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A week ago, under the soft grey winter skies of Seattle, Jeff Martin and I hauled our 8 duffel bags from the loading curb at Sea Tac to the Korean Air check-in counter. Two window and one aisle seat, three oxygen masks safety demonstrations, about 5500 air miles, and one questionable airline fish meal later, we piled the duffels onto a rickety luggage cart and rolled them through the doors of Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan Airport into the turmoil of Kathmandu. Since arrival our days are filled with preparations for RMI’s upcoming Everest Expedition. The array of moving parts that come together for a safe and successful Himalayan Expedition are at times overwhelming. It takes months of hard work by numerous people, both here in Kathmandu by our fantastic Nepali partners, High Altitude Dreams, to RMI’s preparations back in the States. While most of the minute to minute tasks are more of the mundane variety – from taking inventory of our lithium batteries supply (535) to the tetris challenge of packing the variety of medication and vitamin bottles into the tackle box of the Base Camp Medical Kit - the effect is invigorating. It is here in Kathmandu that the Everest Expedition morphs from the multiple separate components of focus that consumed our attention over the winter months to the cumulative creation of everyone’s efforts. It is here that the excitement builds and the climb begins to take shape. The Expedition becomes tangible and real: the tents and ropes are sorted and counted, the loads are packed and on their way by yak and porter to Base Camp, and the permit sits in front of us awaiting Dave Hahn’s signature as the Expedition Leader. The preparations in Kathmandu also plunge us into the city’s daily chaos: dodging traffic rickshaws and speeding taxes in an almost desperate game of frogger to cross the street, navigating the narrow alley ways in order to track down a crucial item, finding relief in the living rooms of friends’ homes while sharing a cup of tea and catching up since the last visit. On Saturday this teeming city of 1.4 million celebrated the Hindu Holi Festival, known as the Festival Of Colors – a holiday linked to several mythical tales in Hinduism and manifested in a messy, wild, and boisterous all day street party. Walking through the streets of Indra Chwok, a particularly narrow and busy neighborhood in Kathmandu’s heart, on Saturday, bands of people sang and danced in the streets, covering each other in red, yellow, black, and blue chalky powder as others dumped buckets of water from rooftops or lobbed water balloons from doorways. Amidst the frenzy of celebration, Jeff and I were greeted with shy hesitation at first –foreigners yet uncolored with powder amidst the festivities. Yet once a few brave souls rubbed our cheeks with powder we were marked: color came from every direction, buckets of water and water balloons launched our way. The hotel staff had more than a few chuckles when we walked in the door, grinning and covered in multiple colors. This week our Island Peak and Base Camp Trek team heads into the Khumbu, followed days later by our Everest Team, and we are again immersed in the world of the mountains. The time spent with crampons on our feet is often the focus of our climbing pursuits but this time in Kathmandu is a reminder that this too is a part of the adventure - even when wearing flip flops. The months of hard work leading up to the mountain, the places we travel to, the sites we see, the people, the stories, and laughs we encounter along the way are all part of our mountaineering adventures. - Linden Mallory

After a long day of travel yesterday, we were re-energized this morning when we stepped outside the hotel to deep blue skies, brilliant equatorial sun, and temps in the mid 70s all at over 9,000’ here in Quito. We made our way high and low through the city excited to experience the colorful culture, friendly locals, and empanadas! We then ventured to the outskirts of Quito where we visited the site that gave the country its name - the equator! And since there’s never a bad time to snack, we hunted down a produce stand and stuffed ourselves with oritos, delicious sweet baby bananas widely grown here in Ecuador, and was soon followed by a delicious team dinner at an Ecuadorian restaurant. No, no one’s ordered guinea pig...yet. What a great way to acclimatize for a 19,000 foot volcano! RMI Guides Peter Whittaker, Jess Matthews and Team

Our teams on the Four Day Summit Climb reached the summit of Mt. Rainier via the Disappointment Cleaver Route early this morning. With this bluebird weather we have on the mountain, the teams were on their descent by 7:20 a.m. They will be back at Camp Muir by approximately 11:30 a.m. and will celebrate their feat on Rainier Basecamp later this afternoon. Jake Beren and the Expedition Skills Seminar - Emmons was on top via the Emmons Glacier Route at 8:00 a.m. His team will stay another night at Camp Schurman and descend off Mt. Rainier tomorrow. Congratulations to today’s teams summitting on both routes!

Monday, July 4, 2022 - 9:46 pm PT

We woke to a calm but cloudy morning at 17,200'.  There was light snow falling -some of the first snowflakes we’ve had on this trip.  It wasn’t too hard to be out in it for packing though.  We got it all done and got walking at noon.  Many careful steps were taken along the crest of the West Buttress in the clouds.  We got a little surprise when we started down the fixed lines at 16,200. There was an actual squall with snow blowing in our faces as we delicately stepped down and across crevasses.  Things eased as we got to 14,000' at 3 PM and re-established camp.  We then had a quiet afternoon and evening of resting, relaxing and eating, with everybody making mention of how much easier life at 14,000' was compared to 17,000'. 

Tomorrow we’ll hope the clouds go elsewhere as we get down to 11,000' and get set for the big walk out the lower glacier. 

