We packed our backpacks and everybody's off bed. If all goes well our plan is to wake up at about 11 p.m. and have another hot breakfast and hopefully be headed up hill about midnight. Currently it's been pretty icy down here it's been pretty dry and they haven't had a lot of snow so I think the route might be a little more circuitous than normal. I am anticipating about a 7 hour ascent so if we are fortunate we might be able to reach the summit around 7 a.m. Then we will take a handful of photos and then we'll make our way back down. Regardless of how our climb goes tomorrow, our plan is to pack up and get out of here and head down to another hacienda so we will check in sometime tomorrow mid day and let everybody know how we're doing. All right you guys.
Thanks,
RMI Guide Casey Grom
RMI Guide Casey Grom checks in from the climbers hut on Cayambe.
On The Map
Hey everybody. This is Casey Grom checking in from the Ecuador Volcanoes trip. We have a great day today. We started off with a nice leisurely breakfast at La Casa Sol. We departed there at about 10:30 and made our way, just about 10 minutes down the road, to the big open air market of Otavalo. Otavalo has one of the largest markets in South America. It just so happens that Saturday is the big market there. We spent a little more than an hour doing some shopping, a little bartering and just general sightseeing as we made our way around the the central square in the town of Otavalo. After we had our fill there, we hopped in our van and we go to the town of Cayambe, which sits just at the base of the mountain Cayambe where we had a nice lunch and then we loaded up the vans one more time and had a nice bumpy, but enjoyable, ride up to the hut that is right at the base of the glacier here on Cayambe. We're currently relaxing up here at about 15,000 feet. In fact it is a little after 8:30 for us here, that's east coast time, and the team is outside looking up at a beautiful full moon and a fantastic view of Cayambe. Everyone's doing great. We're going to head to bed here pretty soon and then hopefully head up to the glacier tomorrow to do a little training in preparation for our climb. Other than that everything is going great for us and we'll check in again sometime tomorrow. Alright thank you guys.
RMI Guide Casey Grom
RMI Guide Casey Grom calls in from Cayambe Climber's Hut.
Thank you, Casey, for these wonderful updates and for this awesome expedition! I loved my phone call from the top of Cayambe.
We are thinking of all of you, and can’t wait to hear the stories and see the photos!
Group hug!
Laura
Posted by: Laura Bryson on 1/25/2016 at 6:57 am
Hello again everyone!
Today the team left behind the hustle and bustle of Quito and moved just north of the Equator to the comfortable and quiet rural countryside. Once outside the city limits the landscape quickly turned into rolling hills with farms pitched on steep slopes and dozens of small eucalyptus forest.
Our plan was to visit a smaller mountain called Fuya Fuya where we stretched our legs on a nice steep and short acclimatization hike. Thankfully the weather wasn't too bad which allowed us to see some amazing views of the beautiful surrounding landscape.
We are just on the outskirts of a town call Otavalo, which is known for its massive market and we are currently relaxing at a wonderful Hacienda called "La Casa Sol". The team is doing great and looking forward to nice quiet night here.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
Howard and Bill—-you guys look great!!!!!—continue being SAFE CAREFUL CAUTIOUS and enjoy this awesome experience. Best of luck to the whole team. (Love you Howard —neehi :-). )
Posted by: Anita on 1/23/2016 at 5:58 am
Hello again everyone.
Today we had a very nice hike to help with our acclimatization on a nearby peak called Pichincha. It is one of the many local peaks that is situated above Quito and is used by many climbers to help adjust to the higher altitude here in Ecuador. We made use of the gondolas to help us gain access to around 13,000ft then hiked the additional 2,500ft to the summit. It took our team roughly three hours to gain the top after a little scrambling up the final bit to reach our high point thus far. It was a personal high point for a few of us, and the entire team did a fantastic job. After spending a bit of time on the summit and getting our photos we descended all the back to our hotel for a brief nap before dinner.
Everyone is in good spirits and looking forward to tomorrow.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
Hola from Ecuador!
After some very long flights and a little bit of sleep the team is doing well. We started our day with a team meeting where we did our usual round of introductions and discussed the game plan for our upcoming adventure.
After the meeting we headed out on the town to explore this beautiful historical city with our tour guide Angel. We first headed north to visit the Equator from which Ecuador gets its name, then headed to the older part of town where visited several old cathedrals, and the colonial town square. Next we headed up to a small hill called La Panacia that over looks this beautiful city before returning to the hotel for a little break.
We wrapped up the day with a quick gear check to make sure everyone has all the gear needed for our climbs. Then it was off to dinner at a nice restaurant where we were enjoyed getting to know each other better.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
This is for John Newland. Climb your butt off you can do it. Show those kids you can be on Medicare and still climb.
Posted by: Doug on 1/22/2016 at 10:18 am
Excited you have such a great team! Good luck honey. :)
Posted by: Sydney on 1/20/2016 at 9:16 pm
Just wanted to follow-up on what Paul said above…Nick, Steve, & Eric - You guys were awesome. Thank you for an awesome experience. Same to you as well Casey, Paul, and Walt. I’ve included all six of you in a Dropbox account should you wish to see the pictures from this awesome adventure!
I also want to say thanks to an amazing team…both A and B. I know I didn’t get to know everyone, but I consider myself grateful to have been able to share this experience with all of you. Thanks to each of you for making this trip that much enjoyable. Please upload your photos to the Dropbox! (Let me know if you didn’t receive the invite…check your junk folders) Between all of us, there should be some pretty amazing pics.
Again thanks to each of you, guides and teammates alike! Much love and All the Best!! - Beau Jackson
Posted by: Beau Jackson on 5/23/2016 at 6:53 pm
A huge thanks again to Casey Grom, Paul Rachele, and Walter Hailes for safely guiding our group to the summit and back. Your level of professionalism, knowledge, enthusiasm, and concern for our safety completely blew me away. It was very obvious to me that each of you are extremely passionate about guiding. I learned so much over the past few days and very much appreciate the enormous effort that each of you contributed to make it a fun, educational, and thoroughly enjoyable four days. I look forward to climbing the next peak with you and RMI…... after I recover from this trip of course :-) Paul.
Posted by: Paul Moran on 5/23/2016 at 3:45 pm
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