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The Expedition Skills Seminar – Emmons team turned at high break on their summit attempt today due to high winds. RMI Guide Pete Van Deventer reported steady winds of 50 MPH. The team is back at Camp Schurman, 9,440’, high camp on the Emmons Glacier where they will spend the night. The seminar team will finish their expedition skills training before descending in the morning.

Congratulations Team!  

RMI Guide Mike Walter and his team reached the Denali summit yesterday with Pete Van Deventer's team.  

Congratulations to both teams!

Thursday, June 3, 2021 - 10:27 am PT

We've waited through wind and snow for weeks and we finally got our shot. We woke up yesterday to clear skies and relatively (for 17k feet) warm temps in camp. We had stoves firing early, before sun hit camp, and got everyone up to start prepping. With breakfast done and packs loaded we stepped out of our sunny camp into the shadow of the Autobahn. It was a chilly couple hours crossing to Denali Pass and we were all psyched to get back into the sun. A slight, but cold 10mph breeze in our face kept it chilly all day, but we kept moving past Zebra Rocks, around Archdeacons Tower, onto the Football Field, up Pig Hill, and along the summit ridge to the summit! We were standing on top just after 6pm yesterday. With photos taken, we started working our way back down, well aware of the distance still to get back to the comfort of our sleeping bags. The long hours of sun help alot and we rolled back into camp around 11pm, just as the sun left camp. Tired, chilly, sore, but excited that we managed to reach our goal!

We'll start working our way down the mountain today, back to warmer temps, more oxygen, and a flight back to Talkeetna. They tend to be long days, so dispatches might be short, but we are headed home.

RMI Guides Pete Van Deventer, Mike Walter, Avery Parrinello, Matias Francis, Chase Halbert, Luke Wilhelm, and RMI Teams 1 and 2

Friday, May 21, 2021 - 11:28 pm PT

This morning we woke up to fresh snow as we began preparations for our carry to the 9800 cache. Our duffels and backpacks were able to easily swallow our gear as we only had to carry a load of about 50% of the weight from the previous day. The team ascended, cached everything and then descended in stellar form, ate a nourishing meal and went to bed with full stomachs and tired legs.

RMI Guide Eric Frank & Team

Today was a true rest day. We had a casual morning of hot drinks and breakfast. After that we did about an hour review/ practice of fixed line travel and running belays. Then we did nothing. It was glorious. Here’s a list of the various snacks the team ate on our rest day. Cookie dough, Double Stuff Oreos, beef jerky, parmesan cheese, wasabi and soy almonds, watermelon Sour Patch Kids, chorizo, Beecher’s Flagship Cheese, Ritz Crackers, peanut butter, white cheddar, black licorice, Walkie Talkie Chocolate, dried cherries, Knotsberry Farm cookies, sour gummy worms, original Pringles, fireball, Nutter Butters, dried apricots, dill pickle almonds, Goldfish, ranch corn nuts, melkesjokolade, chocolate chip lovers cookie dough, rattlesnake cheddar, ginger chews, salami, Famous Amos Cookies, Keebler Elf M&M cookies.

Tomorrow’s plan will depend on the “nowcast” for what the weather is doing.

After a while crocodiles,

RMI Guides Avery, Jack, Liam and the Team

Holly Hollar, RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos, and the rest of their rope team on the summit of Mt. Rainier. ---- In honor of our 50th Anniversary, we are featuring stories of first climbs. Stories from guides and stories from climbers. Today, we are excited to share Holly Hollar’s story of her first climb – Mt. Rainier in May 2018. We have edited her story for length. ---- Our mountain guide, Elias, is yelling at me with his heavy Spanish accent as the wind wails around us and ice pellets sting our faces at 13,600’, “Come on girls, we are close now!” The sun is up now, our headlamps finally switched off, and we are roped up, three of us ladies, to Elias. I’m in front. Behind me is Laimei, a physicist trying to solve the global energy problem in her post doc, and Robin, a lobbyist who is trying to work with legislators on privacy issues and anti-money laundering efforts to ensure criminals can’t fund terrorist activities in the U.S. (I am outclassed by both of these incredible women). The snow is shin deep, making it hard to find purchase in our crampons. For Laimei and I, it’s our first time attempting anything like this, Robin is the most experienced of the group - she’s already climbed Mount Elbrus. We are screaming at each other because the wind is so loud. “Come on, let’s dig!” I shout back to them, because I am terrified of what I see overhead of us, two giant blocks of ice that, should they choose to break free, would surely scrape us off the face of the mountain and into oblivion. We’ve tethered into ice anchors, but it’s little consolation on the steep, icy slope. Only a few minutes ago I had wanted to quit. Frustrated by my inability to find secure footings, and slipping back with every step, I turned to Elias, who had told me they had someone waiting at the bottom of the pitch for a few extra minutes in case someone changed their mind about going further. “Elias, I don’t know if I can do this,” I said. He took off his sunglasses. “Holly, look at me. You can dig. Dig deep girl. You can do this.” I rack my brain for motivation. I think of the words of a personal coach who inspired me last fall, “Joy is always a choice.” I recited this to myself along with other positive thoughts as we continued toward the top. The three of us are all that’s left of the 9-person team who began this boondoggle two days ago. Meeting at the RMI BaseCamp in Ashford, Washington, we unpacked our gear for gear check with smiles on our faces. Everyone was jubilant on that first day as Elias de Andres Martos introduced himself to the group and laid out the game plan for the following three days. He explained his extensive climbing experience, having guided in the Himalaya and on Denali, and explained what would be expected of us. “I was a teacher, a kindergarten teacher, but I found I did not like teaching. I like it when my students listen. You will listen to me as we climb because I have knowledge that will help you be more efficient. Efficiency is everything. You do not want to waste energy. Sometimes people say I am too harsh. It is because I want you to succeed and I don’t want to take too much risk. We have a margin of safety. So I push and sometimes I yell. But we will get there okay?” We nodded our heads in agreement. RMI requires at least one day of mountaineering training before heading up Rainier, so we spent the following day learning techniques like rest stepping and using our ice axe to stop ourselves from sliding down a glacier or into a crevasse. I was worried about getting enough sleep the night before the big climb, but that was no issue as I had worn myself out partly due to the exertion of learning to walk uphill in knee deep snow and partly from the stress of Elias spontaneously screaming “FALLING!” throughout the afternoon to build our self-arrest reflexes. Holly and the rest of her RMI team on their way to Camp Muir. Finally, it was time to climb. The hike to Camp Muir covers 4,500’ of elevation gain in about 4 1/2 miles. So we climbed roughly 1,000’ an hour and stopped to break at each milestone. The pace was slow and steady, harder for some than others but mostly a slog for everyone. Though it was snowing and grey when we began, the weather cleared as we climbed and soon we were above the cloud line and rolling into Camp Muir. It’s a good thing I hadn’t imagined Camp Muir to be a sort of mini-Ritz Carlton Bachelor Gulch because I would have been sorely disappointed. The camp is basically five or six little huts and one big bunkhouse where the RMI climbers sleep. After dinner it was time for “real talk” with Elias. “Okay guys. Here is the deal for tomorrow. There is going to be three breaks and a break at the summit. At each break we are going to ask you to tell us right away if you are committed to climbing the next hour to hour and a half. We are going from island of safety to island of safety, so you cannot quit in the places between our break points because it is too dangerous. If you are going to turn around, we will send a guide with you back to Camp Muir. But here is the issue. We can only have a team of three guests per guide. That is our ratio. If we lose too many guides, and don’t have the ratio, we may have to turn a team around. So, it is best if you be decisive and, if someone else is going already and we are at break number one and you are iffy, you need to decide to go down. Remember, the true summit is the parking lot at Paradise, not the top of the mountain, okay?” We were told a few tips on what to pack, how to pack and what to wear and then we were put to bed with the promise of being awoken sometime between midnight and two in the morning to begin our climb. The first stretch out of Muir was hard but not terrible. The deep snow made for some challenges, and for some it was simply too much with the altitude or poor boot fit/equipment mishaps, to continue. So, we lost several climbers at the first stop. But then the real fun began. Though we had planned on climbing another 1,000 feet or so before the next break, we came upon another climbing team who was ascending the wrong route up the Ingraham Glacier. I could tell Elias was getting frustrated, as every second we were stopped the team grew colder. One moment you were sweating in two layers with max exertion uphill and the next the sweat was freezing to your skin. Time was passing, with every second contributing to the deterioration of the climbers. Elias made a quick call. “Okay guys! We will take a very quick break here to let the other team get ahead of us. Put on your parkas!” We dutifully threw on our parkas. I could feel my fingers begin to burn and wondered if this is what the beginning of frostbite feels like. Fortunately, it was too dark for me to see that we were surrounded overhead by refrigerator-sized ice blocks that had tumbled off the glacier and come to rest, for the moment, just so. I got a good look at those coming down and I’m not going to lie, it put a bit more pep in my step. We began ascending again, this time to the proper break point where we did another quickie-style break. Sunrise on the upper slopes of Mt. Rainier. The final stretch seemed to go on forever, I think in part due our scheduled stops being disrupted by the other climbing team. We took one final, brief rest below the crater. I realized then that looking up was a mistake. Every time I looked up at the mountain I felt a soul crushing disappointment that we still had so far to go. It was much easier to look down and see how far we had come. The wind is ripping around us, we’re hanging on to our parkas for dear life and we begin the last push of five hundred feet or so. Final doubts come and go, but we are pushing onward. At last Elias looks down at me and says, “Holly, that is the crater rim, right there. You are going to be so proud.” In five more minutes, we cross the rim and tears come to my eyes. They are tears of relief that our efforts have finally landed us at the top. I turn and yell to the rest of the girls “It’s right here! We’re here!” It’s a cry fest up top, but don’t think for a second it was just the ladies. There’s a special kind of catharsis reserved for suffering of that nature, and now I know what it feels like. We have the crater to ourselves and take full advantage by snapping pictures and taking a much-needed water and snack break. In the back of my mind, I’m wondering how it’s possible, that what began as a dream with a picture at my desk five years ago, finally became a reality. The descent was not completely without drama, and certainly not as fast as I would have liked. Now, in the light, you can see all the hazards and scary stuff you couldn’t see on the way up. I’m eager to get out of harm’s way and back to Camp Muir. Everyone knows the worst accidents happen on the way down, not on the way up. Thankfully, we got to Muir in one piece. The rest of the folks were kind in helping us remove gear and get situated inside to recover for an hour or so before hiking the rest of the way down. It was a gorgeous afternoon as we rolled into the parking lot feeling like heroes. We gathered for one final time at Rainier BaseCamp to reflect on our climb and trade contact info. I am so grateful for having met these awesome ladies and for sharing with them what is without question, a peak experience in my life. I am also left with a lasting lesson learned: no one gets up there without a little help. If you are open to accepting help and guidance, and you follow through on it, you have a distinct advantage over the individual who thinks they can do it their way and ignore the advice of experts. I am grateful to our guide and the experienced team at RMI who took a novice mountain hiker and turned her into a mountaineer. --Holly Hollar

Alex called from the summit of Manaslu on October 1st 10:50 a.m. Nepali time (September 30th 10:32 pm PT)

"It was a really chilly morning. Keeping moving on the summit to keep my fingers and toes warm. There are some clouds starting to come in and it's starting to snow. Hoping to go all the way down to Basecamp today. Looking forward to some good food and a decent mattress. The pace was pretty grueling: Base to Camp 2 in 8 hours, Camp 3 to Camp 4 in 3 hours and 45 minutes, and Camp 4 to summit in just over 4 hours. I have the summit almost entirely to himself. Just one other climber up here. Pretty cool. Going to start making my way down. I'll check in when I hit base. Ciao."

Email from Alex received October 1st 8:25 pm Nepali time (7:40 a.m. PT) I stood on the peak of Manaslu at 11am on October 1st! Funny thing is that exactly one year ago to the day I was at the summit of Cho Oyu. Tired and cold, I just arrived back at Camp 3. I'm going to have something warm to drink and bundle up here for the night. I'll post something more descriptive tomorrow from Basecamp. To those who have been following my trek, thanks for all your thoughts (and words) of encouragement. RMI Guide Alex Barber

The Mount Rainier Summit Climb led by Pete Van Deventer and Casey Grom were unable to make a summit attempt due to continual lightning last night. The teams did venture over to Ingraham Flats this morning and are currently experiencing sunshine with the cloud deck between 7,000' - 8,000’ feet. After they spend some time on the upper mountain, the teams will descend back to Camp Muir and onto Paradise.