Best Regards

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Today was a well-timed rest day. Following our recent daily pattern, it was sunny and calm in the morning and snowing and socked in by noon. The team took the chance to wash up and get clean during the sunny hours, and then hunkered down within the tents for the afternoon. The much talked about Everest Basecamp WiFi hotspots and 3G cell coverage have both been dysfunctional in the extreme of late, bringing the teams back virtually to the 1990's in terms of connectivity... roughing it. Yesterday was a very popular day for Puja ceremonies and so the drab moraine rubble we call home was transformed by a vast spiderweb of interconnected colorful prayer flags streaming from the numerous chortens. Tomorrow, our Sherpa team is geared up for a carry to Camp II while the climbers have a conditioning hike to Kalapathar in mind. Best Regards, RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Sunday, May 29, 2022 - 3:45 pm PT

We woke up to yet another splitter morning. We enjoyable clear skies, and cool temperatures while eating our oatmeal around 4 AM. After enjoying the quick breakfast, and some hot drinks we made quick work of breaking down camp, and caching anything we didn't need to bring uphill. By 6 AM the teams were all roped up, and we had begun our trip up Ski Hill. With the sun not finally making an appearance until about 9500', the snow surface remained firm and supportable, which made for another day of fast, efficient movement. In no time, we were rolling into our new home at 11,000' Camp.

RMI Guide Nikki Champion

Saturday, May 6, 2023 - 10:07 pm PT

The team awoke to find a cloud formation had snuck into the valley during the night, leaving wet, overcast, and flurry like conditions. We gathered for coffee and some morning pancakes, then retreated to our tents to read and watch movies for the afternoon while we waited out the weather. The sky slowly broke and the precip let up enough for the team to work some skills training into the afternoon. We knocked out a quick refresher on arrest techniques and then a comprehensive crevasse rescue. The team took to it quick, running some drills around camp and dialing in their systems. We wrapped up the day with a nice dinner and some relaxing talk. Morale remains high and the team is stoked for the upcoming days of the expedition!

All the best,

RMI Guides Mike, Jack and the team.

It was pretty incredible to wake up deep within Tarangire National Park just before daylight.  Birds were starting to sing, monkeys were at play a few feet from our tents and lions were about.  Someone heard an elephant.  We drank coffee and watched the light come up.  The team ate breakfast, bid the hotel staff goodbye and hopped into our now familiar Landcruisers.  We set off on our final morning of Safari on a big cat mission… no stopping for zebras and wildebeest… bring on the kitties.  And sure enough, we struck lion gold.  First there was that big, beautiful male hanging out with four females… but wait, wasn’t that another couple of lions over in that tree and still more under it?  All told there were thirteen, big and small in the pride.  We watched them watch us and we watched them wrestle and climb trees.  And then we made slowly but steadily toward the park gate (we did indeed still stop for zebras and wildebeests).   The day got ordinary -though still pleasant- as we commuted back to Usa River and Rivertrees Hotel to repack and prepare for the airport. We recalled our favorite parts of the climb and Safari, we planned out future trips.  Then the team busted up finally… hopping on planes and departing Africa.

I’ll stay on for another climb and Safari that will begin soon.  Thank you for following. 

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn and Team

Hi everyone, this is JJ Justman with the Everest climbing team, sitting here at base camp another day. It is the evening, right around 8 o'clock. We just finished another great dinner prepared by our sous chef. Today we had a really great day. It was our second day of training in the Icefall. We set up a nice obstacle course and got everyone familiar with some of the ups and downs and the crosses of what the Khumbu Icefall is going to entail. Everyone's doing really well. It's nice to have some practice on some fairly solid ground before we get to the real thing. Everyone just did a tremendous job. It's really good to see great teamwork. Tomorrow we have some more teamwork with everyone- Sherpas, kitchen staff, climbing team members, Jeff [Martin] and Mark Tucker, our base camp manager. We are having our puja tomorow. That's a nice little ceremony before we actually head up onto the mountain. We'll tell you a little bit more about the puja tomorrow. Everyone's doing well. It's a beautiful night here. We're going to play a little poker, some chess and have another great evening here at Everest Base Camp. Take care everyone. Thanks for following along. Ciao. RMI Guide JJ Justman

The clouds came back up over us in the night at Machame Camp, but the morning was pleasant enough.  We busted out of camp just after 8 AM and started right off with some hard work through a forest of giant Heather.  The trail was steeper and rockier than anything we had encountered yesterday… and a bit relentless. We pushed on for a couple of hours, getting above the clouds once more. After the steep hill, we worked more gradually up along a ridge crest through bright and intense sunshine. The team stuck right together as we made a turn to the North and traversed out toward the Shira Plateau. There were a few interesting parts requiring us to use our hands on the rock, and then we popped out on the plateau to the West of Kibo at 12,800 ft.  It was a relaxing descent then to get to our new camp at 12,500. We took just over 4 hours to reach Shira and so we had a relaxing afternoon -as planned- in our new home. There were actually a few short rain showers as the day went by, but most of us were napping in the tents by then.

We met for teatime and storytelling in the late afternoon and then, after a beautiful sunset, dinner at 7 PM.  By the time we piled out of the dining tent, the stars were brilliant. The Southern Cross and the Milky Way were easy to pick out, as were the distant lights of Arusha.

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn & Team