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Here we are! Base Camp! The team made it Down from high camp in 50 mph winds. It was a tough day packing up but the weather calmed down as we descended. It's a slow gradual zombie descent. However, as soon as people see the tiny little tents of base, people's spirits soar. Now in base camp we are sucking down juice and wearing flip flops. The team has a little bit of packing to do and then we are off down the trail to finish the mountain part of the adventure. Tomorrow we will head to Lenas, which was our first camp on the trek in. I usually tease our climbers by telling them we are going to have chicken ramen for dinner. However, I think another giant steak asado is in order. After all, when in Argentina! Especially after a safe and successful summit of South America's highest peak! RMI Guides JJ Justman and Leah Fisher and Team

Wednesday, June 12, 2013 A fine day for a move presented itself to us this morning and we certainly made the most of it. Leaving our 11,000' Camp in the early morning cold is great training for the chill of higher altitude and we made a solid bid before the sun came out in force. It's nearly always hot coming into 14 and today was no exception. We were treated to some real hospitality when we arrived in the form of another RMI Team, led by Tyler Jones and Garret Stevens. Freshly hydrated, we set to work building camp and rebuilding ourselves with a big meal and early night's rest. Tomorrow is a rest day, but I hazard a guess that we will be working in some way most of the day, retrieving a cache, fortifying camp and practicing for the fixed lines. It is exciting to be up here with such a great team! RMI Guide Jake Beren

On The Map

THE WIND FELT PERSONAL 

The tent slapping against my face is not my favorite way to wake up. Alas that is how the team's final night at high camp was spent. I personally continued to feign sleep until finally enough rays of sunshine peaked over the horizon that it was reasonable to start rousing everyone from their summit climb exhausted slumbers. Needless to say, most of the team was already awake due to similar wind induced tent slapping. They say it takes a village to raise a child, well they should also say it takes five climbers to take down a tent in high winds. Well teamwork made the dreamwork and soon we were headed downhill towards Camp 2 with our packs over encumbered with everything that had originally taken us two trips and a porter to get there. Camp 2 was a warm, windless paradise at what now felt like a very refreshing 18,000 feet. Sadly, we still had a long way to go to get to base camp. Thankfully, gravity assists on the downhill and the air only got thicker as we descended. Soon we arrived to an enthusiastic welcome home at Plaza Argentina with the various amenities we loved, namely fresh fruit and cerveza! The rest of the afternoon was spent reorganizing, showering, packing, eating, and celebrating our safe return. A rotating cast of our favorite base camp people stopped by for a drink and a laugh. A perfect final night enjoying the incredible hospitality of base camp. After a restless night at 19,600 and then descending nearly 6,000 feet - a well-deserved sleep will be had by all tonight. 

Cheers, 

RMI Guide Jack Delaney and the Sleepy Sies 

Sunday, May 28, 2023 - 6:42 pm PT

Today didn't work out exactly as planned. When we got up it was calm as promised, but a complete white out in camp. Snow was falling lightly, straight down. We dragged our feet to see how it would evolve. As the sun came up, the clouds did push up a bit, and with some sight it was clear the wind was moving strong up high. Within a few hours, that wind made it to camp as well. So we spent the day in the tents dodging intermittent snow showers and wind gusts.

We are hoping that tomorrow brings us better summit weather and that Mother Denali let's us pass.

RMI Guide Pete Van Deventer

May 31, 2017 Hi, it's Mike Walter calling on Wednesday May 31st. We had a beautiful day today, and we moved up to the High Camp on Denali's West Buttress, 17200 feet. We got here a little bit after 1pm today and have been setting up camp and resting. Everyone is resting and the weather looks good for tomorrow. So hopefully we'll be able to take a shot at the summit. Everyone is doing well. Hopefully we will be giving you a call from the summit and let you know how it goes. Alright. RMI Guide Mike Walter

On The Map

I know I sound like a broken record but our Aconcagua team is both rocking and rolling! Today we woke up early and laced up our mountaineering boots. With hefty packs in hand we slowly made our way up to Camp 1 at 16,360 feet...officially. For Geoff and I today gave us an opportunity to visibly see how each climber is doing. And it was obvious that everyone has climbed before. And climbed well. The team was in sync with breaks, rest stepping, good footwork and most importantly everyone was having fun. We spent a half an hour at Camp 1 and we left quite a bit of gear that we will need for the upper mountain. So we are now officially ready to move up the mountain. But first we will take another rest day here at base camp. There's no need to rush. The tortoise always wins the race. RMI Guide JJ Justman

