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Today the team enjoyed a well deserved rest day in the beautiful city of Puebla. After enjoying breakfast together at the hotel, we all went our separate ways and wandered the city streets, taking in the views and enjoying everything from fresh squeezed juices to fried grasshoppers. At 7pm, we met up at one of our favorite restaurants for a team dinner, where we tasted some of Mexico's finest moles, a sauce unique to this area. We followed this up with a quick trip to the ice cream stand, just down the street, then headed to our hotel's rooftop patio to take in the evening views. We're headed off bright and early tomorrow morning to start our move to basecamp for our Orizaba climb. Everyone is excited and ready for the next leg of the trip. 

RMI Guide Dominic Cifelli

The team awoke bright and early today to eat a quick breakfast and start heading to La Malinche, our first objective of the trip. We were treated with sprawling views of the Mexican countryside as well as our first main objective, Ixtaccihuatl. We were thankful to stretch our leg and lungs as we hiked through the forest of Malinche, a welcome change from the urban jungle of Mexico City. Unfortunately, that’s where our hike ended, just below 13,000 ft, due to incoming weather. Though we didn’t reach our objective, we did get to our highest elevation of the trip so far, hiked with stray dogs that we named Beavus, Butthead, and Hank and ate a delicious carne asada for dinner. Now we rest and get ready to head to Ixta basecamp tomorrow.

RMI Guide Dominic Cifelli

The Four Day Summit Climb teams led by RMI Guides Tyler Jones and Ben Ammon reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning. Tyler reported chilly temperatures with winds of 25 mph. The team will spend some time celebrating on the summit before starting their descent. Congratulations to today's team!

Held hostage by the fickle nature of the weather for ten (or is it eleven now?) days at 17,200' my brain is in hardly any shape to draw all the parallels to that epic saga and our own story here. But some stand out: Ours has become a very long story of the challenges we face when not all elements in our world are in our control. And in our struggle to deal with these challenges, we face a bit of an emotional roller coaster as optimism fades when a new reality asserts itself. This morning the hope of a nice summit day came crashing down as we received heavy snow and high winds starting in the wee hours of the morning. Tyler Jones at 14,200' camp reported over two feet of new snow and 50 mph winds. So, once again we dug out camp with face protection, heavy gloves or mittens, and ski goggles on before breakfast. It was here that, given what we've been through up here, and the reality of just how long a human being can actually live at this altitude and harsh environment, we chose Thursday as our 'up or down' day. But, this still gives us a chance to summit. Tomorrow might not be perfect, but, Thursday has been forecasted to offer 'light and variable' winds. I'm generally an optimist, but at this point even I can succumb to a heaviness in my outlook after having so many of my summit plans thwarted. But, as we discover in Tolstoy's classic, sometimes what matters most is not some obvious achievement, but rather a deeper sense of accomplishment or understanding that comes with living life well, and to the fullest. Let's hope tomorrow our dispatch will be a bit more succinct. Like just one word. Love, kisses and heavy thoughts from your team at 17,200'. RMI Guide Brent Okita

On The Map

Sunday, June 30, 2019 - 8:44 PM PT We woke up to a sunny and relatively calm high camp. When we stuck our heads out to see what it looked like above, it was apparent that Denali wasn't a happy mountain. As guides, it is sometimes nice when the mountain makes the decisions for us and doesn't lead us on thinking we might climb. We spent the day eating and resting up for when the mountain decides that it is our time. The forecast is trending for better winds up high, so right now we will do some high altitude camping. We are so glad to have such a strong team of climbers with great attitudes. Let's hope Denali appreciates it as well! RMI Guide Mike Haugen and Team Siete

On The Map

Tyler called from the summit of Denali at 5:35 pm PST. He said it was a perfect and beautiful day for their summit climb. It was chilly at the top so they spent a little bit of time taking pictures and will be heading back down soon. Everyone on the trip is doing great and he will send a full dispatch when he gets back to 17,000' camp. Congratulations Team!

On The Map

Today is another gorgeous day here at Everest Base Camp. There isn't a cloud in the sky, and with a little breeze the usual heat of the day is masked. This morning, Dave, Linden, and I took a walk down the medial moraine - the strip of rock that runs down the middle of the Khumbu glacier, and arrived back to camp just in time for lunch. I hadn't been on the lower part of the Khumbu glacier since we started our rotations up the mountain, and although Dave pointed out to me at that time how the glacier would be different in about a month or so, I couldn't have imagined a more drastic change. The once frozen ice ponds are becoming lakes of glacier water, and rivers of melted ice are rushing down valley. Rocks are perched on ice pinnacles that haven't melted due to the shade the rock provides, and water runs down 10-15ft icicles that hang off the still frozen part of the glacier. Although I've climbed and hiked on multiple glaciers before, I've never lived on one for this long. Over the years I've heard so much about how quickly glaciers move and change, and have definitely seen slight changes while being on them, but have never seen with my own eyes how quickly they move and to what an extent they can change in just a months time. On a different note, down here in Base Camp teams are now hustling with preparations for summit bids. With the route now fixed up high people have been summiting everyday. Yesterday, Tshering and Uberaj both carried to the South Col to help prepare us for our summit bid. Tshering is now safely down at Base Camp and Uberaj stayed up higher on the mountain and is holding down the fort at Camp Two. Over the last few days I've been trying to rest as much as possible. I've made significant progress on my English and Science projects, but besides that and a few walks here and there, I've been sleeping, eating and drinking as much as I can. As Dave always tells me, "rest with a purpose," and I've been trying to get myself in as good shape as I can be to prepare myself forour own summit bid. Time is running short here at Base Camp. Virtually everyone will be gone from here in the next 3 weeks as we all try to fit our summit bids in before the monsoons hit in June. So, while we rest, it's weird to think that everyone here (about 350 people) will all move out shortly. Thanks for following along on our adventure! Sara

Today was a day we have all been hoping for.  No alarm clocks, no rush to load the small mountain of duffles in the bus and internet all morning.  

By the whipping crack of 1pm we had pacticed cravasse rescue, drank a gallon of coffee and packed our mountain bags.

A short bus ride up a road bumpy enough to make our seats feel like vibrating massage chairs, landed us at 15,200 feet.  A 40 minute cruise took us to the Jose Ribas refugio on the flanks of Cotopaxi.  We can definitely feel the 16,000 foot altitude. But after Cayambe we are all well prepared.   We even have the privilege of waking up "tomorrow" because our alarm clocks won't ring until one minute past midnight.   Wish us well as we are once again a full team with Maria's knee feeling much better. 

Climb on!!

RMI Guide Hannah Smith

Greetings from Kyajo Ri Camp 1. What a day we had!!! We departed with headlamps and returned with headlamps... Having to forego our move to Camp 2 yesterday due to the high winds, delivered not only a beautiful day today, but a marathon one. Regardless, we wanted to reach the elevation of Kyajo's summit to better prepare for Ama Dablam. So we did! Now everyone is very tired, and we look forward to some rest coming up. Regards, RMI Guide Elías de Andres Martos

After three nights of strong wind gust, fitful sleeping and high altitude we were all ready for a full mountain rest day today. Rest days are simple and look similar to your cat’s daily routine: eat, then nap, then casual stroll, then eat, then nap. Today, our highlights were hot quesadillas for snacks and we walked across the valley from camp to an abandoned hotel to enjoy even more spectacular views.
All around a great rest day and everyone is ready for more climbing tomorrow.

RMI Guide Walter Hailes