Entries By joe hoch
Posted by: Joe Hoch, Jack Ritterson, Imogen Von Mertens, Brendan Oates
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,000'
The Four Day Climb June 23 - 26 led by RMI Guide Joe Hoch, reached the summit of Mt. Rainier a little before 7 am today. Joe reported a light cloud cap on the summit, light to moderate winds from the west and cloud deck below near 9,000'. Despite a bad weather forecast they were greeted with a perfect morning! The team enjoyed a bit of time in the crater before starting their descent from the crater rim around 7:45 am. The team is now en route to Camp Muir where they will make a quick stop to rehydrate, refuel and repack before continuing down to Paradise later today.
Nice work team!
PC: Joe Hoch
Posted by: Joe Hoch, Joe Crawford, Dylan Anderson, Nick Sinapius, Hannah Billings, Nina Bridges
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'
The Four Day Climb June 19 0 22 led by RMI Guides Joe Hoch & Joe Crawford climbed strong to the top of Disappointment Cleaver, but above there zero visibility, strong winds and very cold temperatures turned us around. The team is now back at Camp Muir and will continue the descent to Paradise later this morning.
RMI Guide Joe Hoch
Posted by: Joe Hoch, Mitch Valaitis, Stella Johnson, Matt Tucker
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'
The Five Day Climb June 7 - 11 led by RMI Guide Joe Hoch reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today with 100% of the team. We started in full moonlight and summited 100 percent on a perfect morning!
The climbers will return to Camp Muir for a sort break and to repack before beginning the final descent to Paradise. They will conclude their program later today at Rainier BaseCamp.
Congratulations to the team!
Congrats to the team! Having only made it to Camp Muir many years ago, I wish I could have been with them. I love the shot of Mt. Adams to the west where we did climb the Klickitat icefall.
Posted by: Gordon Gribble on 6/12/2025 at 2:23 am
Yayyyy!!! Congrats ♥️
Posted by: Nichole Hand on 6/11/2025 at 7:44 am
Posted by: Eric Frank, Joe Hoch, Dylan Anderson, Mitch Valaitis, Layne Peters, Arianna Drechsler, Jack Ritterson, Brooks Ordway-Smith, David Rathbun
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'
RMI Guides Eric Frank and Joe Hoch led their Four Day Climb June 2 - 5 to the summit of Mt. Rainier today. They reached the summit shortly after 7 am and reported clear skies and light winds. The teams will enjoy some time in the crater before starting their descent back to Camp Muir. After a short stop, they will continue down to Paradise and return to Rainier BaseCamp later this afternoon.
Congratulations to today's climbers!
PC: Layne Peters & Joe Hoch
I’m so thankful to have met and climbed (to Muir) with this group of people. There was so much positivity and honesty amongst this group of strangers. It was inspiring to watch each person climb and battle their way to the summit and back. RMI’s guides are beyond impressive. The strength you all posses is incredible. To do what you do AND be personable AND lighthearted is truly a gift. I cant say enough about all the things you had to juggle to make this trip a success. Thank you to everyone for making this one of the greatest experiences of my life.
Posted by: Nate on 6/6/2025 at 9:53 am
Posted by: Dave Hahn, Joe Hoch, Celeste Wilson, Calvin Jiricko, Bailey Servais, Tom Skoog, Fitz Elder, Miles Watson
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'
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!
WOOHOO!!!!!
Posted by: T Northrup on 5/24/2025 at 4:08 pm
Awesome job Zach!!!
Posted by: Dave Kestel on 5/24/2025 at 1:31 pm
Posted by: Casey Grom, Joe Hoch, Mitch Valaitis, Joey Manship, Miles Watson, Hannah Billings, Celeste Wilson, Nina Bridges
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 11,200'
May 16–19 Four-Day Climb Update:
The climbing teams, led by RMI Guides Casey Grom and Joe Hoch, departed Camp Muir at 3:00 a.m. for their summit attempt. They reached Ingraham Flats; however, deteriorating weather conditions forced them to turn back. The teams have returned safely to Camp Muir and plan to begin their descent around 10:00 a.m., when a break in the weather is expected.
