Hello RMI,
This is the RMI Kilimanjaro team reporting from the “Roof of Africa”. We had a beautiful summit day and are happy to report that 100% of our team was standing on top of Uhuru Peak about ½ an hour ago. We have already began our descent and are looking forward to being in High Camp in about two hours and then our final camp of the day, Mweka Camp.
We’ll give you a dispatch when we get to camp. It’s a good day here on Kilimanjaro.
RMI Guide Jeff Martin
RMI Guide Jeff Martin checks in from the summit of Kilimanjaro.
Mike Walter's team reached the summit of Mt. McKinley (20,320') on Wednesday, May 25th. Everyone was happy and healthy upon returning to 17,000' camp for some much needed rest.
The entire party reached the summit after moving to high camp at 17,000' on Tuesday. The team spent several days at 14,000' waiting for better weather to move to high camp and their patience paid off. They will begin their descent today and hope to be back at the Kahiltna Glacier on Friday.
Congratulations to Kenneth, Jeff, David, Tomasz, Mike & Geoff!
The Five Day Climb June 11 - 15 led by RMI Guides Brent Okita and Dominic Cifelli was unable to make their summit attempt due to avalanche danger. The teams enjoyed two nights at Camp Muir with some good weather which allowed for training opportunities.
RMI Guide Peter Whittaker and his entire team reached the summit of Mt. Rainier early this morning. Peter reported light winds, a beautiful sunrise, and a stellar route thanks to the hard work from RMI Route Workers.
There is no better way to start a day than sleeping in. After some long days of climbing, we have earned it. This morning we slept late, had breakfast burritos and started the work day at a leisurely 11am. While 23.5 hours of sunlight a day is a bit disorienting at first, hard work has been a great sleeping aid for the team.
Our crew is getting stronger every day. After our leisurely morning, we completed a back carry from 10,000' with no problems. We now sit at our 11,000' home, hiding from the beating radiation and gorging ourselves on goodie bags of food we recovered from our cache this morning. This afternoon we plan to meticulously re-pack the kit for a cache at 14,000' camp. We look forward to caching and moving up in the next few days, if weather allows.
Thank you to all for your comments and words of encouragement.
RMI Guide Tyler Jones
Way to go everyone! Michael, I’m sure you are having the time of your life! Enjoy it and stay full! I will go run around my neighborhood while you climb!
Posted by: Scott on 6/6/2012 at 4:36 am
Thinking of you all. Team Snyder loves and misses you Rolf!
Hello from the Dik Dik Hotel,
We had an early wake up call at Mweka camp this morning and were on the trail by 8:00 am. It was blue skies leaving camp then we descended into the cloud forest and had the first rain of the trip. Even though we had a long summit day yesterday, the team was very motivated and made great time walking down to the park gate. We said our goodbyes to all the support staff that helped us climb Kilimanjaro and then loaded up the bus to head back to the Dik Dik.
After being greeted by a glass of champagne, we headed immediately for a well deserved hot shower.
We just finished our celebration dinner and will re-pack our bags once again, but this time, it is for a new adventure - our safari that starts tomorrow. First stop is Lake Manyara, most well known for it's tree climbing lions. We will let you know if we are lucky enough to see one.
Cheers,
The Kili Team
Today began with a very difficult decision. Should we eat a full breakfast of cereal and fig bars? Or should we just coffee and charge down hill to the cache where a supreme breakfast awaited? Well the team decided, drink coffee, get cache and then have a relaxing brunch feast. What meal could be so enticing that we would exert ourselves on a retrieval mission with only caffeine running through our veins? Well glad you asked! It was breakfast burritos. Specifically pepper, onion, hashbrowns, eggs, Beecher’s cheese and MOOSE meat burritos. So yes, it was worth the wait. The rest of the day was a mix of napping, snacking, chatting, stretching, reading and card playing. It was an ideal day. Tomorrow we’re heading uphill to cache around 13,000' and along the way we’ll experience a series of classic Denali features! You’ll have to wait for the next update to learn all about them, oooh what a cliff hanger!
