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Strong winds overnight kept the teams at Camp Muir.  Telemetry shows wind gusts in the 50-60 mph range.  RMI Guide Henry Coppolillo reported a nice morning at Camp Muir as the wind continued to decrease. Around 7 am, the teams were going to ascend to Ingraham Flats to explore the terrain above Camp Muir and enjoy the sunshine.  The teams will return to Camp Muir, pack their gear and descend to Paradise later this morning.

Our team enjoyed a rest day at Camp 2 (ABC) today. Their plan is to head for Camp 3 tomorrow. This really is the start of the Mt. Everest summit push in my eyes. How the next two days go, can have real impact on the summit day. It is so hard to try and maintain strength at these higher camps that you better hope the internal battery is charged, you will be drawing off of your reserves for sure. The team is focusing on eating and hydrating, keeping their bodies strong and ready. Four of our climbing Sherpa left Base Camp today and joined the climbers at ABC. Everyone is doing well and looking forward to the next few days. RMI Guide Dave Hahn is one of the best mountain guides in the business. With many expeditions under his belt, he knows how to climb this mountain. The weather forecast still looks promising. Good luck to the team! RMI Guide Mark Tucker

On The Map

Peter updates from the Hillary Step, very close to the summit.

The Four Day Climb Teams led by RMI Guides Dustin Wittmier and Matias Francis turned at 12,000' on Mt. Rainier today. Dustin reported high winds of 60 mph on the upper mountain that forced the teams to turn before reaching the summit. The team climbed safely back to Camp Muir and plan to depart at 11 am today. They will reach Paradise in the early afternoon.

Congratulations team! 

“Do you train?” A climber recently asked me as we descended the Disappointment Cleaver on Mt. Rainier. My answer: “Well, to be honest, training to most guides is a way of life.” We don’t HAVE TO go for a run, lift weights, and bike all day; we GET TO. Training and performing are both mentally demanding to do and to motivate for. My remedy is to remove the need to motivate and intentionally make training part of who I am. There are two ways to view the 5 A.M. wake up to go to the gym: The first - it’s a choice you make every day and the second - it’s what you do. Consciously removing the decision to get out the door and train makes the process easier. I was suffering from decision making fatigue just the other day as I tried to decide which Tillamook ice cream to buy, but had no problem walking out the door to get in a jog because it wasn’t a choice. On days when it seems harder to get moving, I tell myself; “Well, there is no decision to make. Here we go.” 

What do many of us guides do for training? You name it and guides are doing it: road biking, mountain biking, rock climbing, yoga, HITT, sprinting, jogging, swimming, skiing, weight lifting, sit-ups, bouldering, and on and on. The guiding lifestyle lends itself well to activity and a solid foundation of endurance, and as a result our training may be less structured. We all make choices around what’s important to us. If I am building fitness for a specific climb however, I will be more organized about my approach, dividing my training into specific categories and foci to more efficiently reach the gains that I’m depending on. This is probably more applicable to many of the climbers I work with, for whom their next climb likely is one of the largest athletic feats they have taken on in their life.

Training takes time in what is often a busy schedule. What if we took 5 to 10 minutes from different ways we spend our time each day (time on our computers, socializing, food preparation, tv watching, house cleaning, shopping, sleeping, social media) and put that into fitness?  There is no way I can navigate your personal time management, but it is all a compromise and we can do almost anything but not everything. 

There are lots of good blogs here on types of workout and training preparation routines so I’m not going to outline specific workouts here but instead link to some of my favorite references:

https://www.uphillathlete.com/training-plans/

https://www.redbull.com/us-en/lindsey-vonns-training-regimen-will-wreck-you

https://www.rmiguides.com/resources/fitness-and-training

http://www.fitclimb.com/page/6-week-beginner-mountaineering

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Christina Dale has led climbing expeditions all over the world - from Everest Base Camp to the Mexican volcanoes to the summit of Denali. She’s skied from the top of Chilean volcanoes, peaks in Patagonia, and across Mount Cook. During the summer, she’s a regular on Rainier. She spends her winters ski patrolling at Crystal Mountain, with her avalanche search and rescue dog in tow.

Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!

How do you utilize rest breaks in your training and climbs? Do you take a break to eat? And another when you are thirsty? Perhaps when your legs get tired and uncomfortable? A quick bathroom break on the side of the trail? It's important to take care of all of these needs but they need to approached strategically to prevent rest breaks from turning an otherwise long endeavor into an epic. Learning to manage your rest breaks and keep them efficient makes a big difference on summit day. At RMI, the oft-used cliché is that we take "maintenance breaks," not rest breaks. Consider all of the needs that need to be taken care of mid-climb: you need to relieve yourself, take in enough calories to maintain your energy output, hydrate, adjust your clothing layers to changing conditions, perhaps take care of a hot spot so that it doesn’t become a debilitating blister, get a few minutes off of your feet, and just maybe snap a couple of photos. This list can easily turn into a half an hour of tasks, even if each only took just 4-5 minutes to accomplish. After thirty minutes your legs will likely start to stiffen and your temperature start to drop, not to mention that a few half-hour breaks together can turn a 10 hour day into a 12+ hour day in the mountains, stretching the limits of how long we can climb safely and maintain our focus. The moral of the story is that efficiency is key: we want to try to take care of all of our needs in the span of ten minutes to leave a few minutes to relax before getting back on the trail and making progress towards the finish line. Ultra marathoners do this with "walking breaks," slowing to a walk every hour to make sure that their body is primed for the next hour. Mountainous terrain doesn’t let us take breaks on the fly, but the principle remains the same. Taking short, deliberate, and consistent breaks keeps us climbing strongly throughout the day. Making rest breaks efficient takes practice. Learn to multitask in your breaks: take a couple bites of food while you shuffle clothing layers, relieve yourself before you sit down to start your other chores, and sip on water throughout the break. As you get better at it, you’ll find that you’ve taken care of everything in the first few minutes, and you can relax and let your legs get a bit of recovery for the rest of the break. No matter how efficient you are, the time rest breaks take add up. Taking efficient breaks too frequently can drain just as much time as taking a couple of long breaks. In the mountains, we try to maintain a consistent pace for an hour or so before stopping for ten to fifteen minutes to refuel and take care of ourselves. This proves to be an effective interval for our bodies in terms of replenishing depleted stores yet still allows us to reach our destination. Practice this interval in your training too and by your next climb it will feel like second nature. Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!

