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I believed I'd imagined Kent Harvey's call to me at ten minutes to four in the morning. I didn't have any alarm set; it was a rest day coming on and I was sound asleep in my tent. So fully unconscious that Kent called me several times and when I finally responded, I had no idea where I was or what was going on. It was dark, and as he suggested that something had happened that I might want to be concerned with, I finished rubbing my eyes and zipped open my door. The beauty of the scene seemed unreal and impossible. The moon had set, and the sun wasn't close to being up, but there was starlight on the Khumbu Icefall, Nuptse and the great bulk of Everest's West Shoulder. Kent was saying that he'd just seen a fairly large avalanche come down the Shoulder-sending a cloud of debris across the Icefall-and he was concerned that climbers may have been caught. I listened to him, but I was having trouble taking my eyes from the bright planet perfectly framed above the Icefall and bracketed by the mountains. I did manage to look down and left enough finally to see several small strings of headlamps, just where I knew the avalanche had to have come down. I turned on my radio, taking a guess that my friends at IMG had people in the area. I listened to Mark Tucker calmly and carefully check in with his Sherpa team to find out that they were ok...another near miss; and his Sherpa team was able to tell him that the only other team in the area was also ok and that everybody was going on with their climb. I related this to Kent...stared at the planet again for some time and then went back to sleep in my warm down bag. In the morning, we all looked up at the troublesome serac on the West Shoulder to gauge its stability. The same huge fin of ice had been threatening all week. It had sent down the major avalanche we'd earlier reported which caught some of our team on their way to basecamp while I was pushing up to Camp II. In the morning light, it appeared hideously undercut and I don't believe any of us expected it to last through another day. I went so far as to take "before" photos of it. But to my knowledge, no Everest climbers did anything different yesterday morning because of the serac. It wasn't like the Icefall route would be closed by any proclamation; there wasn't some safer way to go instead. This isn't the only mountain we frequent that has chunks of glacier ready to fall, and I for one have mistakenly pronounced dozens of crazily tilted hotel-sized ice-blocks in danger of imminent collapse only to watch them hang on for months. But this serac sent down a handful of lesser slides as the morning progressed...enough to keep our attention focused...and our cameras ready. I wanted the thing to come down. I certainly didn't want to walk under it again in its decaying state. At 10:35 AM it did come down. I was sitting in my tent doorway, and I didn't need to fully look at Everest's West Shoulder to know that this was the big one. In this valley of avalanches, the quality of noise was easily different and distinct for this particular slide. I fumbled with my camera and began shooting. I didn't see the tiny dots representing climbers in the avalanche path. Partly because they may not have been visible down in the rough terrain of the Khumbu Icefall, and partly because I was totally mesmerized by the power and majesty of the white explosion I was witnessing. I kept taking pictures as the cloud engulfed basecamp. I knew it was only a cloud...we were nowhere near close enough to be hit with actual debris, but it was ominous and disturbing even so. It rolled over us like a volcanic ash-cloud, blotting out the sun and rocking the tents back and forth in its wind while pelting us with a "snow" of overly large ice crystals. And then, quite quickly, it was gone and what remained of any mist in the air was quickly burning off in the bright sun. I assumed that it had been a lucky day...that what needed to happen had happened and that nobody had been affected. It is possible that I went on in this belief for a full twenty minutes before word began to filter around that people had been caught in the avalanche. I began putting on my climbing boots and quickly loading my pack...by then, word had it that it was an acquaintance of mine of several years and many mountains. My friend had been caught along with his client and the Sherpa working with them. I saw Willie and Damian Benegas going past our camp, both speaking into their radios. There were a number of Sherpas moving toward the start of the Icefall route, including Tendi and LamaBabu from our own team. Seth Waterfall was ready before me and stood patiently as I finished up my climbing harness, then we started walking fast and I joined the ongoing radio scramble to get men and equipment to the accident scene. Since IMG's Sherpas and clients were descending the route at the time and were very lucky to come through unscathed, they were among the first to report the situation via radio, and so all other teams migrated to the IMG frequency. This seemed right since Mark Tucker and Ang Jangbu Sherpa at the IMG basecamp had shifted into their familiar role in bilingual crisis management. Seth and I checked in and learned that HimEx was offering up a full rescue pack cached near the start of the route. Russell Brice came on the radio, directing us to the gear. We loaded up heavy packs full of oxygen, sleeping bags, medical equipment, and rescue hardware and began climbing. We listened as various expedition leaders, guides and Sherpas reported in and offered up a mountain of resources. This from supposedly competing companies-none of whom had any reason to think that their own staff or customers were involved or injured. We began to feel the sense of community that is so often overlooked or ignored in modern media coverage of the Everest "scene." And we began to feel the intense sun that we normally avoid working under at midday. The glacier surface was brilliant in its new coat of "snow" from the avalanche and seemed to be reflecting 100% of the sun's radiation onto the skin I hadn't had time to protect in my dash out of BC. Within minutes under the big packs, we were covered in sweat. It turned out that a descending Indian team was instrumental, along with IMG's Sherpas, in getting my friend and his client out of a crevasse that the avalanche had pushed them into, but now the radio chatter was focusing on the Sherpa that had been with them. He was missing. Willie and Damian Benegas (Argentinian-American brothers leading two different Everest teams) were among the first Western professionals on the scene, and we relied on their reports of the situation as we continued to climb. My friend, badly hypothermic and shaken, was being placed on a stretcher as Seth and I arrived in the blast zone. We dove into the medical supplies we carried in an effort to help stabilize him. Seth concentrated his efforts then on escorting the remarkably unscathed client down. Willie Benegas and a strong team of Sherpas worked to get the stretcher down, as I then went up to join Damian and perhaps 20 Sherpas who were searching for the missing man. After 15 minutes or so, I was encouraged to hear Willie describing my friend as "combative" enough that they could no longer carry him on the litter. He preferred to walk, as it turned out, and of course that was a fine outcome. At the "point-last-seen" I was amazed at the bravery and high energy of the searching climbers. Damian and a British guide were roped up and jumping crevasses in an effort to reach islands of glacier that might offer better views. The Sherpas had fixed ropes down a series of steep, debris-strewn ice gullies and were exploring every crevasse and alcove along their path. I kept looking up at the origin of the avalanche, where it appeared that a tooth had been broken from some massive jaw. Unfortunately, there were still other teeth, and the searchers were clearly in a terrible position should a second slide follow the path of the first. I checked my watch and my radio to confirm that two-and-a-half hours had passed since the avalanche. I began asking the team to suspend the search. The missing man's boot, with crampon still attached, had been found close enough to his last known whereabouts that we were each haunted to imagine the power of the wind that had hit him. His pack was eventually retrieved some 100 meters distant. The clues only made it more difficult to quit. The Sherpas all agreed that there was now no chance of finding a buried man alive. They agreed that it was time to quit and move to safety. But they wouldn't. Nobody wanted to be the first to leave. Tendi and LamaBabu continued to twist in ice screws and rappel into crevasses..."Just this last one." But they couldn't find the 31-year-old father of two. Knowing how many of them were also fathers, I insisted that they quit-eventually they listened to me, to their own leaders and their own valid concerns. We walked down through the ice rolls and ridges of the lower glacier without much talking. Dozens of good folk had come out from basecamp and stood on the ice ridges with water and tea for the search teams. Upon reaching basecamp, the teams melted back into a tent village composed of twenty different expeditions, but not without a number of quiet handshakes and a hundred expressions of thanks. To each other...to a missing man's sacrifice...to the good luck of survivors.

