Here we go! It is official! Team 3 on Aconcagua is on its way. The entire team made it into Mendoza with all their climbing gear.
However, the first order of business is enjoying the good life in Mendoza. We are at one of the new, hidden gems...Siete Cocinas Restaurante.
After our bellies are full we will return to our hotel and relax getting ready for acquiring our climbing permits. Stay tuned to see what Aconcagua has in store for our team.
RMI Guides JJ Justman, Geoff Schellens & Garrett Stevens
Hello everyone.
We are checking in from Kislovodsk, Russia. The team has had a tough time re-acclimatizing back into the civilized world. We re-learned what nozzle turns on the hot water and what fork to use first with our salads. Tomorrow the team flies to St. Petersburg for our final "descent" off the mountain! In the meantime, I'm going to bury my face in this cheesecake!
RMI Guide J.J. Justman
Waking to perfect conditions, clear and near windless, we decided to saddle up and move on up to Genet Basin and make a new home at 14,000 feet. Our hard work yesterday really paid off, leaving us with a perfect trail to camp. It was even downright hot as we pulled into camp and we found a great camp left to us by our friends now living at 17,000 camp. Thanks.
It was still tough, but our team held together well and turned in early for some much needed rest. Tomorrow we will most likely retrieve our cache and spend the afternoon relaxing and preparing for the fixed lines higher up. Cross your fingers for some high pressure. A week would be plenty.
RMI Guide Jake Beren
This is Adam calling from Kahiltna Basecamp. We’re back and everyone is safe and sound, but our adventure isn’t over yet. Weather permitting we will fly off today, but at this point of the trip we defer to the expertise of the Alaskan bush pilot. The weather here is cloudy, with fog banks creeping in and out of base camp. The pilots must have perfect visibility in order to safely land here, so all we can do is sit and wait. It’s funny how much the weather dictates all movement on Mt McKinley; airplanes and climbers both! Yesterday was my 36th birthday and what a great place to celebrate life! Though everyone is looking forward to reuniting with family and friends, our climb of the Upper West Rib and reaching the summit of Mt McKinley is something we’ll always remember with pride.
If the planes get in, this will be our final dispatch. Otherwise, I’ll keep you posted on how we’re entertaining ourselves and dreaming of things we all take for granted in civilization!
RMI Guide Adam Knoff
Congratulations! Felicitaciones! to all 5 plus pilot when he will be there to pick you up.
Here in Grand Junction we are very happy that you are back. :-) :-) :-):-)
Posted by: Patricia Corduban on 6/12/2011 at 1:16 pm
Clouds everywhere was the order of the day. We had basically cast any hope for flying out today right out the door. The forecast was bad. Through a sat phone call to Joe Horiskey, our boss at the office, I learned that the Talkeetna web cam showed nothing but dark masses of rain clouds backed up to the mountains. And, it was crappy up on the airstrip.
Come about noon I did notice the sun barely visible above the dense clouds, and wagered we would be flying out that day. But it was a wager to boost flagging spirits as much as anything. We all took to some serious tent time to talk, read, listen or play cards.
Then...the familiar drone of a plane comes into earshot. Maile looks at me but we figure it's just a tourist overflight high above us. We look out the window and can't believe it's coming in! No warning from Lisa the Basecamp manager or anything this time.
And then...all hell breaks loose as everyone scrambles to get tents down and gear packed.
By the time K2 gets in we're ready. Flying out, the brief weather window closes and I'm afraid we'll be turning back. Maile's knuckles are turning white with the trepidation we all feel as the visibility drops. It's snowing again. We fly out the long way out to avoid the more direct, but higher passes. But Chuck, our pilot, apparently had no desire to spend the night on the glacier, and we all make it out. Just in time. No other flights get back in that day!
I'm finishing this final dispatch the next morning after devouring a huge steak dinner and drinking way too much of anything but water at the local watering hole, the Fairview Inn.
We're on our way to Anchorage now where the team will part ways to reunite with loved ones. Leon, Maile and I have other plans. We're going fishing!
