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The Fisher Chimneys climb led by RMI Guides Matias Francis and Sam Marjerison had beautiful summit weather yesterday. They reported great route conditions and enjoyed the SE Ridge to the top. The team spent last night on the mountain and will be descending this morning. They expect to be back at the cars in the early afternoon. They will conclude their program with a celebratory meal and wrap up!
Our last night at Mt. Everest Base Camp was made more pleasant by a visit from Meagan and Rachel, the two doctors from the Himalayan Rescue Association. We'd lured them to our dining tent with high praise for Kumar's farewell pizza dinner. The two were homeless, as the HRA clinic tent was wiped out by the Avalanche air blast. We are in absolute awe of the performance of these two in managing the medical response to the Base Camp tragedy. They were hurt themselves in the blast and lost virtually all of their personal property, but went on to care for at least 80 patients over the following day -many with critical injuries. We all enjoyed the pizza, but felt terrible that the two docs were still prone to violent coughing from having taken in the super cooled, ice laden air of the powder cloud that accompanied the air blast.
Kumar kept his final night tradition by baking cakes (with and without gluten) for the team. Alas, these didn't say "congratulations Everest summiteers" but nobody complained.
This morning, we enjoyed a little sunshine for a change, which made it a little easier to put final touches on our packing. We were on the trail by 10 AM. A very different trail than we'd become accustomed to... No Trekkers, no porters, no traffic. Of course, the reason for the empty trails is sobering, but the effect is wonderful. Nobody has put the dire national situation out of their minds, but the value of a day spent walking peaceful trails through beautiful mountains can't be overestimated. We stopped in both Gorak Shep and Lobuche without seeing too much damage from the quake, but things in
Pheriche are obviously worse. Many of what had seemed to be the more substantial structures in town are badly damaged. None-the-less, we've found comfortable and safe lodging.
Best Regards
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
On The Map
46 years ago, August 24, 1967, I began my first summit climb of
Mt. Rainier. I was a paying customer. The cost was $25, which included a One-Day Climbing School. Nevertheless, as many have, I contacted the Guide Service (it wasn’t
RMI yet) and pleaded my case to avoid the training and lessen the price. I pointed out I had backpacked earlier in the summer and encountered snow, which I successfully negotiated. Alas, the manager informed me I needed the
Climbing School, but proposed I carry a load of food to Camp Muir to work out the cost. Terrific! John Anderson drew a rudimentary map of the ‘route’ to Muir one Saturday morning at Paradise in early July and my only question was “how many round trips?” (I was totally serious). His deadpan reply was that one ought to do it. My trip to Muir is another story for another time. I managed to deliver the supplies and participated in Climbing School the following day.
The evening of August 23, 1967, some neighbors from Lakewood dropped me off at Paradise. My folks had provided money for a hot dog at the snack bar, but a room in the Inn was out of the question. Not a problem, so I headed to the Inn to kill the evening before finding a suitable campsite. Employee Talent Shows were a nightly occurrence at Paradise Inn in the good old days. The hotel management hired people oftentimes based primarily on musical or other talent. At the conclusion of the show a juke box was cranked up, and employees and guests alike hit the dance floor for a couple of hours. I was content to watch. At 10:00PM I donned my waiting pack (a wooden frame Trapper Nelson) and walked up the Skyline Trail a short distance above Paradise Inn. There I settled in beneath a cluster of sub-alpine fir and spent the night.
Dawn on Saturday, August 24th, promised a perfect day for the trek to Camp Muir. Guide Service headquarters was located in the basement of the Visitor Center (the flying saucer) and there I met the other clients and our two guides, Tony Andersen and John Rutter. There were five clients, including myself. I can’t remember details about the trip to Muir, other than I positioned myself in line directly behind the ‘cabin girl’ headed up to cook for the guides. There was no client Bunkhouse, instead the guides on each trip would pitch and strike White Stag car-camping tents (the guides headquartered in the tiny, rock Cook Shack). Dinner was provided as part of the fee: beef stew & mashed potatoes (from #10 cans), as well as breakfast when we awoke to climb (#10 can peaches). Even a sleeping bag was supplied (I had no concern of when it may have been cleaned last).