RMI Guides Andres Marin and Katie Bono spent a week leading RMI's Alaska Alpine Skills Seminar this spring. After the seminar they returned to the Alaska Range for a personal climbing trip. Andres Marin: I guided the Alpine and Expedition seminars in Alaska, where our teams had an incredible time climbing and learning. When the seminars ended, I had a few days to spend climbing around Base Camp. Katie Bono: Both Andres and I had time at the end of our trip for some personal climbing. We bid adieu to our team in Talkeetna and the next morning flew back into Kahiltna Base Camp. Kahiltna Base Camp sits in the heart of the Alaska Range, surrounded on all sides by peaks such as Denali, Mt. Foraker, and Mt. Hunter. With the plethora of climbing options the pair decided to climb the Kahiltna Queen (12,380’). AM: Around Base Camp there are so many cool peaks to climb and one of those is the rarely climbed Kahiltna Queen. This peak is located at the end of the southeast fork of the Kahiltna glacier. It is the only peak in the range that divides three different glaciers: the Kahiltna, the Ruth and the Tokositna. KB: Andres and I spent a day skiing up the Southeast fork of the Kahiltna Glacier, stopping along the way to look at different climbing options and to do some ice climbing. Kahiltna Queen looked like a gorgeous peak to climb and both of us were stoked about trying an unclimbed route. The following night Katie and Andres began their climb up the West side of the Kahiltna Queen. KB: The line we took followed a rib splitting the west face, starting from where the rib emerged from the glacier. The part of the climb was mostly steep snow climbing on some great and not-so-great neve (granular snow that accumulates near mountain tops from wind and precipitation). The route then transitions into ice climbing with some rock mixed in. AM: The mixed climbing was great all the way to the summit. The day was incredible and the views were just amazing. At the top we stopped to melt water and high five. Then it was time for us to start descending the West Couloir Route. The descent ended up being longer and more difficult than I expected as we had to do over fourteen rappels. Following the successful climb, Katie and Andres, skied two hours back to Base Camp. After 25 hours of climbing they returned safely to Base Camp. KB: Seeing the moonrise while we were climbing was awesome! It came up for maybe an hour or so and just skimmed the edge of the horizon. For the whole way up we had splitter weather and were basking in the sun at the summit. After this trip I can definitely understand why my friends are excited about Alaska. It was great to be able to climb the Kahiltna Queen after guiding the Alaska Seminar since it enabled me to spend so much time in the Alaska Range. Andres has heaps of experience in the Alaska Range and I learned a lot from working and climbing with him. AM: All and all it was a great climb with a great partner. I am already looking forward to next year’s seminar and more personal climbs in the Alaska Range. Andres Marin is a senior guide at RMI leading programs in Washington, Alaska and Colorado. He is an off-width specialist and an accomplished ice and mixed climber. One of his recent achievements includes climbing the five hardest mixed lines in Ouray, Colorado, in a day. Andres is a fully certified alpine and rock guide sponsored by Millet, Blue Water Ropes, 5.10, Petzl, GU and Ice Holdz. Katie Bono is an RMI Guide and accomplished climber with impressive ascents in North America and Canada. A retired Nordic ski racer and Millet athlete, she currently holds the women’s speed record on Mt. Rainier. To see more of their climb check out Andres’ Kahiltna Queen video.

The rain finished sometime during the night and left partly cloudy skies for our morning walk out of Phak Ding. These improved to sunny, clear and blue skies for a few hours as we wandered the trail through the small villages and farms along the Dudh Khosi. The trails were quite busy with trekking groups and heavily laden porters. There were numerous groups from Europe and Japan but none that we recognized as being from the United States. I walked along with Erica and Ed Dohring and Seth Waterfall. We didn't do much instructing as to how to walk or climb the steps in the trail. Ed and Erica do hike plenty, in addition to the mountaineering they've accomplished. I did ask them to slow down just a bit to match my pace, hoping that I'd be able to pass on a rate appropriate for all we needed to accomplish today. The main wisdom I try to impart at this stage of a long climb is simply an awareness that our performance on any given day is an integral part of our overall performance. For instance, it wouldn't have been so useful for us to attempt to set some speed record on the day moving to Namche if that meant being wasted for our first night at a new and significant altitude. Conversely, walking too slowly toward our intended goal could tire us out just as much by keeping us on our feet with packs on our backs for too long. It isn't like figuring solutions to the world's financial troubles or landing spacecraft on Mars, but walking uphill is none-the-less my specialty and it turns out that getting the walk to Namche right is crucial for climbing Mount Everest. Everest didn't show itself for us today, but we were granted tremendous views -seemingly straight up- to the wildly fluted snow-faces guarding Thamserku's pointy summit. There was an unreal contrast between the rock and ice we could see by tilting our heads and the lush pine forests we walked through. We passed the odd flowering rhododendron and still a number of blossoming cherry and apple trees, though not quite as many of these once we'd gone through the gates of the Sagarmatha National Park and gradually started to gain a bit of altitude. My little gang enjoyed a hot lunch at the picnic tables outside a teahouse with members of our "production team" (Jake, Cherie, John and Tom) while the other climbers continued on toward the big "Namche Hill" -anxious to get the day's work done. The sky clouded up again and vaguely threatened rain as we continued along the Dudh Khosi. I found myself recognizing boulders and bridges along the way and remembering the friends/partners/clients from past expeditions who'd lounged here or there and stopped to take pictures in this or that spot. As we walked I counted myself lucky that most of the people in my memories were still my friends after those expeditions. In these days when I have to so often justify going back to the same mountains year after year, I wonder if I'd get away with that as a worthy argument... that they remind me of good people. Of course the big Namche Hill reminds me of a lot of good and sweaty people. We gained over two thousand vertical feet on the dusty switchbacks, passing lots and lots of porters straining under loads of hand-hewn lumber. Someone up-valley must be building a wooden WalMart. In mid-afternoon, we crested the hills and rolled into Namche, the Sherpa capital. I bumped into a number of Sherpa friends in the narrow streets and as we passed along I just got in the habit of saying "Namaste" to all the shopkeepers, whether I recognized them or not. We caught up with the rest of our team enjoying the lemon tea at the Camp de Base guest house, where we'll spend the next three nights. And now I'm sitting at the comfy dining room tables looking up at the usual posters of Hans Kammerlander, Hillary and Tenzing, and the Dalai Lama. We are home in the Khumbu.

