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The whole team stood on top of Cayambe today! An 11 p.m. wake up had us leaving the hut shortly after midnight, winding our way up rocky trails for a little over an hour to the base of the glacier. From there we made great time up the moderate slopes that make up the lower half of the route. Somewhere in the 17,500’ range the glacier becomes much more complex and the slope angle increases significantly. Slow and steady movement up firm and exposed terrain brought us to the seemingly endless summit plateau, but by 6:45 a.m. the entire team was on top at 18,997’! Winds were gusty throughout the night and most of us were in all our layers for the latter half of the ascent. But as we started down the temperatures soared under the equatorial sun and we were soon in base layers trudging back towards the hut. We climbed through intermittent clouds and fog all night, but by morning most of the clouds cleared out and we were treated to our first clear views of Cotopaxi and Chimborazo! After a long and tiring day we’re all looking forward to a full night’s sleep and a rest day tomorrow before heading south to Cotopaxi! 

--RMI Guide Henry Coppolillo and team

Hello everyone,

Today we headed to Tarangire National Park know for its abundant animals and plentiful elephants, and it did not disappoint. Not sure how many elephants we saw, probably several hundred at the least. It wouldn’t seem like we could get tired of seeing elephants, but there were so many that eventually we had to keep driving so we could see other animals.

There were lots of giraffes, impalas, zebras, wildebeest and many others. 

One of the highlights was seeing a Cheetah in the distance relaxing in the shade.

We are spending our last night here in Africa at Nyikani Camp, which has beautiful tented rooms with screen windows to allow the sounds of the African night in. If you’ve ever heard of glamping, that’s what we are doing.

Everyone is doing great and hoping to see a few more big cats on our way out tomorrow. Then it will be back to our main lodge near Arusha for a quick shower before catching our evening flights home.

I’ve asked the team to come up with just word the best sums up their experience, and here are our answers.

Camaraderie 

Perseverance

Enrichment

Humbling

precision

Blessed

Enlightening

Wild

Spectacular

Inspiring

Come join us for an adventure sometime!

RMI Guide Casey Grom and the safari crew

Wednesday, June 10, 2026 - 10:58pm PDT

Cumbre!

We got up early this morning and were the first team on the autobahn. A chilly start paid dividends throughout the rest of the day. We enjoyed the best weather you could ask for, incredible views, and a virtually empty route. Despite the perfect conditions the team is still pretty spent and has a long day ahead of us tomorrow. Thank you to everyone who helped make this possible.

Peace, Love, Gratitude.

RMI Guide Ray Holt and Team

The daily blogs from this trip have been a huge hit at home it seems. And while many of you are reading them each day to see what we have been up to, we have also been reading your comments. They have brought tears to our eyes from both laughter (looking at you Rosie) and sentiment. 

What the daily blogs don't show you is the day to day life we have experienced together. This much time together has created a unique bond. We show up early for each meal, not because we have to but because we genuinely like spending time together. We get our daily dose of Piper over our morning coffee/tea and while none of us have met her, she is our favourite dog on this trip. We know one another's breakfast order by heart with one particular order even turning into a nickname (miss you Pancake Fred). 

We know if we see any animal on the trail that Steven is going to try and pet it and Vanessa is most likely going to be taking pictures of it.  We know to never leave our phones unattended around Brian but if this happens we know the resulting photos will be hilarious. Some days our biggest decision is what kind of tea we want to have and with the ongoing fresh mint shortage this area seems to be experiencing we have had lemon ginger honey tea almost as many times as Jack has asked if it's finally time to pull out the microspikes. 

We almost always end each night with a card game where inexplicably Rick always has Aces. We were all blessed to be part of Kevin's journey to basecamp, fulfilling a promise he had made to his daughter.

We are a competitive bunch and while this has led to many aggressive games of 22 - now shortened to 12 and including rock paper scissors for "funsies" it has also led us to push one another to keep going on the days when it was hard to keep moving and breathing. Some days it's the small things that help like Vanessa's dancing while on trail or Brian pretending to be on a rollercoaster when crossing a bridge, or watching Tim and Fred's friendship blossom in real time (still is and will always be my favourite TV show).

The real joy in this trip has been the people. Our amazing team of porters who carried our heavy gear with smiles on their faces. Our local guides who arranged and rearranged plans constantly for us, kept us on schedule and made sure none of us were trampled by Yaks. Our climbing guides who stayed up all night to set the fixed lines on Lobuche then successfully led the team to the top. Our amazing guide Jess whose sense of humour was a bright spot on many days.

Today we flew back to Kathmandu after 17 days in the Khumbu valley. The snack weight in our bags has been replaced by yak bells and Everest Outfit gear, although not as much as Tim who is an unofficial Everest Outfit influencer. Our bucket list has 1 or 2 extra check marks on it. 

For me this trip was a 30 year dream turned into reality. I knew it would be amazing but it turned out to be so much more. Chatter has now turned to which mountain we will climb next and if we are lucky enough we will climb together again.

RMI Climber Jen

The Five Day Climb led by RMI Guide Ben Ammon took a sunrise walk to Ingraham Flats this morning, reaching 11,200'.  Unstable snow conditions made their decision to turn around. The team returned to Camp Muir and plans to start their descent to Paradise around 9:30 am.   They will return to Rainier BaseCamp in the early afternoon.