Summit day took 12 hours round trip: nine hours up and three hours down. There were three ladders to cross on the Ingraham Glacier. We left Muir at midnight and about half-way across the Cowlitz Glacier, I realized I’d left my gloves in camp. No big deal; I would tough it out. On a side note, it goes without saying we weren’t wearing helmets, beacons, harnesses or headlamp (we carried flashlights), or even gaiters. I wore wool army pants, my ‘parka’ was a Navy pea coat (heavy wool), and we were tied directly into the 150’ goldline rope with a bowline on a coil or bowline on a bight.
Above the first rest break, we negotiated the ladders and traversed north onto
Disappointment Cleaver. My hands were pretty damn cold (the guides hadn’t noticed my predicament) as we ascended the spine of the Cleaver. On top of DC we took our second rest break and lo and behold, one person decided to call it quits. Before resuming the ascent I screwed up my courage and asked the person staying behind if I could by any chance borrow his gloves… of course I could!
High on the summit dome I was really starting to run out of gas, and we were still more than an hour from the crater. Could I/Should I drop out?! John Rutter’s emphatic answer was a resounding NO! I kept plugging. Now the rim was in sight, and slowly getting closer. But then… what the hell?! Instead of halting for a much needed break we didn’t so much as pause, traversed through the rocks, dropped into the crater and crossed. Sign the book. Un-tie and reach Columbia Crest. Hero shot. The weather was perfect. It was 9:00AM, Sunday, August 25, 1967.
Occasionally over the years I have wondered if I blocked our descent from memory; was it that much an ordeal?! I recall very little, other than being incredibly thirsty. In retrospect, we took some wrong turns on the DC (
Disappointment Cleaver), which necessitated backtracking uphill (killer). At Muir we were plied with Kool-Aid. The descent to Paradise took forever, but at the parking lot I was one happy, exhausted 16-year-old.
I didn’t play organized sports in high school; I grew up with parents who hated camping (but enjoyed road trips and appreciated National Parks); to suggest I wasn’t particularly studious is a gross understatement; but I had just discovered something I loved, that would stay with me for the rest of my life: climbing. Over the next winter I bothered Lou incessantly about becoming an Apprentice Guide (I even applied for work at Paradise Inn, but evidently lacked a requisite talent). At some point (maybe just to put me off),
Lou and/or John Anderson said to show up at Paradise in June, and see if there was work. I did; there was; and, there still is!
RMI Guide Joe Horiskey
Photo Captions:
August 25th, 1967 - Joe Horiskey, age 16, on the Mt. Rainier summit. Mt. St. Helens, pre-1980 eruption, in the background.
1968 - Jim Whittaker, Joe Horiskey, and Lou Whittaker on Mt. Rainier. Joe's first year working for the guide service, which became RMI the following year.
The Five Day Climb May 19 - 23 led by RMI Guides Brent Okita and James Bealer reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning around 8 am. The team reported windy conditions and don't intend to stay too long on the summit. This is the first RMI Team this season to reach the summit. The group will return to Camp Muir for a short break and to re-pack their gear. Then they will continue their descent to Paradise and return to Rainier BaseCamp later this afternoon.
Congratulations to today's climbers!
Long time RMI Guide and Owner Joe Horiskey may have 235 summits of Mt. Rainier via nearly a dozen routes in forty-two years of guiding, but he was even happier to congratulate his 19 year-old son, Robert, who successfully reached Columbia Crest for his very first time on September 8th! Congratulations, Robert! (And congratulations, Joe!)
The most famous RMI guide that ever lived was also a profoundly humble man in an arena not known for fostering humility. Nawang Gombu Sherpa was a man of many such contrasts.
My memories of working with Gombu aren’t unique or privileged. I wasn’t seeing some side of him that others weren’t privy to. But because of his unassuming nature, casual acquaintances might have mistaken his stature in the world. Certainly not, if they’d studied mountaineering and 20th century world history. Gombu was the first man to summit
Mount Everest twice. He was the longtime director of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute and he was nephew to Tenzing Norgay. He was the youngest Sherpa on the successful 1953 British Mount Everest Expedition and was one of the last surviving climbing Sherpas of that heroic era.
Nawang Gombu had met the queen of England on several occasions. You can find a picture of him in a 1963 National Geographic magazine placing a silk scarf of friendship around John F. Kennedy’s neck in the Rose Garden. But if you worked and lived with Gombu around
Mount Rainier in the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s… you probably don’t remember him doing a whole lot of explaining as to why he was so special. More likely you remember him working very hard. And as he got a bit older and less capable on the mountain, some may remember that he also worked hard down around the guide shop, pushing a broom or helping with rental gear.