See ya next year,
RMI Guides Brent, Leon and Maile
Hi, this is Brent and team calling from 14,500’, it’s 10:25 p.m. Alaska time. Today started as a beautiful, beautiful day, windless and blue sky. We carried to 16,600’ and everyone did really well. Some folks were feeling so well that we took part of the team up to 17,200’ camp to place another cache. Members of the RMI Team led by Billy Nugent were at camp and we talked with them. Billy and other members of the team were making their summit attempt and were well on their way.
The weather came in on our descent, clouds built up this afternoon with some snow showers but we navigated well. We will be taking a well deserved rest day tomorrow. We will check in tomorrow night with an update on our plans. That’s all for now.
Posted by: Vern on 6/8/2011 at 4:47 pm
Hi Brent and Maile.
Sorry, I never had a chance to say “Thank you” personally for the wonderful trip. So, here it is. Thanks to you and the entire team to make it happen. I had a great time and will be looking for more climes in the future. Very happy to hear that the rest of you made it safely back to Talkeetna. Good luck with your fishing trip! - Sergey
Hello from Mount Everest Base Camp. We've been up at 17,500 ft for two nights already and it is beginning to feel like home. We had high hopes for continuous communication possibilities this year, since we were hearing so much about the 3G cell service at Base Camp... but the reality is that we are still mostly on a dirt road version of the information super-highway. We didn't have much access to cell or web services when we trekked from Pheriche to Lobuche in new snow under overcast skies. Things were cold in Lobuche, but not unpleasant as we passed the evening hours playing games in the dining room of the Eco Hotel. We stretched our legs some with a hike along the lateral moraine of the Khumbu Glacier and Bill and Sara got good at identifying the dozen or so Himalayan giants piercing the horizon around us. In the afternoon of our Lobuche rest day, we were excited to visit with Linden Mallory and his team of trekkers and climbers. They'd already spent a few nights at Everest Base Camp and were excitedly bound for Island Peak. Bill and Sara have climbed several times in the past with Linden and were naturally happy to see him again. When he completes his Island Peak climb and trek he'll make his way back up to Everest Base to join our team at about the point when we are getting into the Khumbu Icefall.
Two days ago, myself, Lam Babu,and Bill and Sara marched out of 16,000 ft Lobuche and took just four easy hours to reach Base Camp at 17,500 ft. It was wonderful then to meet our Sherpa team and to reunite with Jeff Martin, who'd sprinted ahead to help get the camp set up. Camp is indeed set up and we were amazed at the hard work the Sherpa staff had accomplished in chopping out level tent-sites and rolling boulders around to carve out a camp on this rough section of glacier. Now we've made the transition from tea-houses to tents... but it hasn't been that tough a transition. We are eating quite well now since Kumar, our chef of the past several RMI Everest expeditions, is back in the driver's seat and cranking out excellent meals. These first few days are purposely light on activity so that our bodies can catch up to the altitude, but we don't seem to be having a lot of trouble that way. It is nice now for each of us to be in our own tents and to be able to sort our climbing gear and clothing without moving to someplace new each day. New tents are popping up all around us as other teams get close to Base Camp. As expected, we were one of the first climbing teams to make it in for the season. We've already gotten to chat with the doctors of the "Everest ER" the clinic set up by the HRA about two camps away from us. Later today we'll walk a little with our ice axes in hand, just for some light exercise, and tomorrow we are looking forward to our Puja ceremony... asking the blessing of the gods before we put ourselves at risk on this giant mountain.
The cell service may not be robust at Base Camp (it seems to be mostly a 9 to 5 kind of thing, due to a reliance on solar power, we suspect) but the glaciers are still functioning pretty efficiently up here. We are getting used to the sound of big ice avalanches on the steep faces around camp. Snow conditions seem much the way I've come to expect them in the past few years... it looks like it has been quite dry again in these high mountains. The Khumbu Glacier in the vicinity of Base Camp has just been melting steadily throughout the year, without much surface replenishment... although it is relatively cold now, there is already some water flowing in the streams. The word is that the Icefall Doctors have already pushed the climbing route close to the Camp I area, which is good news... we can't tell too much about the Icefall from looking up at it... it looks just as mean and ridiculous as ever, but it is nice to know that a path has been found through it once again.
