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Casey Grom calls from the Cayambe summit!
On The Map
On The Map
On The Map
Posted by: Henry Coppolillo, Mike Bennett, Seth Burns, Calvin Jiricko, Rosie Hust, Claire Pennell
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'
Although Paradise remains in a bit of a cloud this morning, it is sunny and clear above Camp Muir. The Five Day Climb August 21 - 25 led by RMI Guides Henry Coppolillo and Mike Bennett reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning. The teams found a bit of new snow on the upper mountain but the route was in good shape and the weather is beautiful, so they had a great climb to top. They started their descent from the crater rim around 7:20 am. They will return to Camp Muir for a quick break and continue down to Paradise. Their program will conclude this afternoon.
Congratulations to today's climbers!
Jeff Miller and team we are super proud of you ! What an accomplishment to achieve in your life ! Way to lead the wolf pack ! Gus has the drinks ready !
Posted by: Gus on 8/25/2024 at 8:34 am
Congratulations!! Way to go team!!
So proud of you Jeff ❤️
Posted by: Jaimie on 8/25/2024 at 8:33 am
Sunday, August 13, 2023 - 7:24 am PT
We had an extremely nice day for going to the top of Africa. Waking at 11 last night it was dead calm and when we unzipped the tents and looked out, the lights of Moshi and a hundred other towns and villages in Tanzania were winking up at us. The ever-present cloud deck wasn't present. Overhead, the Milky Way dazzled us. We ate a quick "breakfast" and got climbing by midnight. The cold temps were a challenge, but less so without wind. We marched up through the night, taking quick hourly breaks in the lava, gravel and pumice. We were at Stella Point on the crater rim when the sun rose at 6:35 and magically it was still calm on the mountaintop. It was a beautiful walk in the morning light over to Uhuru, the summit of Kilimanjaro. We celebrated up top and took plenty of pictures. We'd just begun walking down when one of the remaining summit glaciers calved with a thunderous crash into a pool of meltwater. We were stunned by the action, but also by the fact that a sizable pool of unfrozen water existed at 19,000 ft. We slid down the rock scree of our ascent route, reaching high camp just after 10 AM. Our staff sang and danced to give us a memorable and fun welcome. We finished the day with a rugged hike down to Mweka Camp at 10,000 ft, arriving at 3:30 PM under sunny skies. The team is getting set for a final night on the mountain. Our team did well, placing seven of nine climbers on top and crucially nine of nine safely down afterward. Our support team blew our minds with the quality and quantity of help they provided as we pursued our dream summit.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Sunday, August 13, 2023 - 1:10 AM PT
A quick check in from RMI Guide Dave Hahn with the photo above to let us know the team reached the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro at 7:15 am local time. The team has safely descended back to High Camp, Barafu, as of 10:15 am local time. They will continue their descent to Mweka Camp, their final mountain camp of the trip.
Congratulations team!
Go Team! You are all rock stars! The pictures are incredible. Allison- I need a slide show when you get home!
Posted by: Anne Walsh on 8/15/2023 at 1:41 pm
Congratulations on such a huge accomplishment! So proud of you!
Posted by: Andy Feingold on 8/14/2023 at 6:30 pm
Posted by: Hannah Smith, Avery Parrinello
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Aconcagua
Elevation: 18,000'
On the road again! We said goodbye to Aconcagua Camp 1 today and hello to Camp 2. It was a beautiful morning for breaking down camp, with virtually no wind and the sun shining down on us. As we waited for the porters to come help carry some gear, we saw a furry critter scamper across the slopes above. Our guess is it was a fox. Its always exciting see wildlife. After jamming out to tunes in our respective earbuds, we arrived at camp. Camp was a lot quieter from when we left it on our carry day. Other teams moved to high camp, creating space for us. Once again we set up camp and began nesting in our new home. Summit day is just around the corner, but first we will do a carry to high camp tomorrow and rest the following day. The air is a little colder at our new camp. The zipper on our sleeping bags will go a tad higher tonight to keep in the warmth.
Happy friday everyone,
RMI Guide Hannah Smith and team
On The Map
Doing great Pops! Wonderful to see your progress and a picture of you! Keep up the good work! We love you!
Love, Noel, Xander, and Nora
Posted by: Noel Imfeld on 1/18/2020 at 1:42 pm
Keep on Trucking Sue! You are going to nail this one!
Posted by: Russ Frederickson on 1/18/2020 at 7:25 am
Posted by: Solveig Waterfall
Categories: Mountaineering Fitness & Training
As a skiing and climbing guide, athlete, and yoga instructor, I am continually impressed by the correlation between success in the mountains and a regular yoga or meditation practice. In my personal experience, by taking time each day to completely focus my attention on simple movements in conjunction with controlled breathing, even for a just a short period of time, I have found that I can dramatically increase my ability to handle a higher mental stress load and consciously reign in a respiratory-system-gone-rogue.