Despite his unfailingly open and friendly personality, it wasn’t the easiest thing for a young guide to get to know Gombu. He was from a different generation and a vastly different culture and so he talked and acted a little differently… and often times he was a bit needy since he was somewhat isolated in Ashford without a car. So, while everybody called him a friend… that was pretty easy with Gombu, it took a little extra effort for someone to actually be his friend and include him in activities and routines. But for that Gombu was always profoundly grateful. I’m embarrassed now to remember how many times he cooked me dinner and then didn’t allow me to wash dishes afterward. There wasn’t even any question on that… he’d just push you out of the way (and he never lost that particular strength). We did have some fun together… but not enough to justify all of that dishwashing on his part. I’d take him into the suburbs for haircuts and shopping trips to the malls. We’d go into downtown Seattle so I could obsess over shiny climbing gear in the stores. We went rock climbing out at Leavenworth (Gombu was better than I was, not surprisingly) and we even went to the soldout Kingdome to watch Ken Griffey Jr. hit a homerun (his ninth in nine games… it was a big deal). I recall how amused the people in the stands around us were to hear me trying to explain baseball to a Cricket fan… if only they’d known who he was. But I thought that a lot back then, since, as I say, Gombu didn’t go out of his way to let people know he was famous.
Which brings me back to the guide shop and a typical start to a day on
Mount Rainier in which I’d meet a bunch of new climbing enthusiasts. They’d introduce themselves and detail their previous successes and immediately I’d find out about the banks and corporations they headed, and I’d hear about their ambitions for high places and their admiration for those that had already been to those places. And amidst all the introductory chest thumping (not just theirs… my chest got worked as well) I’d look over to see Gombu sweeping dust off the rental counter and I’d pause to consider that those captains of industry - and I - might not ever meet a greater mountain climber than the small, friendly, quiet legend who’d just fitted them for boots.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn, June 17, 2011
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
As Dave Hahn wrote yesterday, my attempt at trying to climb this monster called Mt. Everest is over. I wanted to write today about what went into that decision.
Over the past several weeks we have made several "rotations" on Mt. Everest to higher and higher camps and elevations. During these rotations I have felt quite strong for the most part, and in fact, our entire team has been strong. One of the keys to climbing this beast is that the group work together, and move efficiently and rapidly through the most dangerous parts of the mountain. We have in fact been doing that.
One of the key objectives of our rotations is to acclimatize. What this means is to allow the body to adjust to higher and higher altitudes by moving up the mountain slowly, by climbing "high" and then sleeping at a lower altitude, and then descending to a lower altitude (Everest Base Camp) and starting the pattern all over again.
About a week ago I started to notice that my body was not acclimatizing like the other members of the team beginning at about 22,000 feet. At night at this altitude, when I was attempting to sleep, I would be drifting off to sleep and then I would have to sit up and gasp for air. I would then pant for a minute or two, and then the entire process would repeat itself. This occurred for 4 to 5 nights ALL NIGHT LONG. I tried Diamox (a medicine used for acclimatization), but it didn't help me. During these nights I would look over at Sara (my daughter) who was restfully sleeping in her sleeping bag, and curse her (just kidding).
At about 22,000 feet my body simply stopped acclimatizing like it had been from the beginning of the trip. The result of this was that during the day I would not be rested. During our climbs I would be panting hard, and I would be slower than I had been, and now slower than the rest of the group. I tried hard to figure out how to sleep and get my acclimatization going again, but I just couldn't do it. I was getting weaker (not stronger like the rest of my teammates) every day above 22,000. Sara, on the other hand, would be getting stronger each day that she spent up there. I told her she was never going to get a car and she was grounded (just kidding again).
After our last rotation we returned to Base Camp. I went to bed and woke up LIKE A NEW MAN. Simply descending to Base Camp (which is still at 17,500 feet) allowed me to get a 10 hour night sleep, the first night sleep I had in 6 days. I slept like a rock, and I felt great (and feel great right now). So it's a weird feeling to be sitting at Base Camp, feeling extremely strong, and yet knowing that my attempt at the summit is over.
But, I made the decision that my attempt to climb Mt. Everest is over, and I know it's the correct decision. And here are my considerations:
1. I do not want to be a burden to my teammates. I think the hardest decision a person can make is to evaluate himself (or his children). It is very difficult to make these comparisons. I feel that I am a strong climber below 22,000, and still, above 22,000, I still think that I am an "okay" climber. I can climb forward past many people on the trail, but still, I can not keep up with my teammates, and I can not climb the tallest mountain in the world. These are tough assessments, but must be done honestly and candidly (so, next time one of your kids is cut from a team let it be known that I CUT MYSELF FROM MY OWN TEAM!)