RMI Guides James Bealer and Ellison Boord met their team for the Mt. Baker Leave No Trace Master Educator Course and Climb on Friday, August 26th for their first day of a six day training course and climb. After their Orientation day the team set up mountain camps, practiced Leave No Trace skills and travel as well as learned glacier travel skills.  Yesterday the team made their summit attempt of Mt. Baker via the Easton Glacier route. They returned to camp for their final night in the mountains.  Their program will conclude today with a celebration in Sedro-Woolley.

Nice work team!

Good morning, this is Alex Van Steen from the Carstensz Expedition. And my oh my, what a day we had yesterday. And here is the great word: RMI has summitted Carstensz Pyramid! We had a long day but everybody, despite being exhausted, did, really, really well. We all have a little bit of an altitude hack and the desire to head the other direction, but we are just loving this experience. I wish I could send photos via this dispatch, but they will be posted later. We've got lots of photos, and lots more stories. Stay tuned. Thanks, good-bye.

On The Map

Hola de Mexico!

The RMI Mexico Volcanoes team has arrived in Mexico City.  After negotiating the busy maze of streets from the airport we have arrived in the lively Zona Rosa district. Last night we enjoyed some authentic Mexican food and prepare for our first acclimatization hike at La Malinche today. Stay tuned for more dispatches as we continue our trip around Mexico!

--RMI Guide Grayson Swingle

The final RMI EXPEDITIONS climb of our North Cascade’s season took place under excellent weather & high spirits. The three of us (RMI Guides Jake Beren and Alex Van Steen, with climber Jim Lumberg) enjoyed late season conditions. The chimneys, gullies and summit pyramid didn’t have an ounce of snow in them, making for absolutely fantastic & fun rock scrambling & climbing. On summit morning, we postponed our bid by an hour or two as rain threatened, but by the time we took off the skies were clearing and we enjoyed an improving day and stellar climbing. RMI Guide Alex Van Steen

