Everyone arrived with all bags in tow. That is as much of a win as we can ask for on day one.
Today, we ventured out on a tour of Quito and La Mitad del Mundo (literally, The Middle of the World). It was a particularly sunny day, and we spent a little time enjoying the variety of flowers at El Museo de Intiñan, the indigenous equatorial museum.
From there, our tour heads to El Panecillo, a small hill just south of the old town. Panecillo basically translates to "little bread loaf" as it is just a small rise that affords a person a nice view of Quito. If you make an early morning trip here, you can usually see Cayambe, Antisana and/or Cotopaxi from atop the hill. In the afternoon, mounting clouds tend to obscure the view.
We, then, headed down into the old town to have a look around at some statues, historic buildings, and old churches. But perhaps more importantly, there was a quick stop for empanadas and ice cream. Much of culture can be absorbed through food and discovering the taste of fresh guanabana ice cream is certainly a cultural experience.
RMI Guide Jeff Martin called from Mweka Camp (10,000') after the team's summit day.
The entire team reached the summit of Kilimanjaro today in great style. They left Barafu Camp after midnight with their headlamps lighting the way and reached the "Roof of Africa" as the day broke over Tanzania. After a quick celebration on top the team began their descent back to high camp where they were greeted with drinks and breakfast. They continued down to Mweka Camp and the thick air of 10,000' tired but in great spirits.
Congratulations to the team!
The weather moved into Everest Base Camp yesterday afternoon, the clouds settling in around the peaks and snow beginning to fall. It continued to snow on and off again all evening and into the night. The weather did have a welcome side effect thought: the clouds above and snow on the tents made temperatures a bit warmer and it never got too cold last night. When we woke up this morning everything was blanketed in a couple of inches of fresh snow. We packed all of our gear up, said goodbye to the Sherpa team at Base Camp, and headed back down the valley.
The new snow on the trail actually made the walking on the glacier easier, filling in between all of the loose rocks and smoothing out the trail. After a cold morning in the shadows packing up, we quickly warmed up not long after Base Camp when the sun finally found us and we made good progress. We followed the trail back to Gorak Shep and onwards to Lobuche, where we stopped for lunch. Finally, we descended from the glaciers, rocks, and new snow above back down into the valley of Pheriche, reaching our tea-house here by late afternoon. It was a long day on the trail, with many miles to cover across difficult terrain at high altitudes, and the tea-house was a welcome sight when we finally reached it. The team was amazing today, toughing out the difficult sections of the trail and enduring the long final hours of walking to get here. We are all tired from the walk, and the many days up high, but happy to be here and heading downwards. We had a blast reading all of the comments on the Blog and want to thank everyone for their thoughts.
Tomorrow, part of the group continues descending to Namche as they make their way home while the Island Peak team heads up the neighboring Imja Khola Valley to Chukung, near the base of Island Peak, to begin our climb. We will check in tomorrow from Chukung. The connection up there is sporadic so we will likely be checking in via satellite phone for the next few days.
RMI Guide Linden Mallory
Corell and team, I just googled Island Peak…...WOW!! Go slow, be steady and dont look down! Im praying for a safe and successful climb. You are amazing and a lot braver than me! Ill be glad when you get home.XXOO,Nancy
Posted by: nancy on 3/28/2012 at 2:31 pm
So relieved to hear that all were well at Base and that you are headed back to Namche and Lucy, Corell and DM are on to Island. Please take care of yourselves and know that we are all thinking of you and praying for you. Truly amazing. Kathryn
Hello from Plantation Lodge,
Today we had to say good bye again to the wonderful Dik Dik Hotel and headed out on our safari. First stop on the safari circuit was Lake Manyara National Park. It's not talked about as much as some other parks in Tanzania, but it has a lot of game viewing and is the perfect introduction to safari. I have heard for many years that this park is most well known for the tree climbing lions, and after many trips without ever seeing one, I was beginning to think that this was all made up. To my surprise, this would be the day that we saw not just one, but six tree climbing lions. The lions will climb the trees to seek refuge from the hot afternoon sun and they are really hard to spot because only a leg or a tail will be hanging down from the tree branch. It had been over two years since our driver had seen one, so we were definitely lucky.
The entire park sits right below the Great Rift Wall, and as we continued to tour around the park, we saw lots of elephants, impalas, hippos, zebras, wildebeest, and giraffes. We left the park feeling very good about the day's sightings.
Tomorrow is Ngorongoro Crater with its 25,000 resident animals. It going to be a big day and people are excited to see this natural wonder.
RMI Guide Jeff Martin & Team Simba Sita
Wow! I can’t believe I saw Kims white legs on the last picture. It is good that Kim is letting her hair down. Way to go Bob and Kim.. Can’t wait to hear and see more when you get back!!
Posted by: Bradley Hegman on 2/23/2012 at 9:42 am
Lucky! I had stopped believing in them. Nice one team.
RMI Guides Lindsay Mann and Pete Van Deventer recently met up in Frisco, Colorado, for the AIARE Level I Avalanche Instructor Training Course. AIARE (American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education) is the main course provider for avalanche courses and training in the United States. For three days Lindsay and Pete along with 16 other future instructors discussed current avalanche knowledge, curriculum material, and teaching techniques. Classroom time was balanced by field sessions, ski touring the very accessible terrain around Vail Pass. While the snowpack so far this year is relatively uninteresting from an avalanche perspective, the opportunity to trade ideas with 16 other peers and watch each other in the field was a great experience for both Lindsay and Pete. Many thanks to First Ascent and RMI for providing a Guide Grant to aid Lindsay and Pete in moving into an avalanche education instructor role. Look for Pete and Lindsay ski touring around the Aspen, Colorado, area when they are not guiding trips on Rainier, Alaska, and beyond for RMI.
