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Posted by: Adam Knoff
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Everest BC Trek and Lobuche
Elevation: 4,383'
Namaste from Kathmandu.
Day 1 of our Everest Base Camp and Lobuche Expedition is in the books. I would say yesterday was the official first day but I don’t want to start confusing people this early into things.
Despite where we sit on the official green light of our multi week adventure, one thing isn’t confusing, this team is not afraid to drink a beer! Yesterday, whatever day of the week that was for those of you reading this now, we all met for our first team lunch and within minutes were making a toast to all of our bags showing up, all of us showing up and to offsetting jet lag with alcohol. I liked everyone from the get go. The rest of the day brought some shopping, resting and a nice dinner.
Today we started with a wonderful breakfast at our Hotel Yak and Yeti, quickly followed by a fun city tour. We saw ancient Buddhist temples, a Hindu cremation ceremony and monkeys cute enough to want to bring home but would likely eat all your food and kill your cat.
These are all beautiful sights with lots of history and meaning but to me the most intense part of this city is the traffic! If anyone reading this has a family member on said trip, don’t expect them to come home and be the same person, especially crossing the street. We all have a much different “margins of safety” when dealing with moving vehicles now. Don’t attempt to stop us, just close your eyes and count to ten.
After surviving our last walk to and from the restaurant zone, we are now packing for our anticipated 6am flight to Lukla, one of the most challenging runways in the world and gateway to Everest.
We will report on the flight and first stretch of the walk tomorrow.
RMI Guide,
Posted by:
Categories: Mountaineering Fitness & Training
As you design a training plan to prepare for your next climb, data about your training and level of fitness is a really useful tool. One of the best ways to get an objective idea of your current level of fitness and to measure your gains is by tracking your heart rate with a heart rate monitor.
There are two main types of heart rate monitors available: watches that use an infrared sensor to your heart rate at your wrist and monitors that use a chest strap with two electrodes to record the electrical pulses from your heart. The infrared sensors on watches measure the change in the size of veins to record your heart beat, and can give a good rough idea of your heart rate trends. Movement of the watch on your wrist can interfere with the accuracy of the sensor however, so the normal movement that comes with training activities can mean that it doesn’t record your workout very effectively. The electrodes on a chest strap pick up the electrical signals from your heart very effectively despite any movement, and therefore and the best way to get a good picture of your workouts, and what we recommend.
Heart rate monitors are effective for a couple of different purposes. First and foremost, a heart rate monitor gives you the ability to track your training more accurately. Heart rate monitors use versions of the 5 training zones that most athletes utilize, so you can begin to build an accurate picture of how much time you spend in each zone and how effective a given period, week, or workout might have been for you.
A heart rate monitor also helps you to hit your target intensity zone for a given workout. This works in both directions; it can help you to tone it down on your long level 2 endurance training if you start to push a little hard, or it can let you know that you need to push even harder to make it to your target L4 zone on a set of intervals. One of the most helpful is setting an upper heart rate threshold alarm during your aerobic building workouts to warn you when you go too hard, which happens to most!
Tracking your heart rate over a period of time can also give you a picture of your overall fitness. As your training pays off, your resting heart rate should drop, and you will find yourself covering more ground and going faster, but at the same intensity. Conversely, a sudden spike in your resting heart rate may indicate that your training load is adding up and that you need to focus a bit more on recovery.
As an added bonus, most of the better heart rate monitors also have the ability to track your workout with GPS, so you can keep track of your training routes. A heart rate monitor won’t make you fitter, but it gives you invaluable information that allows you to create a more informed training plan.
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Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!
Posted by: Andy Bond, Ellison Boord, George Hedreen, Bryan Mazaika, Keeley Rideout, Michael Murray
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'
Our Five Day Climb May 28 - 1 June, reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today led by RMI Guides Andy Bond and Bryan Mazaika. Andy reported a beautiful climb this morning without any winds. The route is very direct and the teams training over the last few days set them up well for the climb.
The photo was taken by Andy on their ascent at around 13,300'. The teams will return to Camp Muir and repack then continue their descent to Paradise.
They will conclude their program this afternoon at Rainier BaseCamp.
Congratulations to today's climbers!
Congratulations guys!! you did it! Looking forward to our climb on July 5th!! I hope the weather will allow us to reach the top as well.
Rich
Posted by: richard philippides on 6/12/2022 at 11:15 pm
It was one of great experience to hike Mt. Rainier. Thanks a lot to RMI for providing all the support.
Special thanks to all guides Bryan, Andy, Michael, Keely, George and Ellison, with you guys we will not have great experience. Thanks for providing all the training and taking care all of us (like family member). Looking forward to have more expeditions with you guys.
Also thanks to all expedition members, learned lot from you guys.
Posted by: Umesh Patel on 6/3/2022 at 2:23 pm
Today was the day, the team successfully reached the summit of the eighth tallest mountains in North America, Ixtaccihuatl. We woke up dark and early at 1230 AM for our alpine start, scarfed our oatmeal, chugged our coffee and we were off.
