Entries By chase halbert

The American Lung Association Climb for Clean Air team attempted their Mt. Rainier summit bid this morning. With an overcrowded route and standstill foot traffic, which would have made continuing on unsafe due to the time of day, the guides turned at 12,500'.  The team is at Camp Muir and will begin their descent around 10:00 a.m.

The Emmons Seminar began their summit bid this morning at 9:30.  They were able to reach a height of 13,600' before weather kept them from safely continuing on to the summit.  The team is working their way back to Camp Schurman where they will spend the night.  Tomorrow morning they will pack up camp and start their descent back to the trailhead.

RMI Guide JM Gorum called from Camp Schurman (9,440') around 9 am, the Expedition Skills Seminar - Emmons June 25 - 30 team had made it safely back to camp after making their summit attempt this morning.  The team encountered soft snow and poor route conditions at 12,600' which caused them to turn back.  The team will spend their third and final night on the mountain tonight.  Tomorrow they will pack up camp and descend to the White River Trailhead and return to Rainier BaseCamp in Ashford.

We hope they had a great week of training and climbing on Mt. Rainier!

RMI Guides Walter Hailes and Avery Parrinello led the Five Day Climb to Ingraham Flats, 11,200', this morning.  High winds overnight at Camp Muir had prevented the teams getting an alpine start and thus they were unable to make a summit attempt.  Winds at Camp Muir averaged between 40 - 80 mph with gusts as high as 93 mph around 9 pm.

Once the winds subsided later in the morning the teams roped up and traveled to Ingraham Flats to check out the conditions and see a bit of the route.  They will return to Camp Muir and descend to Paradise later this morning.

Thursday, June 3, 2021 - 10:27 am PT

We've waited through wind and snow for weeks and we finally got our shot. We woke up yesterday to clear skies and relatively (for 17k feet) warm temps in camp. We had stoves firing early, before sun hit camp, and got everyone up to start prepping. With breakfast done and packs loaded we stepped out of our sunny camp into the shadow of the Autobahn. It was a chilly couple hours crossing to Denali Pass and we were all psyched to get back into the sun. A slight, but cold 10mph breeze in our face kept it chilly all day, but we kept moving past Zebra Rocks, around Archdeacons Tower, onto the Football Field, up Pig Hill, and along the summit ridge to the summit! We were standing on top just after 6pm yesterday. With photos taken, we started working our way back down, well aware of the distance still to get back to the comfort of our sleeping bags. The long hours of sun help alot and we rolled back into camp around 11pm, just as the sun left camp. Tired, chilly, sore, but excited that we managed to reach our goal!

We'll start working our way down the mountain today, back to warmer temps, more oxygen, and a flight back to Talkeetna. They tend to be long days, so dispatches might be short, but we are headed home.

RMI Guides Pete Van Deventer, Mike Walter, Avery Parrinello, Matias Francis, Chase Halbert, Luke Wilhelm, and RMI Teams 1 and 2

Tuesday, June 1, 2021 - 12:03 pm PT

Happy June 1st! It doesn't feel like it much here at 17K. We missed sending a dispatch last night because of some electronic technical difficulties that are resolved, but you should have heard via RMI Alaska Team led by Mike Walter that we all moved to 17K yesterday on a perfect day. It was relatively warm, calm, sunny, and as we were the first few teams out of camp, were able to move smoothly up the fixed lines and along the West Buttress.

We had hopes of going for the summit today, but the chance of snow that often only brings precip to the lower mountain defied that hope overnight and into today. We've got 3 to 4 inches of new snow in camp, still snowing, low vis, and just enough wind to move it around at maximum efficiency. It was a pretty easy call to stay in the tents today and ride it out, hoping that tomorrow brings clearer conditions.

RMI Guides Pete Van Deventer, Matias Francis, Chase Halbert, and team

Monday, May 31, 2021 - 10:21 pm PT

Both RMI Denali Expeditions led RMI Guides Mike Walter and Pete Van Deventer made it to High Camp today at 17, 200'. We are busy melting snow and making hot water for dinner. If the weather is good, we hope to go for the top tomorrow.

RMI Guide Mike Walter

Sunday, May 30, 2021 - 9:45 pm PT

The weather trend is finally improving for us! Today was a relatively pleasant day at 14,000' Camp. The ridgeline above was showing some wind this morning but that diminished through the day. Rather than jump up there and get cold, chilly, and tire ourselves out doing a small cache, we opted to stay in camp, organize, and prep to move to 17,000' Camp tomorrow. That didn't seem to stop most of camp from taking a run at it, which only reinforced our decision. We'll look to get up early tomorrow, be early out of camp, and be settled in to 17,000' comfortably so that we're ready to summit the following day. The pace of things will accelerate now and everybody is excited!

RMI Guides Pete, Matias, Chase, and team

Saturday, May 29, 2021 - 10:25 pm PT

The weather that was forecast to show up, came in the late morning. Everyone enjoyed quality tent time with movies, cards, and even some song writing. Stay tuned for the artists debut. We see improving weather conditions in the forecast, and are hoping to make some moves in the coming days.

RMI Guides Matias, Chase, Pete, and team

Friday May 28, 2021 - 7:39pm PT 

The winds and snow moved out for us today and we got to enjoy some sun and warmth in camp. We could still see winds moving quickly at times up above us on the west buttress, but it was nice to have pleasant conditions for a bit. We took the opportunity to build some truly monumental walls to protect against an expected wind event tomorrow, then refreshed and practiced our fixed line travel to prep for when the weather and conditions let us go higher.

Tomorrow is almost certainly a tent bound day, but the trend looks good for us going into next week. For now, we're happy to be acclimating and getting strong at 14,000', and to be within striking distance of our objective.

RMI Guides Pete, Matias, Chase, and Team