Best Regards,
Dave Hahn
Bill & Sara & Dave, et al,
Great work to make it to Base Camp healthy. Love that great acclimatization schedule. Enjoy Puja today, and good luck in the Icefall. Kudos to the Icefall Doctors! Praying for safe passages through it for y’all.
Posted by: Mac Bridges on 4/9/2011 at 4:38 am
Yeah, I was the guy whose knees couldnt take any more, thanks again, Good luck on your climb.
Hello this is Dave Hahn with RMI's Everest Expeditions calling in. I promise I wrote a nice dispatch but lost connectivity before sending it to you, so we'll have to do a voice dispatch. It's all good here. It's snowing lightly, it's been snowing since about mid-day but just lightly. We are still holding on to the hope that the Sherpas and one or two of the guides might get up in the morning for a scouting trip through the Ice Fall. Of course that is weather dependent as always. Today the team went over their gear, trying to streamline their systems for climbing fixed ropes. They checked out their down suits trying to get a little bit more familiar with that gear. Our Sherpa team did the same. Fairly quiet day, nobody else is going through the Ice Fall either a few people nibble at the base of the route today just stretching their legs and working their technique.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
RMI Guide Dave Hahn calls in from Everest Base Camp.
Chheuring letting it flow and looking great as always! Sending good weather wishes your way. Miss you all! xo
Posted by: Erin on 4/16/2015 at 8:04 am
Happy Thurs from 600’ of elevation in Indiana Larry + JJ / team…Sounds like a Weather Prayer is a good idea - OK you got it :)...Waltero…Enjoying the dispatches…Say hey to EBCp for me.
Good evening from Pangboche.
It has been a couple of days since our last post, but electricity and internet have been unreliable above Namche. We arrived today to the village where the trail splits between the Ama Dablam and Everest Base Camps' trails. We came here after a short hike from Deboche, where we arrived yesterday after our rest day at Namche.
The clearing skies we have encountered as we have climbed higher have provided the first great opportunities for time lapse pictures of both sunrise and sunset over Ama and the Everest-Lotse-Nuptse group.
Our plan is to hike up to Pheriche tomorrow where we'll continue to acclimatize taking at least one rest day.
We are on schedule for full moon at Kala Patar. We see lots of down traffic as the season comes to a close but we continue up in pursue of the crisp skies of the early winter for the time lapse pictures we're after.
We'll try to report again from Pheriche. Best regards from the Himalaya!
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos
Whew. Heavy loads today! Despite the burden the crew enjoyed a second great day in the Alaska Range under blue skies and warm temperatures. Today's walk was a long haul but the crew did great on our first physical portion of the expedition. We've settled into a new camp at the base of Ski Hill which is approximately 7,800'. Not much else to report other than tired legs and full bellies as we snug up for the night after a great meal.
Hasta mañana.
RMI Guide Billy Nugent and the gang
Great job guys…remember its the miles before the elevation. Keep up the good work and fingers crossed for good weather. Best wishes Brother Paul
Posted by: John Fletcher on 5/20/2012 at 5:52 am
Brandi & Elizabeth, I wanted to send you a nice bottle of wine to congratulate you on your “little hike” As much as I searched i could not find a hotel listing for 7800 up Mt Mckinley, let alone the number for room service :-)
Well, we've made our move on up to camp at 14k on a scorching hot day with our second trip around (not-so) Windy Corner. We rolled in around 4:15 pm where Mike Walter and his crew were kind enough to leave us a great looking camp to move into. This left us with significantly less work building walls and digging platforms, lucky us! Thanks Mike! Clouds have moved in this evening and it has started to snow a bit but we are already fed, settled in, and for the most part crashed out. It was a tough day especially with the heat but the gang persevered.
'til tomorrow,
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
Go Cousin!!
Posted by: Holly on 1/6/2013 at 9:18 am
Go get em Mike.
Posted by: Jason Vaillancourt on 1/5/2013 at 7:44 pm
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