The route from high camp starts off with most of the elevation gain and a steep scree field to boot. Taking two steps up and one step back, the team trudged up “the knees” of Ixta to gain one of its magnificent ridges. Though the skies were clear, the wind was out with a vengeance. A cutting, constant 30 mph wind greeted us at the top of the ridge and decided to join us for the rest of the climb. With most of our layers on our person and buffs covering all but our eyes, we leaned into the wind and traversed until we dropped down into the ever-receding Ayaloco Glacier. Down and up the half pipe of a glacier, we gained the final ridge and pushed on to the summit. The team moved so well that we beat the sun to the top, but we were able to find a wind break and watch a gorgeous sunrise at the summit. Congrats to the team!
Now we’re off to well-deserved showers and beds in Puebla.
RMI Guide Dominic Cifelli & Team
Congratulations to all! I’m very impressed and enjoy watching the adventure.
Posted by: Bobby Hall on 3/2/2022 at 3:37 pm
Awesome. On to Orizaba! Enjoy Puebla first, though. Watch out for the tacos arabes, Dom :-)
Posted by: Patrick Johnson on 3/2/2022 at 3:15 pm
Posted by: Mike Walter, Abby Westling, Leif Bergstrom, Josh Geiser, Nicole De Petris, Nick Sinapius
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'
RMI Guides Mike Walter & Abby Westling led the Four Day Climb August 26 - 29 to the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning with all climbers in both groups. Mike reported a beautiful day on the mountain as the teams were approaching the crater rim around 7:10 am. Climbers will spend time in the summit crater before starting their descent, dropping 4,500' back to Camp Muir. After a quick stop they will continue the remaining 4,500' to Paradise. Once back at Rainier BaseCamp later this afternoon the program will conclude with a small celebration for the teams.
Nice work today everyone!
Posted by: Jake Beren
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Aconcagua
The team enjoyed a well deserved rest day today. We leisurely ate breakfast, sipped coffee, and explored the city. We stay in a hotel close to the main square of the city so everything we could want is within walking distance. Tiny street markets, beautiful churches, old dive bars, and the colors of the buildings make Puebla a true joy to wander in. The team met up for dinner at a local favorite, El Mural de Los Poblanos, where we shared stories of our days and recalled our climb of Ixta. After we walked to my favorite ice cream place in town and enjoyed the sweet treat to end the night. We leave early for Tlachichuca tomorrow, but not before one more good nights rest in our beds.
Posted by: Solveig Waterfall
Categories: Guide News Guide Grant
Valdez, Alaska, is an incredible place to be in April. Long hours of daylight make for excellent opportunities to log massive amounts of vertical in the backcountry. When the skiing is good on Thompson Pass, there is no shortage of dramatic peaks and aesthetic lines.
Taking my AMGA Ski Mountaineering Guides Exam there this spring, I spent a majority of April in the area training with friends and fellow guides becoming familiar with the Alaskan terrain and snowpack.
The days leading up to the exam were filled with anxiety and endless “what-if’s” and “well-maybe’s.” Soon the other exam candidates and I found ourselves in the thick of eight days of late-into-the-night tour planning, strategizing, and pouring over weather forecasts, raw remote data, weather models, avalanche hazard forecasts, and various other slightly cloudy crystal balls. The general idea being to sort through all the data until you find a summary you like. Forecasting for an area as large as Alaska is quite difficult and many times during the week we were reminded that the forecasts were never quite wrong, but that the timing of the forecasts were usually off.
Conditions varied from thigh-deep powder in the east facing couloirs of the Iguana Backs zone, to some of the stiffest, carvable wind-board I’ve ever skied on the Berlin Wall and Odyssey.
The last few days of the exam we had great weather and flyable conditions. We employed the mechanical advantage of Valdez Heli-Skiing to get a ride into the Hoodoo glacier area for an overnight ski tour. We started with a descent of Acapulco Peak in the sunshine and finished with a long ski out of the Worthington Glacier in whiteout conditions.
Going through the process of being examined by your peers, learning from other exam candidates, and dealing with the stress of guiding new terrain and on-the-fly tour planning has been invaluable in helping me excel in all other facets of my guiding and personal endeavors.
Passing the exam and becoming one of only a handful of certified women in the U.S. is a huge honor and I am proud to represent RMI Expeditions.
- RMI Guide Solveig Waterfall
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Posted by: brahim ait on 9/22/2017 at 11:56 am
Congrats to you Solveig on completing the prestegious AMGA Ski Guide Certification and adding another line on your already impressive reseme. Reading about your latest adventure brought back fond memories of my climb with you, Josh and Lance on Rainier last August 22-25. Although I did not summit, I really enjoyed the adventure and the fellowship of our Climbing Team. I hope to one day sign up for an Everest Basecamp Trec . . . Maybe your Husband would be the Guide! Be safe, enjoy the adventure and keep living the dream. Doug Kennedy - The Songee Guy - a thin red cord binds us together as a Climbing Team !!!
Posted by: Doug Kennedy on 1/23/2014 at 4:20 am
There are so many choices with heart rate monitors. Can you make a few recommendations? Thank you.
Posted by: Mike on 10/8/2023 at 9:17 pm
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