A crux for improvement in most any athlete lies in maintaining motivation; maintaining the drive to begin, practice, and persist at a task until you have reached your goals.  In a 2009 piece in Psychology Today, Jim Taylor wrote that there are three factors that affect performance: Ability, Competition, and Motivation.  Motivation is the only factor over which you have control.  Ability (both physical, tactical, and mental) is something that you are born with.  Other outside factors influence performance as well such as the away game crowd in sports, or temperature, weather, wind, and conditions in mountaineering.  Again, these factors are all beyond our control, and can only be anticipated and dealt with as they appear.    This leaves motivation as the key component to success. When we are motivated, we train and practice in order to maximize our given abilities. This probably isn’t news to anyone, but how do you maintain motivation day after day in a training process that can take well over a year to reach its culmination?  How do you maintain your motivation in the face of cold and wet conditions in the winter, hot and muggy in the summer, or when other elements in your life are pressing in and tempting you to skip a day of training? This is the point that sports psychologists refer to as “the grind”, the point at which training and practice cease to be fun or pleasurable and begin to sap at your motivation.  How you respond to the grind is what separates a top performance from a mediocre one.    When you feel your training and motivation beginning to suffer, be willing to admit it and decide what direction you are going to take.  You can continue on your current trajectory, or you can redirect yourself toward your goals and redouble your efforts.  Once you decide on a path, dedicate yourself to it and recognize that your training needs to hold a place of priority in your daily schedule.  At the same time, take a moment to evaluate your training and decide what is working and what isn’t.  If running is hurting your knees and causing you to dread your workouts, reduce the number of running workouts in your training and shift those workouts to a lower impact activity such as cycling.  When the gym becomes claustrophobic, take your core workouts outside to the local park or woods.    It’s something of a cliché to say that the difference between athletes and great athletes is their dedication to the game.  Pelé once said that, “I used to train very hard. When the other players went to the beach after training, I was there kicking the ball.”  While most climbers don’t have the time to dedicate themselves singularly to climbing like Pelé did, try to practice that same mental dedication.  Ask yourself in the morning what you can do that day to improve and give yourself the best chance on Rainier or any other peak. Before you head to bed, ask yourself if you did everything you could that day to achieve your goals.  Finally, if you have a novel trick that you use to stay motivated, post it in the comments below.  Your trick may be just the ticket for another climber!  Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!