PC: Nina Bridges, Joey Manship, Joe Hoch
Posted by: Eric Frank, Joe Hoch, Ben Ammon, Calvin Jiricko, Tom Skoog, Hannah Billings
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 13,100'
Led by RMI Guides Eric Frank and Joe Hoch, the Four Day Climb May 8 - 11 teams reached an elevation of 13,100 feet today before being turned back due to route conditions. They are currently descending to Camp Muir for a short rest and to repack before continuing down to Paradise later this afternoon.
Three for Three on Mexico’s Volcanoes!
A week of hail storms, dark clouds and lightning was nice and all, but as we drove closer to Tlachichuca and were treated to a stunning view of 18,500 foot Pico de Orizaba backed only by a blue sky, it felt like spring break.
We were running early and carried that luck all the way up the two hour 4x4 road to Piedra Grande, our Orizaba high camp at 14,000 feet. Dinner was at 4:30pm, and bed time came early at 5:30pm. This allowed us room to at least claim that we’d gotten some good sleep when tents were rattled at 11:30pm.
As we climbed under a bright half moon with light winds it seemed like cheating. After single-pushing on Ixta what we’d normally do in two days, a simple 4,500 foot climb was coming easy. That is until we hit the 17,000 foot mark and things started to grind.
But just as things were getting tougher with the elevation, Orizaba gave us all the classics. An amazing sunrise, the pyramid mountain shadow and finally the false summit with only a short walk to the true summit.
We all stood on top of the highest point in Mexico and third highest point in North America in the warm sun with barely any wind.
A great finish to a strong trip by all our climbers!
RMI Guide Joe Hoch
New Post Alerts:
Mexico's Volcanoes February 1, 2025
Posted by: Joe Hoch, Felipe Guarderas
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mexico
Puebla Rest Day and Off to Orizaba
After our single push of Ixta, the Mexico Volcanoes team deserved a rest. We took full advantage of Puebla’s welcoming streets, cathedrals and parks and mostly lazed around for a day.
Two nights of sleep, some light sightseeing, a gold plated brisket sandwich this time, and even some parking garage yoga later, we reluctantly packed the van back up and headed to Tlachichuca.
We’re off to attempt our highest summit of the trip, Volcan Orizaba. Wish us luck!
New Post Alerts:
Mexico's Volcanoes February 1, 2025
100% Team Summit of Ixta!
Fresh off our successful summit of Malinche dodging thunder storms, our Mexico Volcanoes team pulled into La Joya, our basecamp for Volcan Iztaccihautl, to find dime-sized hail falling and lightening cracking just overhead.
We overheard a trip report from some nice climbers who had camped at 15,500'. “Our hair was buzzing. We threw everything metal out of the tent, then the lightening struck! I still can’t feel my thumbs!”
This pretty well made our decision for us to not walk out into the storm to our high camp on a ridge. Easy decision, but it meant that summiting Ixta the next day would be anything but easy, and could only be done in a single push from La Joya.
We discussed with the team that this would be a very long and demanding day, and they were all excited for the challenge.
And they crushed it! We left camp at 1am and walked the normal three miles and 2,000 feet to high camp, then turned to the upper mountain, and no one flinched. Eight and a half total hours of climbing later we all stood in the sun on the 17,169' summit of Ixta.
Our total time on the climb was a little over 14 hours, with somewhere around 5,500 vertical feet. Half of which we normally do in a big day the day before. Strong work by our whole team!
As we pulled into Puebla around 6pm for our much needed rest day, there wasn't an open eye in the van.
RMI Guide Joe Hoch
New Post Alerts:
Mexico's Volcanoes February 1, 2025
Congratulations, Christian! Very proud of you. And thank you to Joe and team. Onward and upward to Orizaba! —- Dad
Posted by: Geoff Culbert on 2/8/2025 at 8:44 am
Way to go warrior women—especially Kelley! So proud of all of you!!!
Posted by: Sally Bowlby on 6/26/2025 at 11:27 am
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