The primary intention behind a yoga practice is the alignment of a series of movements with the coordination of the breath. Beyond the poses, aside from the stretching, before the flow, and without regard to the brand of clothing you choose to wear or the space in which you practice, is the synchronization of intentional movements with focused and controlled breathing. That is the essence of yoga.
One of my favorite quotes is by Sharon Gannon: “You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises, which may reveal to you areas where you are resistant in your natural state”. Instead of hand-eye coordination, think body-breath coordination.
This training allows the individual the ability to more easily and calmly focus on a specific task and execute difficult movements with precision—especially, and perhaps most importantly—when pushing towards exhaustion.
The goal of starting a mindful movement practice is in taking this basic principle and applying it to any activity of your choosing.
I understand yoga is not for everyone. Personally, I love the quiet space, the dance of a well-sequenced vinyasa flow, and in the winter months I crave the warmth and full body lymphatic cleanse of a heated studio; they are always significantly cozier than the mid-January temperature of my 1920’s craftsman and warm my core after a day of skiing far better than even the highest, most overworked setting of my Subaru's seat-heating capabilities. That being said, I know plenty of guides and world-class athletes who firmly believe that yoga—of any sort—is not, and never will be, for them.
The secret is that these individuals find other activities with which to strengthen their mental game and incorporate mindful movement. Biking, running, swimming, pilates, even those post-work hikes with a heavy pack, all provide the opportunity to spend a few moments really thinking about and tuning in to your body positioning, your motor patterns, the rate and quality of your breath, all while tuning out the external static of life.
So my challenge for you in writing this blog post, if not to inspire you to rush off and attend the nearest yoga class, is to move through a few minutes of your next workout focused on not just exercising, but moving with intention, breathing in coordination with the efforts of your activity, and turning off the music in an effort to quiet your mind and direct your attention entirely to the task at hand. By practicing mindful movement in your daily tasks and familiar workouts, you will increase and strengthen your ability to use those same techniques to lower your respiratory rate and remain calm, thus allowing you to be more relaxed and move more efficiently when confronted with new and/or difficult tasks in an unfamiliar or uncomfortable environment for a longer period of time: situations much like those found on Mt. Rainier and other alpine objectives around the world.
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Solveig Waterfall is an AMGA Certified Ski Mountaineering Guide and has been working professionally in the mountains for 12 years. She guides in Alaska as well as the continental U.S., Ecuador, Mexico, and Argentina. She also teaches backcountry skiing programs and ski mountaineering courses for RMI. Outside of guiding, she instructs yoga and fitness classes designed to complement an active life outdoors.
Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!
Solveig
I have been taking yoga classes for the past 10 or 11 years now I don’t know perhaps longer and I can seriously identify with all the techniques Strank’s and benefits that you ascribe to taking yoga classes with regard to clarity of thought power of intention and overall mental strength conditioning as you delineate the Power of Yoga elementals.
Possibly the greatest payoff to the sports enthusiast is the concept of correlation of each of the aspects you point out into an efficient unified focused and energized state of mind!
These Very qualities derived from my own Baptiste Power Yoga practice have been an important element of whatever success I’ve had in Mountaineering, and many other strenuous, challenging and sometimes dangerous pursuits
I’d like to share a specific example from a recent Guided Assent of Mt Baker, North Face with RMI August 25-27 2019
This Climb was considerably more challenging than my previous RMI Guided Assents of Rainiers DC Route or Kautz route, which I did with you Solvieg in 2017
I was not aware of just how much more challenging it was going to be
As our 6 person team got higher and higher on the mountain, the route became steeper and steeper until we were Climbing vertical ice cliffs!
The Glaciers were pretty bare and we had to retrace our steps several times as what was an uninterrupted route up the Mountain had become a very broken route up the mountain…
What all this absolutely reinforced was the essential Need to Completely Trust the Skill of the Guides and execution of ALL instructions from the guides immediately and without question!
Absolute Resolution of Focus and consistent galvanization of thought to decision to action!!
Every Single step, Every single ice pick thrust… spacing of turns, rope slack, managing challenges, breaks, managing each emerging concern as they arise…
One of the strongest contributors to success on that kind of Expedition, on that Kind of Mountain for me was the years of Learning and practicing the Yoga strengths and tools you so eloquently pointed out
Looking forward to another Rainier Assent in 2021 and hopefully a Denali Assent 2022
Posted by: Ken Tessier on 3/3/2020 at 7:36 pm
Beautiful article! You inspire me.
Posted by: Patti sandow on 10/12/2017 at 9:11 pm
Posted by: JJ Justman, Geoff Schellens
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Aconcagua
Elevation: 16,500'
JJ Justman from Aconcagua Camp 1.
JJ continued from Aconcagua Camp 1.
On The Map
Robert make sure you say hi to God when you reach the top for me. Can’t wait to celebrate upon your return. Hang in there!
Posted by: pat ward on 12/12/2012 at 4:03 pm
Sounds like a great time! Please give my best to Nick.
Pam
Posted by: Pam on 5/17/2012 at 7:35 pm
Keep going.
Posted by: Richard Coleman on 5/17/2012 at 7:06 pm
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