Most Popular Entries

The Torres del Paine trek team arrived over the last two days in Punta Arenas. Flying this far south requires a lot of plane, airport & layover time. We got an early start for our boat trip to Magdalena Island where a colony of magallenic penguins live.One and a half hours out the Straights of Magellan (if you haven't figured out that he's kind of a big deal down here) where the currents of the Atlantic & Pacific oceans collide resides a lot of penquinos. An hour loop got everyone a full dose of penguins, gulls & skuas. The baby penguins that hatched in November are big and still have trace amounts of their fuzzy down. 

We'll transfer to Puerto Natales this afternoon and get our gear check done. A quick meeting with our Chilean partners will get everyone ready to begin our trek of the "O" & "W" circuit of Torres del Paine National Park.

So far the weather has been nice, seas calm and winds low. We are eager to start walking towards Seron camp in the morning. 

RMI Guide Mike King

Tuesday, June 14, 2022 - 10:30 pm PT

Well dear readers today will hopefully be the last dispatch from 14,000' Camp! After analyzing several forecasts and performing a ritual to appease the mountain weather gods, we’ve decided tomorrow we’re moving to 17,000' Camp! We are still very much on the “nowcast” though so fingers crossed that things look good in the morning! I’m sure you’re wondering about our day and sadly there isn’t much to write. Today was a bit of a Groundhog Day. Some folks went for a walk (the same as yesterday) some folks played cards (the same as yesterday) some folks stretched and did yoga (the same as yesterday) and some folks snacked aggressively (the same as yesterday). Learning to stay entertained and content while waiting for weather is an important expedition skill and the team has been nailing it these last several days. Here’s to hoping tomorrow’s weather is nice and we can break out of this loop!

Adventure is out there!

RMI Guides Avery, Jack, Liam and the team

A well earned day of rest. We have come to the point now in this expedition where things are now earned instead of deserved. Granted we all worked hard on our last rotation. A storm came in and bullied us into coming down a day early. The wind beat us like a naughty pet and kept camp two, our primary objective out of reach. Despite the storm, everyone did great handling themselves and proved they are ready for the final push. Now we must really focus on staying positive and healthy. Our bodies are wearing down even here at Base Camp. The mountain, letting us touch and feel a little bit is hiding no secrets and will demand our strongest effort yet to gain her summit slopes even though our physical selves aren't as tip top as they were two weeks ago. So now we earn it. Nothing will come easy. From here until the end we must become more adept and graceful at dealing with the hardships. The want to come home and hug our loved ones and eat fresh food and enjoy a warm shower is growing stronger everyday. All of us must embrace the spirit of climbing this mountain and believe that working hard, suffering well and giving everything we have both physically and emotionally will earn us a chance to stand on top. These next few rest days will all blend together. Sleep, eat, drink, sleep, cards, read and so on. I personally spiced things up today when I crawled into the Gamov bag just to see what it was like and 15 minutes later had a claustrophobic panic attack and had to be let out before hyperventilating. This provided a touch of humor but all in all we now must rest and wait. We all understand what these next two weeks will bring. We came here to climb Shishapangma and we will give her our finest effort. Even during days of rest. More on that tomorrow. RMI Adam Knoff

Update 6:30 a.m. PST Hey, this is Dave Hahn calling from Camp 1 with Seth Waterfall and Dan Johnson. We finally got out of Basecamp. We're on our way down for our summit bid. A beautiful day today for the start of it at least. And then about the time we were about mid morning or so when we were getting up here to Camp 1, the wind clouds and cloud caps started forming over the high peaks. Made us a little bit worried for our friends who were going to the summit today but sounds like things went well for the folks we know up there. And we know a number of people that left for the summit today so that is encouraging. In fact, with some of the cloud play up there, we were able to actually see people on top which I don't remember being able to do from Camp 1 before so that was pretty exciting. And neat to go through the Icefall again, actually very frightening to go through the Icefall again, but neat to work our muscles and get up here close to 20,000' again. Lam Babu and Yubaraj are up at Camp 2 tonight. And they're getting Camp 2 ready for our arrival tomorrow. That's our hope is to get up early in the morning tomorrow and move what should be a relatively easy day up to Camp 2. But like I say nice to be up here. We've been talking to Mark Tucker down at Basecamp. Sounds like all is going well and the forecast is still looking good for when we want to get close to the top in four days or five days, something like that. And so keep following along. And hopefully we'll keep making upward progress. Bye for now. RMI Guide Dave Hahn