12:01 a.m. (Nepalese Time) - Team leaving the South Col UP UP AND AWAY ! These guys are my supermen. It's now down to a handful of hours. With all that has happened over the course of this expedition, success shows itself in many ways. Summit or not these guys rock. In a couple of days, when Dave, Linden, Kaji, Dawa, Yubarj and Tsering are back down here at Base Camp feeling good and all equipment removed from the mountain, that will be a huge success. As they leave the South Col they start on kind of rolling terrain with some good-sized crevasses. In the past the fixed line didn't normally start till you got the first steep part, the Triangular face. So some kind of markings like the sticks with flags were great but if it was hard ice everywhere you had a difficult time placing them. GPS is sure an improvement but electronics can have some problems in the cold and one more thing to mess with. The last few years the teams have made it a point to put a rope line to follow in this area for low-to-no visibility occasions. As they start up it's a constant mix of adjusting straps, pace, oxygen masks, gloves, ice axes and more. While you hope you hit the clothing options right, it may be necessary to pull over and make the quick change so as to not sweat bullets or need to move to quick to stay warm. And what about the other teams? Are they in front, going at a pace that does not work for you? Can you unclip from the rope and make a pass safely? Is your oxygen mask clogging up and not allowing freedom of ambient air movement? Is the wind now picking up and I need to put on some form of eye protection to keep from getting the dreaded frozen cornea? Now that I have put on the eye protection is it all fogged up? Better to see the terrain and risk the freezing? How are my toes, what is going on with my hands? Head to toe self survey, constantly observing my every move. What are my thoughts, am I keeping focused? How is my partner? Where is my partner? Are my Sherpa OK? Do they have my next bottle of oxygen? My oxygen! Do I still have enough to get me to the Balcony (27,500 ft), the next location that I will expect to hear radio communication from the team? And first semi-flat place for a short break and a oxygen bottle change. That should take between three and four hours from now. So hang in there, I promise as soon as I hear, you will too. RMI Guide Mark Tucker

On The Map

Thursday, October 10, 2024 - 3:04 am PT

As much as we were enjoying the high life up in Gokyo, it was time to get lower.  We got walking at 8:30 this morning down past the series of magical lakes pinched between giant mountains and a giant glacier.  The end of the glacier brought a dramatic change in the scenery as we were then traversing a steep gorge with a charging and churning river below.  The trail was in great condition, though it was still a challenge to keep from tumbling off as one could get easily distracted staring at the six or eight 20,000 ft mountains surrounding us.  It wasn’t particularly busy on the trail but we were careful to give room to the hard working yaks when they came through loaded up with propane.  The weather followed what we’ve come to think of as the normal pattern: crystal clear to start and clouding up after noon.  We pulled into Dhole at around 1:40 PM after 8.2 miles, so the gang was definitely ready for lunch and a few hours of rest to complete the day.  The rest -way down here at 13,400- ought to be a little more restful than we’ve had in recent days. 

Best Regards,

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

A great day at 14,000 ft and above. In the pattern we've come to expect, it was all blue sky and sunshine to start the day and then cloudy and even a bit snowy to end the day. But we made excellent use of the sunny and calm morning to go for a hike about 1,200 ft up on the hills behind Pheriche. Right off the bat, we enjoyed views of the sixth, fifth and fourth highest mountains in the world. Everest is now hidden from our view by Nuptse, and that will continue until we are above our final tea house in Lobuche, but Cho Oyu, Makalu and Lhotse were trying their utmost to make us forget our central goal of the trip. They had to fight it out with closer giants like Ama Dablam, Towoche, and Cholatse. Giant eagle/vultures cruised overhead as we climbed, hoping we'd leave one or two climbers behind, but everybody kept up just fine and the birds went hungry. We took a bunch of hero shots at our high point and beat feet back down to our luxurious digs in Pheriche. In the afternoon, the team strolled next door to receive an excellent lecture on altitude illness given by one of the docs of the Himalayan Rescue Association. The dining room was not nearly as busy as it had been yesterday and the team enjoyed slightly better internet connectivity through the late afternoon and evening. And that is good, since we don't expect much web surfing in Lobuche for the next couple of nights. We'll try to get our progress out if possible, but of course -no news from us is good news. Mark Tucker, our soon-to-be basecamp manager, brought his basecamp trekking team back down to Pheriche as planned today. Nice to see him and his gang. We'll say goodbye to him in the morning as he continues guiding his folks back down to Lukla before sprinting back up to be with us. Best Regards, RMI Guide Dave Hahn

On The Map

The Four Day Summit Climb July 22 - 25 led by RMI Guides Billy Nugent and Elias de Andres Martos reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today. The team's reported great conditions, beautiful sunshine and light winds on top of Columbia Crest today. The Expedition Skills Seminar - Emmons led by Tyler Reid also reached the summit this morning. They had a spectacular climb and were spending some time on the summit before starting their descent. The team will spend their final night on the mountain at Camp Schurman and complete their walk out to the trail head tomorrow. RMI Guide Jake Beren and his team reached the summit of Mt. Shuksan in Washington's North Cascades today. The team ascended via the Fisher Chimneys route. Congratulations to today's summit teams!