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Wednesday, July 10, 2013
Last night's snow shower turned into the "heavy fall of snow" that we've been promised on a daily basis by our forecasts these last ten days. It snowed, it snowed and then it snowed some more here at 14,200 ft. We estimated that it was coming down at a rate of 3 inches per hour. Zeb got out at three to rally a shovel brigade in retaking the camp from the tent-bending powder deluge. We could hear great avalanches roaring repeatedly down the steep and icy flanks of the West Buttress. It didn't ease until around nine in the morning, by which point we figured about 24 inches had fallen overnight. Needless to say, today was not a climbing day for us. The wind was still pulling huge streamers of snow off the route we'd hoped to trace along the crest of the Buttress. And the slopes leading to the ridge were now all suspect in terms of snow stability. So much snow falling so quickly doesn't give the stuff a chance to settle. One of the ways it settles on a mountainside is to avalanche. There was plenty of visual evidence (when the clouds parted for a minute here and there) that a number of avalanches had already occurred on the route to the fixed ropes, but there were also still vast stretches of undisturbed deep new snow. We needed a hot and sunny day to glue things in place and to make it all safe again. But you can't always get what you need. Our day was mostly cloudy with light snow showers. Zebulon gave a great lesson in basic snow science, demonstrating how to identify weak layers in the snow pack, how to compare the hardness of those layers, and in how to conduct a "compression test" on an isolated column of snow in a study pit. Our climbers then dug their own pits and made their own observations as a way of understanding our challenge in these next few days. We need to figure out the level of hazard that exists on the slopes above us without exposing ourselves to that very hazard. And we don't have much time to do it in. We only have a couple more days of food available. Our greater cache of food is now the one sitting above the suspect slopes... In perfect position for our summit bid, but out of our reach until we determine that the avalanche hazard has diminished. Lots to figure out on Denali. We aren't alone though. The other teams, mostly at 17 camp have similar dilemmas What we all need, first and foremost, is a break from continued bad weather. As is normal, we need a little good luck. Despite the challenges, the team is still in good spirits. Today, we went over the blog comments together. We can't surf the web with our setup, but the RMI office was kind enough to cut and paste the comments into an email for us. Thanks, from the entire team, for keeping us in your thoughts.
Best Regards
Dave Hahn
On The Map
Thursday, June 20th, 2013
We made the move. The wind was blowing most of the night last night. I set my alarm for 2:30 a.m. just to see if the weather was going to allow us to move up camps. Right when my alarm went off, it was as if someone hit a switch and turned the wind off.
We got up, packed up camp, and headed up another 3,000 feet. The move only took us about six hours to hike, but we had to work hard building snow walls once we arrived at
Denali's 14k camp. This camp, as much or more than the other camps we have been in this far, can receive huge winds that pick up at a moment's notice. We used snow saws to quarry blocks of snow to make walls that surround our tents.
All of this hard work will pay off with a full rest day tomorrow. The sun does not hit this camp until around nine in the morning. I am pretty sure that none of us will be out of our tents until he sun warms us up!
RMI Guide Mike Haugen and the RMI Summit Team 6
On The Map
Billy here checking in from
Camp IV at 14,200' after a strong showing from our team on a big move up. We enjoyed mostly clear skies and incredibly strong sun on the way up from our previous camp at 11,000'. In fact, the sun was a little too strong; while the ambient temperature hovered in the teens we felt like we were boiling for the majority of our climb. It's amazing what a little radiation can do. After all our hard work we were rewarded with an easy move-in to
Mike Walter's recently vacated camp. Sometimes you just get lucky. The high pressure is supposed to stick around through the extended forecast so we aim to keep on chipping away...
Wulpseeya!
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
On The Map
We're on the way to high camp on
Kilimanjaro! The sun is out and it's a beautiful day. We'll be on the trail for about three hours today and then we'll begin our final prep for the summit push. If all goes well we should be on top of Kilimanjaro within 24 hours!
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
On The Map
Woke up to clear blue skies (over the city anyway) psyched to get up into the hills and stretch the legs a bit. I met the gang down in the hotel restaurant and wasn't shocked to find they were also revved up for getting the trip started in earnest. After a quick bite to eat, we linked up with Jaime and jumped in some taxis headed for the Teleferico. This gondola took us up high above the city onto the slopes of
Rucu Pichincha, one of two sister peaks on an active volcano. Quito's sprawl actually starts to climb up the flanks of the mountain and this proximity was bad news for the city in the 90's when the volcano belched a huge quantity of ash onto the metropolis. Well, with no signs of imminent eruption the team was able to climb from the top of the gondola at just above 13,000' to the summit at right around 15,400' in about 2.5 hours! Good stuff! Being able to move well on our first foray is a great indicator of the group's overall fitness. The climb was largely hiking on decent trail, but the last several hundred feet involved some really fun 4th class rock climbing. Everyone was feeling the elevation but moving and climbing incredibly well. The whole time we climbed we were followed by an awesome dog who even made the rock moves to the summit, my guess is that he was hoping to snag a few more of Jaime's chicharrones... The team managed a quick and efficient descent, downloaded the gondola, and hopped a van back to the hotel. After hustling around town to shag a few miscellaneous gear items, I took a nice siesta and met up with everyone for another team dinner. Good times.