On The Map

Always tough to leave the Plantation Lodge in Karatu.  It is only made possible because we then get to move on over to Tarangire, home of the Elephants!   It is hotter and drier once we left the Ngorongoro highlands, but we had a thin cloud cover for much of the day, so the sun wasn’t oppressive.   Within minutes of entering the park today we were looking at a pair of lions.  A big male sitting regally beneath a shade tree and a female who seemed to have the hunting job for the day.  A few minutes later we began seeing the elephants.  Tarangire has a million big baobob trees, every one of which has been scraped by elephant tusks in search of moisture.  We saw family groups everywhere, with plenty of youngsters staying close to their moms.  As we got deeper into the park we saw giraffes and Cape buffalo (zebras and wildebeest barely rate a mention anymore, but we saw thousands of them) we saw antelopes of all shapes and sizes, from Dik Diks to Elands.  We just barely saw a leopard (a tail hanging down and a couple of paws as the cat lay sprawled over a branch within a thick canopy). And we just barely saw a cheetah -or cheetahs if you believe those that think there was another speckled thing behind that bush. 

It was a great day in a great big park.  And we look forward to one more morning of Safari.  But we are still in the park tonight, experiencing a “tent camp” out in the bush.  There is no fence separating us from the wild animals tonight.  If there is no dispatch tomorrow, you’ll know what happened.  

Best Regards, 

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

PC: Dave Hahn
 

The Expedition Skills Seminar - Emmons June 30 - 5 July reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today.  After several days of training and ascending via the Emmons Glacier, RMI Guide Tatum Whatford and team left Camp Schurman this morning for their summit attempt.  The team reached the summit around 8:30 am.  It's a beautiful day on the mountain and after enjoying some time in the crater the team will return to Camp Schurman.  Tonight is their last night on the mountain, tomorrow they will descend to the trailhead at White River and make the drive back to Rainier BaseCamp.  We look forward to seeing them tomorrow afternoon. 

Nice work team!

Wednesday, June 2, 2021 - 5:24 pm PT

We had a cold clear night and woke to blue skies. The goal today was to cache food and fuel around Windy Corner at 13,500'. The route would take us up Motorcycle Hill and Squirrel Hill. From there it’s across the Polo Field and into the Saddle before Windy Corner. Windy Corner lived up to its name but the winner of the strongest winds today was the Polo Field. The Team did well and enjoyed the amazing views of the surrounding Alaska Range. We are back at 11K Camp eating food and enjoying some warm tents. We hope to move to 14K Camp tomorrow if the weather permits. There is a weather system forecasted that might keep us here for a few days. We’ll let you know when we know.

RMI Guide Mike King

At 4:45P (PDT) Mike Walter called from the summit of McKinley: This is Mike and I’m calling from the summit of Mt McKinley! The weather is beautiful; no wind, and just a few clouds. The summit of Mt Foraker (17,400’) is 3,000’ lower than us, and Kahiltna Base Camp is 13,000’ below us! Our ascent from high camp took seven and one-half hours, which is very good time. We’re taking hero shots, hugging and congratulating each other, but soon it will be time to descend to our tents. After a well deserved rest, tomorrow we will down-climb the West Buttress and reach the thick air at 14,000’ camp. More reports will follow. Congratulations to the Mt. McKinley June 12th Team!

On The Map

Throughout the night the clouds surrounding camp started to produce snow and dropped over a foot around our tents. Plans are always in flux up here and our carry higher on the mountain has been postponed. The crew is unfazed, merrily digging out our home and relaxing with a big salmon and bagel breakfast. Another round of digging and a bit of rest before our upcoming potluck lunch. Down days can be productive, storing up strength for higher up on Denali and fine tuning the essential camp skills required for the future. That's all for now, cross your fingers for a break in the weather and we'll check in later. RMI Guide Jake Beren

On The Map

Hello everyone following the RMI blog. This is the Mexican Volcanoes adventure checking in for the day. Our team made it up here. We are officially on Ixta. We're at the lower hut, had a good day getting up. The weather is absolutely beautiful. Good view of Popo, which is a little bit of a smoking volcano right now in the distance. And a great view of Ixta, which is our objective for the next couple of days. But in the mean time, our group is packing gear and getting everything set. We looked at the tents, everything's in order. So now my job is cut out for me. We're going to do a little bit of cooking here and feed the team. For starters, we're going to go with a tortilla soup, but before that we have a little bit of chips and homemade salsa. And then for our main course, we're having a little carne asada. That was a special recipe given to me by RMI Guide, Dan Windham. Looking forward to making a good dinner tonight, getting our bellies full. We're at 13,000' right now so we are officially acclimatizing. So we're going to have a good evening down here on the lower slopes of Ixta and then tomorrow we are going to move up to High Camp on Ixta. We'll check back in and let you know how everything's going, but all is well. Thanks for following along and we will touch back with all of you tomorrow. Take care. Bye. RMI Guide JJ Justman