Entries By dave hahn

Sunday, June 15, 2025 - 10:01 pm PT

It was a long but good day of getting ready to go climbing.  The team met for a fine breakfast at the Swiss Alaska.  We began by hearing out each other’s motivations and inspirations for taking on such a challenge.  We talked over our priorities and strategies and then we got out to the airplane hangar to go through the gear.  Breaking up the day, we made a run over to the National Park Service ranger station in Talkeetna to register and receive a presentation on keeping the mountain clean and ourselves healthy.  But the bulk of the day was spent at the hangar, listening to trains and airplanes revving up and rattling past as we packed and weighed gear for the climb.  We’d finished by early evening and relaxed in town at Mile High Pizza Pie.  Either a little luck we’ll load up the planes and go climbing in the morning. 

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Saturday, June 14, 2025 - 11:25 pm PT

Nobody missed a flight and all the bags arrived just fine.  They came from Norway and New Zealand and a few places in between.  Our team -8 climbers and four guides- got together as planned in the Anchorage airport.  We talked gear and logistics briefly before relocating to the curb for our van shuttle to Talkeetna.  It was a day of blazing sun and wide open blue sky in Alaska. 
We broke up the three hour drive with a stop for groceries in Wasilla and then pushed on to Talkeetna, rolling in at about 6:30 PM.  Along the way we had been granted a few breathtaking views of the Alaska Range.  Our first stop was the K2 Aviation hangar to drop off the big bags of gear.  Next we checked in at the Swiss Alaska Inn.  The team then strolled ten minutes through the birch forest and over the railroad tracks to beautiful downtown Talkeetna.  The town was bustling with tourists and the odd climbing team.  We ate our fill at the brewery and then walked the 100 meter length of town to the banks of the mighty Susitna River.  McKinley, Hunter and Foraker shot up into the sky across the river… impossibly high.  Or maybe just possible.  We’ll see.  Tomorrow we get started… packing and prepping in earnest. 

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

The Five Day climb June 5 - 9 led by RMI Guide Dave Hahn reached the summit at 5 am today.  It's a beatiful blue-bird day. They enjoyed an hour in the summit crater before starting their descent from the crater rim at 6 am. The team is currently on their descent to Camp Muir. Once back at camp they will take a short break to repack their gear and then continue the final 4,500' descent to Paradise. 

Nice work team!

The Four Day Climb with Dave Hahn and Jess Wedel has reached the summit of Mt. Rainier!

The team enjoyed clear skies above a thick marine layer, with just a few clouds lingering to the east—a beautiful day to stand on top of the Pacific Northwest. They have begun their descent and are en route to Camp Muir, where they’ll take a break, reorganize their packs, and then continue down to Paradise.

Congratulations to the team on a successful summit!

The Four-Day Climb from May 26–29, led by RMI Guides Dave Hahn and James Bealer, was unable to make a summit attempt this morning due to sustained high winds and stronger gusts. The teams remained safely sheltered at Camp Muir and will begin their descent to Paradise later this morning.

The Four Day Climb led by Dave Hahn and Joe Hoch reached the summit of Mt. Rainier at 7:30 AM today!

It’s a beautiful, sunny day with light winds, allowing the team to spend about an hour on the summit soaking in the views and celebrating their accomplishment.

Congratulations to all!

We saved the best for last.  The best weather at least.  While we’ve had clear mornings up high, we were aware that it was still cloudy down below for much of our trip.  Not today though.  It was clear from the start in Lukla today and the airplanes and helicopters took full advantage.  While we had coffee and breakfast in our last tea house, the aircraft were hustling in and out of the nearby strip.  We headed over at our appointed times and got on a helicopter for Kathmandu.  There was none of the usual stress about wondering if we could go or not.  We were gone.  The whole team was in Kathmandu by mid morning.  Then we did about what you’d expect… showers, naps, gear sorting and shopping.  We got together at the end of the day to trek through traffic for a final team dinner.  After dodging mules and yaks, the potholes and taxis of Kat were no problem for us.   Finally -at dinner- we could declare victory and acknowledge how thoroughly lucky we’d gotten.  Things had seemed pretty uncertain at the outset. We’ll start getting back to our own side of the globe in these next days. 

Best Regards
RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Saturday, October 12, 2024 - 

Another big day… done!  This one was hanging over our heads for a while, since we were familiar with the terrain on our way in. We knew we had to cover a full twelve miles with an uphill finish.  The team was certainly happy to start down from Namche on another fine-weather morning.  We had the trail pretty much to ourselves for going down the big hill.  We took a moment at the bottom to watch a bungy jumper bounce way down under an extremely high cable bridge.  Once we were working along the river, traffic on the trail picked up.  We stood fully ten minutes at one point to let about a hundred loaded mules go by.  But we also had plenty of stretches where it was just us, cruising along.  We had lunch while sitting outside in Phakding and then pressed on.  At 5:30 PM we rounded a last corner and found ourselves walking down Lukla’s main “street”   There were fist bumps all around.  Dinner was a bit of an event as our entire staff of Porters and Guides joined us for a celebration.  They presented a surprise cake and we made sure that they each received a generous gratuity from the team.  We were all genuinely impressed with the flawless “mechanics” of the trip, to say nothing of the kindness extended when we were cold, tired and hungry.  Our staff made the trip for us and tonight we tried to express our gratitude because tomorrow morning may be goodby time.  We hope to fly to Kathmandu. 

Best Regards
RMI Guide Dave Hahn

PC: Dave Hahn

The day had its ups and downs. We left Dhole (at 13,250ft) just after breakfast and continued our trip down the magnificent gorge. There were waterfalls everywhere and we enjoyed being back among trees, shrubs, and grasses. After a little more than an hour, we had bottomed out below 12,000 ft and needed to start climbing again. The team are old hands at going uphill in the Himalaya by now, and so we cruised the switchbacks and crushed any and all competition. 

It was delightful to take tea sitting outside where we crested at 13,000 ft. Once again, we were looking directly out at Ama Dablam (to say nothing of Kangtega and Thamserku) just across the valley.  For a time, we were back in the “traffic” of tourists, porters, and yaks on the main route to and from Everest Basecamp, but we ventured into much quieter terrain by taking a turn up toward Khumjung, a beautiful village just over the hill from Namche. We ate lunch there, next to the famed Hillary School, and then walked a final hour in swirling clouds to reach Namche Bazaar once again. 

The gang is happy to be back in the lap of relative luxury. Camp De Base seems like the Ritz to us now. Showers and shopping were in order, along with comfortable beds. 

Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn & Team

Thursday, October 10, 2024 - 3:04 am PT

As much as we were enjoying the high life up in Gokyo, it was time to get lower.  We got walking at 8:30 this morning down past the series of magical lakes pinched between giant mountains and a giant glacier.  The end of the glacier brought a dramatic change in the scenery as we were then traversing a steep gorge with a charging and churning river below.  The trail was in great condition, though it was still a challenge to keep from tumbling off as one could get easily distracted staring at the six or eight 20,000 ft mountains surrounding us.  It wasn’t particularly busy on the trail but we were careful to give room to the hard working yaks when they came through loaded up with propane.  The weather followed what we’ve come to think of as the normal pattern: crystal clear to start and clouding up after noon.  We pulled into Dhole at around 1:40 PM after 8.2 miles, so the gang was definitely ready for lunch and a few hours of rest to complete the day.  The rest -way down here at 13,400- ought to be a little more restful than we’ve had in recent days. 

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn