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Success! That's right we did it even despite the adverse conditions we have been experiencing. The weather has been less than desirable. However when we woke this morning we were greeted with beautifully clear skies. After a quick breakfast, we walked out into a calm Ecuadorian sky that spanned from the Big Dipper to the Southern Cross, one of the few places on earth you can see both. Our climb started up a rocky buttress before transitioning onto the glacier, and we enjoyed the warm night after our last few days in the snow and rain. The climb went rather smoothly and we reached the cumbre, or summit in English, just after 8 this morning. The climb took just over seven hours to reach the top with mostly low angle snow climbing and a few steep pitches to keep us on our toes. Though we walked for some of the morning in a cloud, the weather cleared just briefly as we crested the summit, allowing us views of the Avenue of Volcanoes that spans Ecuador. We could even see the Amazon!! Currently we are rejuvenating here in La Casa Sol just outside Otavalo. Everyone is in good spirits and looking forward to resting. Missing all of our families and most of our friends. Hasta manana! RMI Guide Casey Grom

8:09 am PDT - July 19, 2023

Team is at the summit of glacier. Beautiful day out here with great views!

RMI Guide Hannah Smith and Team

Mark Tucker here at Everest Basecamp (EBC). Home away from home. I recently completed an Everest Basecamp Trek and Island Peak climb. Always a pleasure to share this amazing place with adventure travelers. I had a great time. Hope the return home for my team went smooth. Thank you all. Back at EBC, I am settling in. Getting organized is always a bit of work but much appreciated as our team's prepare for the rotations to the upper camps. Now that the organizing is done, I opened up the local grocery store for the team. They went shopping for their food to be consumed at Camp 1 on their upcoming nights. They plan to head full force thru the Icefall in the early AM, looking at three nights on the hill. The team looks great, ready to get into meat of the climb. We did take time out to build the horseshoe pits and get in a couple games. Burrito night tonight. A favorite meal here at EBC. RMI Guide Mark Tucker

On The Map

Hello from Aconcagua Basecamp, Today we are resting and recuperating at Plaza Argentina preparing to move to Camp 1 tomorrow. The winds look a touch rowdy up high, so staying here is a great call. This morning we had a leisurely breakfast and excellent conversation before a short stroll to stretch the legs. Hopefully the winds will cooperate and tomorrow we will be checking in from Camp 1! RMI Guide Jake Beren

RMI Guide, Joe Hoch, reported the following from Mt. Baker this afternoon: 

The team is back at Sandy Camp after their summit attempt. We made it up to the crater rim, at around 9,700'.

 

The team will enjoy their dinner at camp, a good night's rest before they pack up camp and head back to the trailhead tomorrow. Nice work team!

Hi everybody and welcome to another series of dispatches from an RMI Expeditions' Ecuador Volcanoes program! The majority of our team arrived scattered throughout the day yesterday with high spirits and great expectations despite being exhausted from a solid day of airline travel. We met up for the first time as a complete team this morning at Spicy, our hotel restaurant, and enjoyed a pretty good spread of food and decent coffee to boot. After breakfast we headed out on a very informative city tour with our veteran city guide Jorge. Jorge showed us around town while explaining much of the complex cultural past that made Ecuador the country it is today. Our crew climbed the towers of the Basilica, enjoyed sweeping views of the city from the top of the Panecillo, and got to experiment with different physical phenomena on the exact geographic equator. All of this while beginning our all-important acclimatization process. Cool! We plan on rounding out our first full day in Ecuador with a brief team meeting followed by a team dinner. More to come as the adventure progresses! RMI Guides Billy Nugent, Katie Bono, and the rest of the gang

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

RMI Guide Mark Tucker left a message, which was too garbled to transcribe. We did hear that the team is doing well and back in Chukung.

On The Map

After a full week of training on the lower slopes of Mt. Rainier the Expedition Skills Seminar - Kautz team reached the summit of Mt. Rainier. RMI Guide Dominic Cifelli said the Kautz route was in awesome shape. They left the crater rim around 9:30 am and will return to their camp for a final night on the mountain. The skills acquired will help these climbers pursue more advanced climbs like Denali, Aconcagua, or Mt. Baker North Ridge.

Congratulations team! 

Hello readers,

We woke with hopes of people flying. It snowed over a foot during the night. A light fluffy snow, good for skiing. The clouds lingered and the sun tried to poke out here and there. The once fluffy snow soon turned into nice sticky snow for snowman making. In order for Plane to leave or arrive the runway needed to be stomped down so the planes didn't get stuck. All of basecamp came together on skis and snowshoes to consolidate the snow for the planes to land safely. By late afternoon, the plane that slept overnight revved up its engine and flew away. Five K2 Aviation planes made their landing and two RMI teams made it off. Before four of those planes could U-turn back the clouds rolled back in, and we were told they would try again tomorrow.

Snow began to lightly come down as we got back in our tents and ready for another night. Fingers crossed Saturday clears up and we too can fly off This mountain.

Still at Basecamp,

RMI Guides Hannah, Devin, Erika, and Team