We survived the first night without a roof over our heads. Quite comfortably, by all accounts. There were no dogs barking in the night, no heavy boots clunking down wooden hallways to latrines, none of the endless coughing fits coming through the thin walls of trekking houses. Instead, we had easy breezes, the quiet rustle of comfy down sleeping bags and moonlight coming through our tent ceilings. Oh yeah, and occasionally the violent thunder of avalanches... but that didn't truly bother us. We know we've picked a safe place for basecamp far enough from the vertical walls of this enclosed valley. The day has been spent sorting gear, talking over plans, napping, reading, eating and getting to know our Sherpa teammates. We've got great strength and experience in our Sherpa team, and we'll depend mightily on them during this trip. I'm not aware of any team attempting the mountain this season that won't be reliant on Sherpa help. Some may claim to be going with minimal support, but they will still be heavily dependent on the Sherpas who fix the route through the Khumbu Icefall, to say nothing of the route above. This is not to say that, of the many talented non-Nepalese climbers assembled here at the foot of the hill, none would be capable of climbing the mountain without Sherpa aid, but the simple fact is that such climbs are not attempted in this day and age on this route on this mountain. There is often confusion among those not versed in Himalayan climbing as to who Sherpas are and what their various jobs may be. I'm often unnerved back home to hear people say, while hiking or working hard, that they'd sure like to have a Sherpa along to carry their pack or to do their digging. Such comments are usually made in jest and are probably for my benefit when folks know that I have spent time in Nepal and Tibet. Nevertheless, they tend to sell the real Sherpa people short. Referring to someone as "Sherpa" is to say that they are from a tribe of mountain people in a specific region of Nepal. It is not a job designation. It doesn't simply mean "porter" and it definitely doesn't mean "servant." Early on, when the pioneering Himalayan expeditions were discovering the amazing work ethic common to the Sherpa culture, these men were trained as high-altitude load carriers. But almost from the start, there were plenty of individuals -notably Tenzing Norgay who excelled at the art of climbing, who eagerly grasped its strategies, and who exhibited just as much ambition to reach summits as any Westerner. By this 2009 Everest season, one cannot correctly make more than a few broad generalizations about who the Sherpas are on this mountain. Many may still be farmers the rest of the year... many may still fulfill the simple yet essential role of high-altitude porter... but then there will also be a fair number of excellent mountain climbers with superior strength and skill on rock and ice who are being counted on to guide individuals and lead expeditions. Some will struggle with English, but will then surprise the heck out of you when they turn out to speak French, Korean and Japanese just fine. Some will never have been out of these valleys, but increasingly others will turn out to have traveled the world; to be putting their kids through college in Canada, India or the U.S., to be web-savvy, literate and politically astute. Away from the Himalaya, the assertion is often made (by people who, I feel sure, mean to honor this group of climbers) that Sherpas are universally strong and across-the-board gifted with a physiology that makes high-altitude climbing a snap. True, many Sherpas have less trouble acclimatizing than those who visit these mountains from elsewhere, but it probably does Sherpas more honor to recognize their limitations than any perceived inherent advantages. They don't live on Mount Everest. The highest commonly inhabited villages are usually only around 12,000 ft to 14,000 ft in elevation. They don't have three lungs and two hearts... or any other crazy adaptation that makes climbing easy. The really humbling thing for me is to realize that my Sherpa partners are working just as hard as I am when we are clawing our way up some slope in difficult conditions with heavy packs. That climbing is difficult for them -not easy- and that they go out to do it anyway, day after day without whining, indeed while smiling and laughing. It isn't just what we see on the mountain either. For a bunch of days we walked through rough farmland where every single rock was neatly in place, where fields were endlessly being tended to, where houses were simple but always in good repair. The work ethic was obvious, uncommon and admirable. Don't get me wrong. I'm not implying that the First Ascent team will be on holiday here. When the Sherpas we're partnering with cook and carry water and hack out tent platforms from the Lhotse Face and fix rope and get hard work done in dangerous conditions, sometimes we'll be right alongside them. And sometimes they'll be doing it while we rest or get other jobs done. And obviously the Sherpas won't be doing it for free. Money is a huge motivator in this part of the world, and expedition work turns out to produce some of the best opportunities in all of Nepal. But money doesn't adequately explain the smiles and the warmth and the friendship that our Sherpa partners will share with us on this trip. We'll try to be worthy of that friendship.

A break in the action. As planned, this became our rest and recharge day at Low Camp on Mount Vinson. The mountain itself seemed in a mood as no views whatsoever were granted all day long. Clouds sat just above us and blocked out the sun. Sitting in tents wasn't so uncomfortable, but hanging around outside wasn't terribly rewarding. So we ate a big breakfast and told each other a bunch of stories in the dining tent at midday and then did much the same thing in the evening. In between we napped, read, listened to music, snacked and drank water. The day was meant to prepare us for our move to high camp and assault on the summit. We wanted to let our bodies catch up to the altitude and give tired backs and feet a break. The team is healthy and in good spirits all around. Our forecasts (transmitted via radio from Vinson Basecamp) don't call for major changes in the next few days and we see that as a good thing since high camp and the summit were above the clouds and not too windy today. Best Regards, RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Monday, August 12, 2024 - 3:57 AM PT

We are on the summit of Huayna Potosi, it's a calm, beautiful, sunny day.  Summited right at sunrise. We’ll send a longer dispatch tonight or tomorrow when we are back in La Paz when we have internet and can load photos. Everyone is doing well.

RMI Guide Andy Bond