2. This mountain is over 29,000 feet tall. At Camp 2 I would still be 1.5 VERTICAL MILES below the summit. If this mountain were 24k or 25k feet tall there is no doubt in my mind I would make myself summit. But, this is a monster. I have no interest in "high pointing" at Camp 3 or Camp 4. If I can't climb this mountain to the top, then I am done.
3. Sara. I am not simply a member of a typical team of, say, 8 guys. I am also the father of another member of this team. Another consideration that I must always have is what is in the best interest of Sara. And that's easy - to eliminate from the team its weakest member (me) that might cause the team to move slower, or - if I pushed myself beyond my limits - that might cause the team to have to stop to medically rescue me off the mountain. I know that with 6 professional members of our team, and one client (Sara), that, with me dropping out, Sara is in a better place. She will have an entire team of the best climbers in the world working with one client - her.
4. People die on Mt. Everest every year. It's a brutal, unforgiving place. There are many motivations for climbing this mountain (ego, personal challenge, etc.) and sometimes those motivations drive people to ignore the signs that their bodies are giving them and then they push themselves well beyond their limits. Its protocol in these blogs not to write about what you see on Mt. Everest. There are many other teams, many other climbers, and many other people making decisions about whether to proceed with their climb or to end it. Many continue to keep climbing. I am choosing to make sure that I don't die on Mt. Everest. I have a great family, great friends, and a great community, (and many things to do with the rest of my life) and I am looking forward to all of these things in the years ahead.
Dave Hahn and Linden Mallory are terrific guides. Dave has made this my decision, and has said repeatedly that I can "take another shot" and I can keep climbing (this trip is pretty expensive). But there really would be no purpose to trying again. I have been up to about 22,000 feet before and have struggled beginning at that altitude. Before this trip I thought that it was other factors that caused my lack of acclimatization (lack of water, not eating enough, etc.). But now I know that my body is just not made for climbing 8000 meter peaks.
I have climbed a lot of tall mountains (Aconcagua, Denali, Kili, etc..) and I really enjoy the experience. But if you hear of me planning to give an 8000 meter peak another try please GRAB ME BY ME ANKLES and stop me. My body is just not built for it.
I will be hanging out in Base Camp for the next 3 weeks (like a parent on the sidelines at Tophat) cheering on my daughter and the rest of the team. There are many things to do at Base Camp - last night I lost in Jenga, but came in second in a big Yahtzee tournament. And most every night there is a late night poker game (guides from many teams and countries like to play Texas Hold em, it turns out). And I am surrounded by the tallest and most beautiful mountains in the world. So, all is good here at Everest BaseCamp.
I am disappointed that I will not get a chance to summit, but I am happy that I made this journey, that I made it with my 16 year old daughter, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I will remember it forever.
Love and peace to all.
Bill M.
RMI Guides
Christina Dale and
Jess Matthews and led the
Four Day Climb to the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning. Jess reported steady 25 - 30 mph winds from the summit. The teams are making their descent to Camp Muir where they will rest, refuel, and repack before continuing their descent to Paradise. We look forward to seeing them at Rainier BaseCamp in Ashford this afternoon.
Nice work teams!
The Four Day Climb team August 9 - 12 led by RMI Guides Andy Bond and Matias Francis reached the summit of Mt. Rainier early this morning. The team enjoyed a spectacular meteor shower as they left Camp Muir on their alpine start and climbed toward the summit. Andy reported a beautiful day with calm winds and warm temperatures once the sun came up. The team was starting their descent from the crater rim just after 6:30 am PT. Once back at Camp Muir they will refuel and repack for the remaining 4.5 miles back down to Paradise.
Congratulations to today's climbers!
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Thank you to your team- not only for feeding us, but also for your endless kindness, support & use of resources during and after the avalanche. I’m glad that the team made it home safely. I hope that our paths cross again at some point- you are all always welcome in sunny Australia! .
Posted by: Meg on 5/20/2015 at 3:00 pm
Amazing 2 doctors. The whole thing is so devastating. Thank you for keeping us informed Dave.
Posted by: Jacqueline Bayless on 5/1/2015 at 1:08 am
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