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After a week of unexpected park closures and a wonderful spring storm, our first Muir seminar of the season has concluded. Despite the less than stellar weather conditions, the team was able to shift gears and make the most of their time on the mountain. Climbers learned important skills like route planning, glaciology, snow sciences and spent several days practicing and honing their crevasse rescue skills.

Congratulations team – we hope you enjoyed your time on the mountain!

This morning came as both a blessing and a curse.  Most of our previous evenings have transitioned nicely from our enjoyable group dinner into bed time which we naturally gravitate towards around 8:30 or 9.  On paper this trip offers yak loads of down time and should, if played right, give each of us a solid 9 hours of shuteye.   

But we all know plans, as perfect as they may seem, play out far differently than the spreadsheet says they should.  Just ask Vladimir Putin about that.   

But thankfully none of us are crazy, demented humans and simply get a bit sidetracked with issues such as stomach funkiness, altitude weirdness and in the case of last night, a pack barking dogs.  There were only four of them, I know because I chased them around the village of Lobuche at 2 am with rocks and a ski pole, but nothing would make them stop.  We were sleeping at an altitude of 16,000 feet so it wasn’t the easiest anyway but never had I heard nonstop dog shouting for 8 hours straight.   So this morning was a blessing because they finally shut up when the sun hit but a curse because I was tired and cold and just wanted to stay in bed.  But we had miles to cover!

After our standard breakfast, complete with dog stories, admissions of no sleep and an eagerness to get on the trail, we slung our packs and followed our Sherpa leader Dawa.  The path started easy but soon steepened and became a lot more rugged when we began to cross a small glacier.   Our objective was the last village of Gorak Shep, before getting to Everest Base Camp tomorrow.   A steady three hour stroll landed us on target with views of Nuptse and Everest dominating the views up ahead.   The day was perfect and we knew our hike up a ridge line to a small summit called Kala Patar was going to be stunning.   

We powered down some lunch and headed out.  The trail head was conveniently located two minutes from our lodge so before we could say yak cheese we were head up.  The summit sits at 18,500 feet which we achieved an hour and a half after leaving.  The vistas were as good as advertised and no matter how man times you see it, one can’t help but to be blown away by the size and power of the Everest cirque.  We could also see Base Camp far below and got excited to go there tomorrow.   

By 3 the clouds began to move up the valley, like they do every day at that time so it motivated us to descend and go get some tea.  

Now we are resting before dinner and our schedule horizontal time.  This isn’t planned, it’s a product of challenging days and a demanding environment.   Plus it keeps us healthy.   

Stay tuned for our journey to EBC tomorrow.   

RMI Guide Adam Knoff

The team met for one last breakfast this morning. Recalling our climb of Pico de Orizaba and our other exploits from the trip while laughing and drinking coffee. Only 24 hours ago we were standing at the summit and oh what a difference a day makes. It’s a great way to end a great trip and seems like yesterday that we met up in Mexico City as strangers. I’m impressed and proud of this group on and off the mountain. I look forward to climbing with each and every one of them in the future, but for now, we’re excited to get back to our families and friends. This is the RMI Mexico team signing off for the last time of the trip and season.

RMI Guide Dominic Cifelli

The Expedition Skills Seminar - Muir September 16 - 21 led by RMI Guides Matias Francis and Seth Burns have wrapped up an excellent week of training at Camp Muir.  The team enjoyed stellar weather and were able to complete their seminar training, ice climbing up to AI6+, alpine bouldering and candy bar snow protection tests (you will have to ask them) and more.  The team will descend from Camp Muir today and return to Rainier BaseCamp for a final celebration.  Nice work everyone!

Photo: Matias Francis

We made it to the Khumbu!  Normally I wouldn’t sound so excited but this was not an average day of travel.  

Our day began with a modest 3:45 am wake-up call from our comfortable air conditioned rooms so we could get all of our luggage and bodies to the airport by 5:15.  Our flight to Lukla was scheduled to depart at 6 which in theory would put us out of the smoggy Kathmandu valley and into the mountains at 7 am.   Everything is good in theory until a human makes a silly mistake or Mother Nature takes the reins.  In our case it was the later that began to send our perfectly good plan into a tail spin.  