When most people think about strength workouts, they think about joining a gym and lifting weights to build muscle mass. I grew up as an alpine ski racer and continue to stay involved in the sport now as a ski coach. If you have watched an alpine ski race, in person or on TV, you know that ski racing is all about leg strength. Although mountaineers don’t need to be hitting the weight room to the same extent as a ski racer, strength is a key component to climbing.    
Traveling around the world as an athlete, coach, and guide, I do not always have access to a weight room. During the season I still need to do exercises to maintain strength. I make use of local parks or playgrounds (where the entry fee is free) or even my own living room.   Below are a couple of key exercises that you can do either in a gym or in the comfort of your own home. Remember, whenever doing strength workouts, it is important to get a proper warm-up and cool-down and listen to your body in order to stay injury-free and get the most from the workout.   Warm-Up: This involves 15 - 20 minutes of running or biking to get your muscles warmed up. This is imperative since diving into strength training cold is a great way to hurt yourself. This time can be spent on a stationary bicycle, a couple laps around the neighborhood on a road bike or mountain bike, a few laps around the track or soccer field, or a jog around the neighborhood.    Body Weight Squats: Start your workout with two legged squats, feet hip width apart, with no weight. As you up your training, adding weight is a viable option as long as your form and technique stay correct. Jugs of water, rocks, or chunks of firewood all make good weight additions.  To maintain form and avoid injury, make sure that your knees are stacked over your ankles. Start with doing three sets of 10 reps. I usually go down for a count of 2 - 3 seconds and up for the same count.    One-Legged Squats: These are my personal favorite; still a leg strength building exercise, one-legged squats also add a balance component. In order to protect your knees during any squats, I recommend going no deeper than a 90-degree bend in the knee (doing these in front of a mirror when you first start can be beneficial).  Start out with the non-weight bearing leg parallel to the standing leg. As you master this, play around with the position of the leg in the air. It can be in front, out to the side, or back. Now not only are you working on leg strength but you are also working on balance. Work up to 3 reps of 10 on each leg. Depending on your baseline strength you may start with 2 reps of 5 on each leg and then slowly work up.    Again as this gets easier for you, add weights in your hand or try these on grass or sand. All of this will change your balance and the difficulty.    Wall-Sits: Simply sit against a wall with your knees bent at a 90 degree angle like you are sitting in an invisible chair with your back and butt against the wall. This is a real thigh burner. Start by holding this for 30 seconds to a minute and doing two or three sets, shaking your legs out in between. As you get better at this, increase the time you are holding to up to a few minutes. Another way to increase the difficulty is to hold an object straight in front of you, such as a ski boot or climbing boot.    Lunges: With an emphasis on quad-strengthening exercises it is important to incorporate some hamstring-strengthening exercises as well. One suggestion is lunges. The key to these is that they are done slowly; you are building strength as you lower your body weight and raise it again. Make sure that your knees are lined up above your ankles and feet, and do not push your knee beyond your toes. I usually start with my hands on my hips doing 2 to 3 sets of 10 - 15 lunges on each side (20 - 30 total in a set), and alternate which leg is in front. Again, as this becomes easier for you, you can add free weights.    Pull-Ups: These are nice because they can be done anywhere. Not only is it good arm strength exercise, but it also involves the core. Pull-ups can be done with a pull-up or chin-up bar in your house, or at the local playground on the monkey bars. Start out with 2 sets of five. If this is hard for you, have someone hold your knees to assist you after doing a few on your own. You will be amazed how much you will improve just by trying them on your own and then going through the motion with someone assisting you.    Cool-Down: In order to aid recovery for the following days, do a proper cool-down. Spend another 15 minutes on a bike or finish with a light jog to get out some of the lactic acid. Don’t forget that stretching is also an important aspect of the cool-down process.    Listen to your body with any workout.  All of the recommendations of sets are exactly that - recommendations; do what makes sense for you.  Depending on your starting point you may have to start with fewer and work up. That is okay; continue to work on strength exercises and you will see improvements. Set benchmarks and goals for yourself so that you can see the improvements!  Often times the process of seeing yourself improve is all the motivation you need! ______ Lindsay Mann is a senior guide at RMI Expeditions and a NCAA D1 Skiing Champion. She has climbed and guided around the world, from Peru to Alaska. Lindsay is leading a team of female climbers to scale Mt. Rainier on a special Four Day Summit Climb next summer, August 12 - 15, 2014. Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!