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Wednesday, May 29, 2013 Today we awoke to another beautiful day at 14,000 camp on Denali. Feeling better about the altitude we cruised down to our cache and back in no time. A cloud rolled in and brought light snow this afternoon which has surprisingly been a welcome change to the hot temps and our sunburned lips from these past few days. We were able to do a little practice with fixed lines in preparation for the real deal in a couple days. Everyone did great, even with monster lobster gloves on! Tonight, Gerald treated us to duck burritos, with duck that came all the way from New Jersey, also a welcome change then to "chicken", resembling tuna from a bag. A shout out to Emma Rose, happy birthday! RMI Guides Leah, Logan, and Brent

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This is Mike checking in from the Torres del Paine trek. Our team is finally assembled in Puerto Natales. We arrived over the last few days and finally got all of the group together for a dinner. There was some delayed bags and subsequent logistics that needed to be figured out. The winds were very strong leaving Punta Arenas, our Magellanic penguin tour was cancelled due to high winds and tide issues, which resulted in a windy van ride that made the cancellation all the more understandable as white caps and ships listed in the harbors. 

We are in Puerto Natales, briefed and packed for our trek. Everyone is eager to leave the amenities of the hotels and begin the "O" portion of our trek tomorrow. We will be heading for Seron camp and fingers crossed that we get a nice view of the Torres and Cuernos as we head into the park. Thanks for following along.

RMI Guide Mike King

June 13, 2017 Hello, this is Jake Beren calling in from 17,000' Camp on Denali. The team made it up today, it was pretty windy in the morning but the wind tapered down, and we were able to make it up to camp safely. Now we are snuggled up with full bellies and hot drinks. We are just going to wake up in the morning and see what the mountain offers us. Wish us luck! We need some low winds for our summit bid. We are prepared to spend a few days up here but we are hoping not to. That's all from 17 Camp. Hope everybody in the lowlands is doing well. RMI Guide Jake Beren

On The Map

The team is currently exploring Otovalo, the market town near the base of Cayambe. The sea of brightly colored goods in the town square is a fantastic place for a little cultural souvenir shopping. After our outing, we will head towards our next climbing objective, Cayambe. With a positive trend in the weather, it seems as though all the crossed fingers up North have made a difference. Keep it up amigos and we will check in from the hut! RMI Guide Jake Beren

On The Map

Hello everyone this is JJ Justman with the RMI Mexican Volcanoes adventure team. We are very happy to report that the entire team is up at high camp on Ixta. We are now at 15,300'. It's a long day carrying heavy packs to get up here, but it is definitely well worth it. I'm looking towards the summit right now. We just have a couple thousand feet to go. So we're getting our tents secured down and guyed out. And we're also working on a little bit of a hot drink as well as a dinner for this evening, which is gonna include some homemade sausage with a little bit of Ramen soup, and cheese quesadillas. Stay tuned tomorrow. I'll definitely give a call in. The weather right now is beautiful. We're keeping our fingers crossed that it's going to remain the same and wish us luck and we'll touch base hopefully with some great news tomorrow. Everyone's doing great and they all say hello. Bye. RMI Guide JJ Justman

On The Map

Hello everyone! It is Team Elbrus reporting from St. Petersburg. Last evening we had a great celebration in Cheget. I cannot fully explain how thrilled I am to have climbed with such a great team. We had a diverse group. Our youngest member, Charlotte, is 16 and tough as nails! I had to apologize on summit day because Elbrus wasn't high enough for her as she casually strolled to the summit. Our oldest team member makes me hope that I will be as strong at that age, especially since I will most likely be guiding into my late 80's. We made it into St. Petersburg and we are resting and relaxing in our beautiful hotel near one of the city's canals. We have a full day of touring this beautiful city. Stay tuned for some great videos and photos of our final day in this fantastic country. RMI Guide JJ Justman

It is apparent the two previous days of hauling full loads weighing more than a small horse has already made our team stronger. Yesterday we all felt a bit nackered but ten solid hours of sleep was most revitalizing. This morning the alarm went off at 6:00 am and we woke to clear skies and cold temps. The ever constant roar of our stoves means coffee is close providing the needed impetus to crawl out of warm bags and into cold boots. We then made a smooth carry to 11,000 feet, the sight of our next camp. With a full afternoon to rest, the team is now learning the invaluable skill of killing time. RMI Guide Adam Knoff

RMI Guide Dustin Wittmier and Team reached the summit of Mt. Baker via the North Ridge. The climb was windy, and partly cloudy, but warm. The team descended this morning and will Celebrate their success in Glacier, WA this afternoon.

