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The Four Day Summit Climb September 19 - 22 led by RMI Guide Billy Nugent & the Five Day Summit Climb September 18 - 22 led by Zeb Blais were unable to reach the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning. The teams left Camp Muir en route to the summit but were forced to turn around at the top of Disappointment Cleaver (12,300') due to a cloud cap that was descending. The cloud cap brought limited visibility and increased winds. The teams returned to Camp Muir to rest and dry out. They began their descent from Camp Muir a little after 8 am en route for Paradise. We look forward to seeing the groups at Rainier BaseCamp later this morning.

I don't mean to brag. I don't mean to boast. I like jelly on my breakfast toast and I also like every team member on the summit of Mt. Elbrus, which is where we are right now and I'll tell you what, the team did a fantastic job today. We have beautiful weather. About a 15 mph wind on top to keep us cool. But I'll tell you what the team hung in there, it was a long day climbing and everyone has their feet on the summit, up here on Europe's highest mountain, Mt. Elbrus. Thank you guys so much for following along and we will touch base with you when we get down. We still have a little bit of work to do so we're drinking some water, eating a little snack, and take some photos, and then we're gonna do the really kind of the hardest part to be honest, which is getting down but everyone is doing fantastic. We'll touch base with all of you later. Ciao from Russia. RMI Guide JJ Justman

On The Map

The team arrived late last night and met formally for the first time over breakfast this morning. We enjoyed a great buffet for breakfast at our hotel and set out for an all day tour of Quito which included a visit to the physical equator. The team enjoyed visiting many old churches, government buildings, and private homes some of which dated back to the 1500's! The Spaniards founded the colonial city in 1538, so lots of the architecture is original and impressive. So much so that the entire old town neighborhood in Quito is a UNESCO world heritage site. We visited one church in particular with huge vaulted ceilings that were completely covered in baroque woodworking and gold leaf. Apparently over 52 kg of pure gold were used to decorate the church and show the power and glory of Rome. It's kind of crazy to think about how young many of the cities in the United States really are compared to other places in the world. After the city tour we enjoyed a fritada lunch. It was a traditional Ecuadorian meal consisting of maize, fried pork, avocado, tomatoes, plantains, and potato soup. Delicious! Later in the afternoon we took a trip to the physical equator where we enjoyed some fun experiments. There is no coriolis effect directly on the equator so water will drain from a basin straight down when on the equator, spin counter-clockwise four feet north, and clockwise four feet south! I didn't believe it until I saw it. It was also possible to balance fresh eggs vertically on a nail. Cool stuff. And all the while we were beginning our acclimitization because Quito sits at nearly 10,000 ft. Tomorrow we will head out to the teleferique and the volcano Pichincha for our first acclimatization hike, hopefully the weather cooperates! Thanks to Dawn Kim for the photos in this post!

The Expedition Skills Seminar - Emmons led by RM Guide Andy Bond reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning. The team got an early start from Camp Schurman and reached the summit around 5:30 am. They will return to Camp Schurman for their final night on the mountain. Enjoy these photos from RMI Guide David Price taken from the summit crater of Mt. Rainier this morning.

Congratulations to today's Emmons team!

We got up today at 3:30am, this put us in the Sun gate for the sunrise over Machu Picchu and we got a great view. There’s something about seeing glaciers from a high jungle ridge and taking in the most complex stone structures built onto the side of mountainous terrain that’s put the last 5 days into perspective. The steep step section named the “gringo killer” didn’t slow this team of gringos down. Our group has adapted from cold and wet to hot and humid conditions exceptionally well. While this is a hiking trip, the mileage, consistent high altitude, and awkwardly placed stone steps are not for the faint of heart. We toured Machu Picchu for a couple of hours and took in the amazing stone work and sheer size of this important cultural site for the Quechua people. As the crowds began to swell we decided that a beer, warm shower, and burger (that was the actual order) was well overdue so we headed for our hotel. Tomorrow we will take an early morning visit to Machu Picchu and a hike up Huayna Picchu before heading to the train and our return to Cusco. This has been a great trip through the Andes, while a little cold and wet at times we got unprecedented views of the glaciated peaks while hiking through scenic valleys and learning about one of the great civilizations and their impressive achievements. RMI Guide Mike King