Landing in Lukla, which sits at 9,000 feet literally dug into a mountain side is considered one of the most challenging places in the world to land a plane, so conditions need to be just right.  Today they were anything but.   By 10 am we actually loaded a bus, got transported to the plane, sat on that hot and sweaty bus for 30 more minutes then got word the conditions deteriorated suddenly so all flights were on then off again sending us back to the terminal.   By 1pm, 8 hours after arriving in the terminal we had moved a total of 20 feet.   As reports of continuing bad weather reached us, we knew our chances of flying were dwindling.  

So enter Plan B.  If a fixed wing can’t fly, sometimes a helicopter can.  And fly it did!  After another hour and half of finagling we rounded up two birds to take the entire group, with luggage to Phakding, our scheduled place of rest for the evening.   Wait, wasn’t there bad weather up there? Yes, and because of that we had to make an unplanned landing well below our village to avoid sinking clouds and big scary mountains.   So enter Plan C.  

The group flew in separate helicopters with one group making it on their second attempt and myself and Eva still stuck below.   After much head scratching about how to reconvene the next day, our pilot motioned Eva and I to quickly load up so he could make a last ditch attempt at keeping the group together.   By some blessing of karma, the clouds parted just enough to make it happen and we landed literally as the clouds began to close in again.   With blades still running we jumped out, threw the luggage off the helicopter and off he went.   We were both glad to be on the ground and not heading back into the ensuing white out.  

As the bird disappeared we counted our blessings and began our efforts to find the rest of our team.  Twenty-five minutes after landing we were all reunited drinking tea at the Sunrise Hotel in Phakding.   

A warm fire, big dinner and a couple beers prepared us for a well deserved sleep.  

I was impressed how the team kept a positive outlook and rolled with the punches despite an unpredictable outcome.   

Tomorrow we begin our actual trek towards Namche.   Follow along for hopefully a less intense entry tomorrow.  

Cheers, 

RMI Guide Adam Knoff

Sunday, October 10, 2021 - 5:46 pm PT

Greetings from La Malinche! Today the team moved away from the busy streets of Mexico City to the mountains that surround it. We got great views of our future objectives, Ixta and Orizaba on our drive today across the Mexican country side. 

Everyone did great hiking up to 13,700ft on La Malinche, a dormant volcano. We had sunny skies today and no wind. 

Tonight we are going to feast on some authentic Mexican food and stay in cabanas at 10,000ft. The cabanas we are staying in were once used by the Mexican Olympic team for their training. The stars are out and it is a beautiful night up here.

That’s all for now, tomorrow we move to the base of Ixta.

RMI Guide Grayson Swingle

Tuesday, September 5, 2022 8:10 am PDT

SUMMIT! 

RMI Guide Jack Delaney called in at 8:10 am PDT from the summit of Mt. Baker. The team climbed via the Easton Glacier route. The early morning temperatures were cool, but great for climbing! The team is on the descent and will be back at their high camp at about 6,800' where they will spend the night, and plan to descend early tomorrow.

Congratulations Team! 

Monday, September 5, 2022 5:06  pm PDT 

Greetings from the team with the two tallest guides at RMI! 

We hiked into Sandy Camp on the flanks of Mt. Baker yesterday. The hike in was slightly overcast but great temperatures for hiking with a heavy pack. Once we got to camp we quickly set up tents as the overcast clouds had become dark and threatening. Lucky for us the rain started as soon as we moved into our tents. The rest of the night was spent hunkered down inside our nice dry tents except for a brief lull in the rain that we took advantage of to boil water for dinner. This morning we awoke to dry weather with partly sunny sky's. Today we'll practice all the mountaineering skills necessary for our ascent of Baker starting in the wee hours of the night this evening!

RMI Guides Jack, Roland & Team