Sean McCroskey and his dad, Jeff McCroskey, stretch out their sore muscles on Kilimanjaro. ---- RMI climber, Sean McCroskey recounts his first climb – Kilimanjaro in 2017. Read RMI Guide Casey Grom's dispatches of the team's climb here on the RMI Blog. Find out more about having your first climb featured on our blog! ---- In 2017, I was fortunate enough to climb and summit Kilimanjaro with my Dad (not only was I fortunate enough to do that but also have parents that let me skip the first two weeks of my last semester of college to go and do it!). I didn't have much climbing experience before but had done some hikes up Mt. Mitchell and Mauna Kea as well as worked out a lot to prepare. We arrived in Tanzania and immediately met our guide, Casey Grom. From the get-go my dad and I knew we would be in good hands going up the mountain. Climbing Kilimanjaro was a once in a lifetime experience made even better because of the RMI Team. Our porters were incredible, it was so nice to be able to arrive at camp and have everything set up for our team and to be able to toss our gear down and rest. Sean and Jeff McCroskey with some of their teammates on Kilimanjaro. At night we would bundle up, put our headlamps on, and sit around the dinner table and tell stories (some the funniest stories I've ever heard) and talk about life. I learned so much from a team of people from all different backgrounds. When we reached the top, I took out my Xavier University flag I got just before my freshman year of college and displayed it from the summit with my Dad. The best surprise though was the satellite phone call Casey let us each take from the top – my Dad called my mom and I got to call my best buds back home. Sean and Jeff McCroskey displaying their Xavier University flag on the summit of Kilimanjaro. We had such a great experience; we came back the following summer and climbed Mt. Rainier with Ben Liken and got to see Casey! Sean McCroskey

Snowy, cold and grey morning at Mt. Everest Basecamp. Which is not entirely a bad thing. In fact, we want it to keep snowing for a few days in order to change the dangerously icy conditions that exist up high on the mountain. Of course, snow down here at 17,500 ft. doesn't translate to snow up at 25,000 ft, but we can only hope. The consensus between guides and expedition leaders on the mountain is that we need some sort of change before we can responsibly send climbers and Sherpas onto the rock-strafed flanks of Lhotse again. This situation makes for a slightly tougher than normal mental game for Everest climbers. Normally, in this first week of May we'd be putting the finishing touches on our conditioning and acclimatization in preparation for the summit. And although we did what we could toward those goals on our last rotation up the hill, it wasn't much without a day or two on the Lhotse Face. But that could not be helped. Unfortunately, we saw, heard of, and dealt with several instances of other climbers getting slammed by rock. Such poor odds of success were not for us. So now we are resting at basecamp and we are in limbo. If the snow actually sticks to the blue ice of the Lhotse Face the chance of a rock blowing off the summit of the 4th highest mountain in the world and hurtling unimpeded down toward our fixed ropes would be greatly reduced and we'd be back in business. If that happens sooner, then we might even have a chance to go back up for a more thorough acclimatization rotation before the summit bid. If time drags on a bit before that snow sticks… we may be left with just a shot at the summit. And if time drags on for several weeks without the change we need… a decent shot at the top is in doubt. In our favor, the jet stream winds that were raking the mountain (and setting free thousands of precariously perched rocks up high) have eased. The word is that the jet is to the South of the mountain now and that relatively low winds are going to be with us… which normally allows for cloud formation and some daily snow. In our favor, there are still teams willing to risk the rockfall (and now snow sluffs) of the Lhotse Face and so we'll get daily reports as to conditions up high and perhaps the route will still get scratched in despite the hazards. We certainly wouldn't ask anyone to endure these conditions, but we aren't so proud and stubborn that we wouldn't take advantage of the good results of such labor when conditions turn favorable. It is hang loose time. Cards, books, movies, naps, meals, get-togethers with other climbers, walks out to "Icy Cyber" (the position ten minutes out in the glacier that gets 3G service), conversations about the weather, the icefall, the fixed ropes and the helicopters… incidentally, there are none today and it is quiet like back in the old days, thanks to the snow. Best Regards, RMI Guide Dave Hahn

On The Map