Saturday, March 28, 2026 - 11:50 pm PT

We made it.

After 10 days of walking, acclimatizing, laughing, and eating a truly impressive amount of dal bear, we set foot on the Khumbu Glacier and officially arrived at Everest Base Camp.

The place is equal parts humbling and chaotic. Bright expedition tents stretch across the moraine in every direction, prayer flags snap in the wind, and somewhere beneath our feet, a glacier is slowly doing its thing. The altitude — 5,364 meters or nearly 17,500 ft — makes itself known. Breathing is a gentle reminder that you’ve earned the view.

The team arrived strong. There were big smiles, a few quiet moments just staring up at the icefall, and many tears.

Our time at camp was full of rest, snow and even some warm showers (picture a yellow tent heated by the radiation of the sun and a big blue bucket of hot water).

On day 2, we turned our attention to training
 — ascenders, rappelling, and getting our glacier legs under us before we make a push on Lobuche. We set up circuits and worked through the systems, and the team did great. There is something about clipping into a rope on real ice that makes everything feel a little more real — in the best way.

Our base camp staff outdid themselves. Incredible food, warm dining tent, zero complaints from the peanut gallery. Our crew works so hard behind the scenes to make the expedition run, and our time at camp was a good reminder of just how much goes into it. Genuinely grateful.

We’re on our way to Lobuche high camp now, a quick stop at Lobuche (the village) for lunch before we begin the big climb.

RMI Guide Jess and the Lobuche team

Close encounters of an Elephant-kind

Our first day on safari brought us to Lake Manyara National Park. The team spent about four hours driving around the park on a “game drive” where we saw hundreds of baboons, Vervet monkeys, Blue monkeys and lots of exotic birds, Impalas, hippos and elephants so close we could have touched them. Nothing dangerous, but wow was it surreal to see these massive mammals up close.

Everyone had a great day and enjoyed just relaxing while taking in the views.

We are currently staying at the beautiful Plantation Lodge just outside Karatu.

The team just finished a wonderful meal and are off to bed as we are headed out early tomorrow hoping to see some big cats!

RMI Guide Casey Grom and the Safari crew!

We had a nice rest day yesterday as we made our way from La Cienega to the famous Chimborazo Lodge. Tucked in one of the valleys under the south face of Chimborazo, it’s essentially a climbing museum that happens to offer rooms for climbers- every conceivable inch of wall space is covered in photographs or memorabilia spanning the entire history of alpinism both in Ecuador and abroad. Surrounded by dozens of llamas grazing in the surrounding fields, the ambiance was perfect the last night before our final summit attempt of the trip. 

This morning we awoke to dense fog and made our way up the road into Chimborazo National Park with never more than a few feet of visibility in front of bus. The hike up to high camp was longer, snowier and steeper than the approach the Cotopaxi hut, but at least we all have a few more red blood cells at this point in the trip! The Chimborazo high camp is much more primitive than the Refugios at Cayambe or Cotopaxi, but the big white domes up here are still a big upgrade over tents, especially in a raging thunderstorm like the one that rolled through a few hours after we got up here this afternoon.

There is a lot of snow on the ground up here and more falling as I write this, so we are unsure what the upper mountain will look like tonight and tomorrow. With a high degree of uncertainty around the state of snowpack and much more consequential terrain than our previous two mountains we are going to take a cautious approach into our climb tonight and climb as high as the mountain allows us to with a reasonable margin. We’ve controlled every variable we can at this point, so it’s just a matter of seeing what the mountain allows us to do. As of right now the plan is for a midnight departure, check back tomorrow to see how we fared! 

RMI Guide Henry Coppolillo

The weather continues to be kind to us. 

After a pretty windy evening that rattled tents all night, the morning was calm and far less breezy. 

The team had breakfast and hit the trail about 8:00 heading west along the W trek passing many trekkers and stunning turquoise lakes .

Around 3 hours into our hike we opted for a moderate side trip hike high up into what’s called the French Valley to see the backside of the towers of Torres Del Paine. This 2.5 hr hike took us into a massive cirque with hanging glaciers that we could not only hear, but could often see them cascading down the mountains.

After descending the team finished off the final 3 hours into camp, took hot showers, had a few cold beverages and then sat down to dinner with our whole team including our 8 very important porters.  

One more night here on the Trek! 

RMI Guide Casey Grom and the whole crew

This morning brought more pleasant weather in the form of overcast skies as opposed to yesterday’s endless, torrential downpour. We shoved out of Quito a bit ahead of schedule and were able to complete the four-hour loop hike of Laguna Cuicocha without incident.

Along the way people continued to connect with each other and share knowledge and experiences. On this trip we’ve learned a good deal from each other discussing a variety of topics: geology, biology, medicine, piloting an aircraft and how to keep your worried passengers at ease, as well as countless other topics. A lot can also be learned about a person through their fast-food preferences.

Even as we turn our sights towards Cayambe, we have done a great job of focusing on the task at hand (acclimatization) and taking in some lovely cultural experiences.

RMI Guide Dustin Wittmier & Team