Union Glacier camp was a busy place this morning. There were snowcat sledge trains and big-wheeled vans and tracked vehicles and snow machines of every sort and size zipping from A to B, plowing things flat, and simply hauling freight and people. Fuel drums were being fed to the Twin Otters and names were being written on luggage tags. The ALE staff were in overdrive and sixty outbound climbers and Antarctic enthusiasts were pleased, mellow and smiling. It was "Ilyushin Day".... Out with the old and in with the new on a grand scale. My successful climbing team packed their bags and knocked their tents down in about five minutes... Ready to go home but also a little sad to be leaving this cold paradise. Around 1:30 PM, the big four engine Russian jet touched down with a great roar of reversed thrust out on the ice runway. My old gang got in one big offroad van with Seth Waterfall and headed for the plane and Punta. I'd shaken their hands and advised them to have a heck of a victory feast in town. They'd earned it. I stood for a while watching all the action and before long another big offroad van pulled up with my new climbing team. Nicole, Brian, Joe and Bart were snapping pictures in all directions and smiling broadly. We got acquainted and oriented, waited a bit and then hurried up for a flight to Mount Vinson. By then it was dinner time and the Union folk felt bad about kicking us out of camp without a big feed, but clouds were closing in and we needed to get to the mountain. Mission accomplished (with a big pan full of hot pigs-in-a-blanket for inflight food) despite the encroaching storm, there were still a few thousand peaks to be seen out the windows of our ski plane. We landed at Vinson Basecamp around 8 PM and built our tents in our new home. My climbers haven't yet seen their mountain as it is cloaked in mist and light falling snow, but they will see plenty of the big hill, soon enough. Best Regards, RMI Guide Dave Hahn

On The Map

Mark Tucker checking in from Tanzania here at our last camp on this trip of Kilimanjaro. We are all down safe and sound; good spirits and good health. What a day! Beautiful summit, chilly and windy. Hopefully you got that message from the top. We pushed our way down to 10,000', so a 9,000' descent. Everybody's feeling it. Ready to go to sleep. A great meal. Looking forward to getting up pretty early and getting out of here. Have a nice celebration and take care of our fabulous local staff that has been providing us with this great service. I'd love to think we could do it without them but we'd be here for a couple of months. Everybody back home, all your friends and family are in great shape. Everybody did a fantastic job of doing what they could on the mountain. We'll check in after a good night's rest. RMI Guide Mark Tucker

On The Map

Happy Fathers Day from our Denali crew! We're just checking in from our new home at 11,200'. We moved up here yesterday in nice weather, but shortly after we arrived the winds picked up and it started to snow lightly. The gusty winds and snow continued thru the night, but it seems to be calming down this morning. We're not too concerned though, because we are planning to take a full rest day today. We deserve it after 3 hard days of carrying heavy packs and pulling sleds up to 11k. We enjoyed seeing Tyler Jones and the RMI June 5th Denali crew here at camp as they are descending after a successful summit. They are eager to get back to base camp and fly back to Talkeetna. But unfortunately the current weather is making them drag their feet and hang here in camp. We'll be in touch again soon... RMI Guide Mike Walter

On The Map

Greetings from Plaza Argentina, our basecamp and new home for the next few days. Today we awoke at dawn, had a quick breakfast and crossed the ice cold Vacas River before heading up the Relinchos River Valley to Basecamp. Some of us waded the chilly waters and the more sensible among us opted for a short mule ride. Good walking weather again made our beautiful approach quite pleasant; not too hot or too cold, but just right. Here at Basecamp we are enjoying a nice siesta before dinner and tomorrow we plan to rest and adjust to this new altitude of just under 14000 feet. RMI Guide Jake Beren

On The Map

Hi there, it’s Peter, checking in from Vinson Basecamp, today is January 15th. And it’s about 1:20 PM. We woke up this morning, we had a great ski day yesterday, and we're hopeful [to fly] to one of our objectives an unclimbed, unskied peak. But the weather moved in and we are in a very cold, icy fog now with zero visibility. And so everybody's kinda shut down and it looks like it's gonna be tent time all day and just chilling and taking it easy and resting up a bit. We’ve been on a pretty, oh, not hectic schedule but we've been doing everything or a lot of things everyday so it’s kinda nice to have a rest. Forecast is not great for tomorrow, but we'll see what happens. And we're hopeful that we can get a twin otter plane out of here. We've got a couple great objectives about 10 minutes south on the way back to Union Glacier that we'll look at from the air and think that they would be prime possibilities for doing some skiing. And we hope we can land right by them. That's the plan and R&R today, iPods in the tent, and reading and just kinda taking it easy. And hopefully that changes tomorrow and we can we can get going with the rest of our trip. That's it for now, and we'll talk soon.