Tomorrow we head out of Quito and up for another training hike before starting our approach on
Cotopaxi, more as it develops...
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
On The Map
Hello to our friends and family!
We talked about this as a team yesterday before we went to bed “the possibility exists that we could make it to the top!” But if we knew for sure then my job (as a guide) would be so boring and mountains wouldn’t be that fun for anyone to climb.
You don’t come here because you know you are going to succeed. You come to the mountains because you are open to both - success and failure.
Today some of the team stood on the summit of this beautiful and brutal mountain and some of us turned around. But each one of us was pushed in a different way and most definitely beyond limits we had previously set for ourselves. We endured strong, cold winds from start to finish, learned something about ourselves along the way and are all safely back in our tents at campo 3. I’ll call that a successful day - summit or not.
After such a tough climb, most everyone is snoozing in their tents. Going to 22,841 feet really takes it out of you.
Jack and I will wake everyone up soon for their favorite meal ever, FREEZE DRY (hopefully the last one of this trip) and then we’ll all head straight back to bed to sleep better than we’ve ever slept at 19,600 feet.
Big, big winds are moving in so we’ll get an early start tomorrow on our descent to base camp.
I’m so proud of each person on this team and the courage they had to try something so hard.
RMI Guide Jess Wedel
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Clouds and light snow are making a perfect atmosphere for a lazy rest day here at 14k.
Strong winds high on the mountain are occasionally visible through breaks in the clouds. The warmth of our tents is conducive to lazing, reading, listening to music, and occasionally drifting off into a dreamy state of consciousness.
Meanwhile, we're hoping that favorable weather allows us an opportunity to climb higher and push for the summit soon.
Until then, we're embracing the tranquility of the mountains.
Mike
Yesterday's long day let everyone find some hard sleep through the night. The sun rises early this far north though, and by 7, we were all out of our tents working on breakfast. When we get to cache loads above throughout trips, our descents often get heavy. We took several meals up high in case of weather days, but with our perfect weather, we didn't use them. That made for some larger loads on the descent, but since we only had to walk downhill for a few hours, everyone doubled down and got the job done. By just after noon, we were in
Base Camp, with tents set up, and a fast moving, rapidly darkening cloud approaching. We popped up tents, and then sure of our homes, set about to enjoying the low altitudes and green grass. We started an energetic volley ball game, Russia v. US. in the end we really aren't sure who won, as each team had bright spots, but the approaching rain forced a draw.
As we understand it right now, it is high tourist season in the Caucasus, and there are not hotel rooms available tomorrow on short notice, so we will spend one more day at Base Camp, and them make our way to Kislovodsk. It's really not that bad a deal since we are in a beautiful valley with hiking, volley ball, and springs that out forth sparkling water naturally.
For now, we are happy to listen to the sheep baa, the shepherds whistle, and enjoy each other's company after a very successful climb.
RMI Guides
Pete Van Deventer,
Mike Uchal, and team
On The Map
The
Four Day Summit Climb team for June 15 - 18, 2017 was unable to make a summit attempt of Mt. Rainier this morning due to inclement weather. The team will descend to Paradise this afternoon and return to Rainier BaseCamp.
Today we got a slightly earlier start to try and beat the heat on the steep climb up to
Tengboche. Yes it gets hot here at times, especially if you are hiking up steep southern-facing slopes. Tengboche sits atop a small hill (by Himalayan standards) and is well known because of the
Tengboche Monastery. Believed to have been built in the 13th century, it is home to about 45 Monks and Lamas. It doesn't take much imagination to know why they believe this place to be special, as the view from here is breathtaking. From this one spot you are not only surrounded by giant mountains you have a wonderful view of
Everest and many other gigantic peaks. After getting settled in our tea house we quickly hiked back to the monastery and sat in during a prayer session. Sadly only one monk was there as the others were off visiting other monasteries and helping people throughout the valley. It was beautiful experience nonetheless!
Everyone is still in good spirits and having a great time.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
On The Map
nice pic! brrrrrr!
Posted by: michelle on 7/12/2013 at 3:10 pm
Happy Birthday Mike! Here with Abby at the bakery wanting to make you a cake! Stay safe…enjoy the summit cuz ya know its up there!
Wendy
Posted by: Wendy on 7/12/2013 at 8:03 am
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