“UNLEASH THE BEAST!”
That was the battle cry for RMI guide Geoff Schellens and I (Kel Rossiter) as we explored Red Rocks Canyon (Nevada) in preparation for the AMGA Rock Guide Exam in April. It seems that a few years back a friend of Geoff’s was climbing way above his last piece of rock protection and his belayer called up to him “Place a piece!” The fellow climbing heard the command as “Unleash the beast!” let out a yell, placed a piece, and successfully powered for the top. Throughout the course of our two weeks of training and the six-day exam in Red Rocks, Nevada, Geoff and I both placed lots of rock protection pieces and certainly unleashed the beast!
Familiarity with terrain is a useful advantage when guiding, so Geoff & I met up in late March to get oriented to the amazing range of climbing options and areas that Red Rocks offers and to hone our rock guiding skills in that terrain. It was a lot of hard work and it was a great experience. We’d done the same thing last year, prepping for the Rock Guide Course (the second level of the AMGA Rock program) and that was a great opportunity for me to work with another talented RMI guide toward a shared climbing objective. This year was similar, but different—we definitely enjoyed the climbing and good times together, but we were also definitely focused on the rigorous exam ahead.
Often, when people are a bit anxious about something they get a “tunnel vision” that causes them to overlook the big picture; fortunately, throughout the course of the prep and exam process the beauty of Red Rocks provided Geoff and I with many moments that prompted us to keep perspective and remember the big picture. On our first day of climbing, we headed out toward the Oak Creek area. Along the way we came across a boulder upon which someone had placed the majestic skull of a sun-bleached, full-curl desert bighorn sheep. Nothing like majesty and mortality to remind one to enjoy each moment! A few days later in White Rock Springs we encountered an entire herd of full-curl bighorns; their agility on the rock seemed to mock our efforts. On the exam, with a winter weather front coming in on high winds, I was topping out on the final pitch of a climb up the “Mescalito” and found a butterfly gently moving its wings in the shelter of the wide crack I was climbing. On another day, descending from the summit of Rainbow Mountain we entered into an astounding sinewy canyon of perfect sandstone baths and gigantic ponderosa trees rooted in the moist vein of desert soil. Moving through the anxieties and unknowns of the exam process, these moments helped to frame things in perspective indeed.
By the time the exam arrived, Geoff and I felt ready. In six short days the exam was over. It’ll be a week or so until we get the final marks from the exam, but regardless of outcome each of us feel positive about the entire event. It was a pleasure to connect with a fellow RMI guide and to work together toward this shared climbing goal. We’re thankful for the learning the course offered, the good times we had together climbing, the wonderful nature of Red Rocks that we enjoyed, and the support of the RMI/Eddie Bauer guide grant in a making all of possible for us—and we look forward to sharing the skills we honed there with RMI clients on many a future cliff and summit, “unleashing the beast!”
RMI Guide Kel Rossiter
Today we awoke to a world of synchronized visual perception, everything was the same milky white, the sky, the ground and the thin cover of frost draped over all the man made intrusions on this arctic alpine environment. Quite a stark contrast from the last few days of around the clock blue skies.
Despite the lack of visibility we still prepared to carry our gear as if the weather wasn’t part of the equation, hoping the eternal Alaskan summer sun would penetrate the trillions of suspended water molecules, and provide us with the conditions so desired to continue the task of climbing this mountain.
Unfortunately that didn’t happen soon enough, so we decided to use our time in the next most productive way, resting. The team enjoyed letting our bodies recuperate and help red blood cell counts climb after four days of work.
Tomorrow we will see what the mountain sends our way and keep you all posted!
Hello, this is the Huascaran team. We are back at High Camp after summitting the tallest peak outside of the Himalaya. We reached the summit at 8:30 AM local time. It's been a hard day, this mountain is no joke. We are at High Camp and will plan on heading down as far as we can today.
Thanks for following along.
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos calls from High Camp after summit bid.
RMI Guide, Henry Coppolillo checked in from the summit of Mt. Baker this morning. The team enjoyed a great climb and will enjoy their evening at camp before they pack up their things and head back to their cars.
Greetings from 16,000' on Cotopaxi! This is the Ecuador Cotopaxi Express climb calling to check in. We are up at the hut relaxing, drinking some tea, and acclimatizing. We're getting ready to do a little bit of training tomorrow but for right now we are just bumping ourselves up a little higher into the atmosphere and we'll hang out and acclimatize for a bit before doing some training tomorrow and get ready for our attempt at the top the day after. So all is well up here; it’s snowing lightly but we anticipate it clearing out just in time for us.
RMI Guide Jake Beren & Team
Thanks for being our biggest fan Farmer Dave!
Posted by: Dustin on 1/26/2023 at 6:46 pm
Hey Dustin ,
You Rock! Looking forward to following along again!
Farmer Dave
Posted by: Dave Kestel on 1/26/2023 at 3:26 am
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