Well that sounds like a Fantastic Day!! Cannot wait to hear what other gastro delicacies are in store! Michael! Know you are having a Blast! Sending lots of love to you and the Team! Go go GO!! Alicia xoxo
Posted by: Alicia Becker on 6/8/2022 at 7:39 am
Sounds like a delicious brunch and worth the wait. I am happy to hear the rest of the day was also lovely. I can’t wait to learn about the different classic Denali features. Thank you so much for these updates! Sending the entire team all the powerful vibes possible!
Ps- Heather Hart: your CBJD family misses you and are so super proud of you and what you have accomplished. xoxo
You have to work with mother nature. Not a good idea to push into poor weather conditions with any small airplane. No fixed wing flights into Lukla today. Once I spent almost a month at the southern tip of Chile waiting for a weather window to fly into the interior of the Antarctic. Should not be the case here. Problem is, there has been a couple days of limited flights and we were scheduled for today but it did not happen. So let's go for another plan. Let's charter one of the finest helicopter's in the world, the infamous B3. It was, after all, the first ship to touchdown on the summit of Mount Everest. And for us, we just want to get to Lukla. We didn't get all the way there but ended up below Lukla as the weather started to be an issue as we flew in. No sooner than landing, lightning and three inches of hail in less than an hour turned the green fields white. Two charters were needed and the second group had to stop even shorter for about ten minutes before meeting up with us. It was a tough dance at the airport, but we had some good fortune to pull this off. It was an awesome flight. The team did great with the shift of service and a wonderful job climbing over 2,000 vertical feet to get here.... LUKLA!!!!
Let the climb begin, may the force be with us.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
Hello friends and family of Rainier Mountaineering. This is J.J. Justman really happy to report that our entire team is on the summit of Mt. Elbrus as we speak at 18,510’. We had a great day today. We actually started out pretty iffy weather, there were a lot of clouds, winds, sleet, snow and rain but it parted ways. We started out about 3 in the morning and wouldn’t you know it, we toughed it out, we are in a little bit of a white out. We wish we could have better photos but we are on top.
Everyone wants to say hello to friend and family back home. I’d like to definitely give a shout out to the folks back at RMI: Autumn, Sarah, Melissa, Lacey and Casey for helping to get this trip started the right way. Definitely helps me focus on what I need to focus on and that was making sure our team was acclimatized and having fun. What do you say guys, are you having a fun time? [Cheers in background].
So, we are a little tired and we still have a little bit of work to do so we are going to start heading down hill. Chaio from Russia.
That was Vladimir our co-guide along here with me, it was great climbing with him. We will have some photos and videos for all of you of our terrific summit day. We will send them tomorrow when we descend to the village of Cheget at the base of Mt. Elbrus.
RMI Guide J.J. Justman
RMI Guide JJ Justman calls in from the summit of Mt. Elbrus.
Awakening early this morning we were surprised at just how warm and windless it was. At first our views were obscured by thick clouds, but moments later we could recognize the faint outlines of the ridges above us and realized that in fact we were at the top edge of a thick cloud bank enveloping the Kahiltna below us.
Everyone was excited, and perhaps just a bit anxious about the climbing ahead. After all, we were to face our steepest terrain yet.
Now, in our tent after a wonderful meal of pasta followed by blueberry cheese cake, all I can say is how proud I am of how this team climbed today! Everyone handled the loads and the climbing really well. About as well as I've seen. This sure bodes well for later.
We really appreciated the early start being over an hour ahead of any other team. It felt like we had the mountain to ourselves, and we did. That is, until we descended and saw the throngs of humanity ascending the slopes we had passed long before. At dinner many in the group reflected on what they saw and asked, "Did we look like that?" referring to the hunched over postures of people battling altitude, steep terrain and a notable lack of technique and training. We were delighted to say, "no, you guys are climbers!"
RMI Guides Brent Okita, Leon Davis & Lindsay Mann
Hey ” AA “, I wonder how the tap in your bedroom it is been abused by extrangers, but been so nice (ME), I am still very proud of all of you ...keep going strong and Good Luck…...I hope you have your car key too ......
FREAKIN’ SWEET!
David Jordan, you’re my hero!
Posted by: Kyle McHugh on 5/28/2011 at 9:19 am
I heard a rumor you were on the Mountain Kenny. Congratulations, well done! Safe travels home.
Posted by: Sandra Hebert on 5/27/2011 at 7:54 pm
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