RMI invested with a local solar outfitter a few years back, and as you can see by the picture we are charged up! At the start of this season we used a generator to jump start the batteries, but since then its been all sun. On cloudy days we have to be a bit careful on how much power we use from the bank of six good-sized car-type batteries but usually plenty of juice. Without it, tough to send out this dispatch and even the best generators are too loud. The other photo is of one of our star players here at Base Camp, Raju, who is at the watering hole of choice for now. The staff makes lots of trips to this spot daily with five-gallon plastic jugs to keep us full of that most important beverage. As the glacier moves throughout the season, so will we and the watering hole. With all of the human impact over the years we will boil all of the drinking water. Not yet there with the solar so we do use kerosene for cooking here at Base Camp. We have a most wonderful on-demand gas-powered shower tent that we try and not overuse, which you can imagine on a warm day is so fantastic it is hard to convey. A bit different nowadays since my first trip to Everest in 1990. It was 72 days between showers. Hey, we did what we could, but that first shower was a good one! Dave Hahn is at Camp 1 and a link to his audio dispatch is below. That's all for today from RMI's Everest Expedition. RMI Guide Mark Tucker

On a personal fitness level, time sometimes seems elastic to me: if I have plenty of time to train, I'll sit around and lolly-gag; tell me I only have a couple of months to get prepared and I'll be up at 5 a.m. training like a prizefighter.    The question of, "Will I be ready?" will ultimately be answered only on the climb. However, we can stack the odds in our favor by creating a tracking system that gives us a snapshot of where we are in the preparation process.   A simple method is to make a graph depicting where we are today and where we need to be for the climb. For this example, I used a January Expedition to 22,841' Aconcagua in Argentina if I started training in October:   This allows me to see: 1. What I'm capable of today (see my post "Setting A Baseline" if you need help with this). 2. What I need to accomplish on my target date.  3. Where I should be during the process.  My experience is that progress is rarely a straight line on a graph and you may be ahead or behind at any given point; but you can see generally what you've achieved and identify what work remains to be done throughout the training period.    So, what if you're running short on time to prepare? This happens often. If the goal is ambitious, we may need to intensify our focus and really adopt the mindset of an athlete.    Some training recommendations if you are short on time to prepare: • Try to establish a sensible progression and use the entire time you have rather than "front load" your training (which could create setbacks or injury).  • If you do have an aggressive training plan, be sure to focus on rest and recovery as well as quality nutrition.  • Make your training as specific as possible: Mountain climbing and hiking are perfect. Cross country skiing, running, Stairmaster, and cycling are all also good. Focus in on these activities to benefit the most from your training.  • Embrace the adventure and focus on the process more than just the result; it's easy to expend a lot of energy thinking only of the summit. By focusing on enjoying my training and doing the best I can each day, I find I enhance my training experience and my overall experience on the climb. Take some time this week to sit down, pull out a pencil and paper, and graph out the training progression you need for your climb. It will give you a clear picture of not only where you need to be for your climb, but also where you need to be in three months, in one month, and even next week. Keep this graph in a convenient place and pull it out every once in a while to check in on yourself. It can be helpful to establish specific, repeatable benchmarks to revisit during your training to measure your progress. Check out RMI Guide Pete Van Deventer's ideas on using benchmarks.   - John Colver    _________                      John Colver is a longtime climber, former mountain guide, and certified personal trainer with the American Council of Exercise. Colver introduced outdoor fitness classes to athletic clubs throughout the greater Puget Sound region before creating his adventX  brand. Currently, adventX leads training programs in Seattle and Colver presents clinics on outdoor fitness at companies such as Microsoft, Boeing, the American Lung Association, and REI. Colver lives in Seattle. Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!

RMI Guides Peter Whittaker and Ed Viesturs led a team of climbers to the summit of Mt. Rainier morning. The Four Day Summit Climb July 23 - 26 led by RMI Guides Casey Grom and Lindsey Mann also reached the top today. Both teams reported light winds and a beautiful day. The climbers will descend to Camp Muir and then continue down to Paradise later this afternoon. In the North Cascades, RMI Guides Andres Marin, Eric Frank and Geoff Schellens led their team to the summit of Forbidden Peak. All team members reached the summit yesterday. They will break camp and descend to the trail head today. Congratulations to the summit teams!

Tuesday, January 25, 2022 - 9:15 am PT

This is the Hailes Aconcagua team. We have made it to the summit! The whole team is happy and healthy. It's been a long day but we are happy to be here. We'll turn around and head down here in about 20 minutes after we take some pictures. We will check back in after we are back to camp.  Wish us luck. We will talk to you soon.

RMI Guide Walter Hailes

The clear, beautiful skies made for a cool and frosty night down at Ixtaccihuatl Basecamp. The team woke up to flakes of snow hitting our face, courtesy of the moisture from our breath. We ate our breakfast, packed our bags and were on our way.
The sun was strong, but a cool wind kept our temperature regulated quite perfectly as the team worked their way up. Our months of hard work and preparation paid off as the team was strong as ever. Making the move from 13,000ft to 15,400ft is no small feat, especially with the heavy loads of the day. We made short work of it though, getting to our high camp in around four hours flat. Now we need to move into camp, relax for a bit, and talk logistics for the day ahead. I’m proud of the way the team performed today and it makes me as hopeful as ever for our summit day tomorrow.

RMI Guide Dominic Cifelli