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Our Four Day Summit Climb led by Dave Hahn and our Five Day Summit Climb led by Mike Haugen reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today. The teams reported clear skies with lots of sunshine and very little wind. The teams were able to spend some time on the summit and are now en route to Camp Muir. Congratulations to today's teams!

Our whole crew is safe and sound back in Talkeetna! After a successful summit of Denali on Sunday, our crew descended to the 14,000’ camp on Monday. Then, after an early start Tuesday, we hiked out to Basecamp and arrived at the airstrip in the early evening and were lucky enough to have some clear weather to fly off of the glacier and back to civilization. We had a great team dinner last night at the West Rib Pub, and we are all enjoying the comforts of real beds and running water! After 18 great days on the mountain, our expedition is officially over. Everyone is parting ways today, heading back to loved ones back home. It was a great adventure on Denali; climbing with a great team, great weather, and a great mountain, it was hard to beat! RMI Guide Mike Walter

Just got off the radio with Dave calling from the South Col. He reports everybody is down from the summit and in good shape. They are taking a nice break, but will soon begin breaking down the South Col camp, then heading for Camp 2 where they will spend the night. All in a days work. RMI Guide Mark Tucker

Sunday, May 21, 2023, 9:40pm PDT

Hello, hello!

Today we woke up to clear skies and chill to the air. The cold is a welcoming feeling after so much heat. We whipped up some bagels then headed back downhill to retrieve our cache. We made quick getting to it and steady work getting back up to camp. After another round of bagels we enjoyed a relaxing afternoon. The sun warmed our tents and dried wet socks before evening showers drifted in. Camp has filled up with more eager climbers hoping for the chance to stand on top of this beautiful mountain. One RMI teamed moved to 14k Camp where another RMI team sits waiting. We are here at 11k Camp with one more RMI team. We have twelve RMI guides currently on the mountain and eight of them are female. It's pretty cool to have so many strong female guides on the mountain at once. Any who, we are all snuggled up once again in our sleeping bags reading books, listening to music, watching TV or eating snacks. It's a fun feeling knowing we do not have to walk anywhere tomorrow and get to sleep in. 

So goodnight all,
RMI Guides Hannah Smith, Devin Guffey, Erika Birkeland and Team

Our team is all packed and ready to go, optimistic that we'll have the opportunity to fly in to Kahiltna Basecamp today. After a full day of packing on Monday, we eagerly awaited a weather window for flying into the Alaska Range, but it never materialized. Instead, we enjoyed another evening in a real bed, with hot showers and flush toilets. This morning we'll be on standby to see if the weather is flyable. The weather trend is improving, so fingers crossed that our next communication will be from a glacier!  We will keep you updated.

RMI Guide Mike Walter 

Buenas from Camp 1 family and friends!

We have began our ascend up Aconcagua with the first familiar, yet challenging, climb to our new temporary home on the mountain. The day began with quick and strategic balance between gear packing and tent breakdown to allow for some overnight frost to melt. We devoured one of our last five star breakfasts for the next week, provided by our basecamp support team Ezikiel, Nadine and Laura! Truly the unsung heroes of expeditions. See you laters and thank you’s exchanged shortly after, the uphill climb started. Familiar zig zags and moraines appeared, quick breaks to refuel followed and meaningful conversations made the hike up enjoyable! Basecamp team had one more surprise for us upon arrival - tents already set up. With gear secured and camp established, we are all enjoying a new viewpoint of the Rallenchos valley below and a pristine snowfield above. Alternating between naps, reading, or podcast listening we are all replenishing energy. As we get ready for dinner and a restful night in this new rugged environment to my teammates I say ‘ Po paten vqtur’ / may the wind be with you/ , and those at home Obicham te/ We love you.

Camp 1 over and out.

Sunday, May 26, 2013 Bagels fried in butter, slathered in cream cheese and accompanied with smoked salmon and bacon. It was the perfect fuel to start us out on the perfect day. Clear, calm skies prevailed over the Alaska Range once again and shortly after 9:30 we were hoofing it down to pick up our cache at 9500'. Everyone cruised up and down, allowing us a quasi rest day upon our return to camp around 1:00. A little afternoon training with our crampons and ice axes will serve us well as we start climbing some steeper terrain tomorrow. Motorcycle Hill, Squirrel Hill, the Polo Field and Windy Corner will be some of the areas we'll climb through on our way to caching a bunch of food and supplies at 13,500'. We're looking forward to an exciting and challenging day. As we were preparing to settle in for our dinner of burritos we got a pleasant surprise when the first RMI trip arrived in camp after summiting on a perfect day yesterday. It is exciting to see our friends, and certainly gets us stoked for the climbing to come. We're hoping for some similar conditions when it comes our turn to go for the summit. But for now, we'll just concentrate on the matter at hand. Getting our cache to 13,500'. We'll be getting up fairly early in order to get back to camp with time to relax and prepare for the next day. Until then ... RMI Guides Brent, Logan, Leah

On The Map

Hello from Mt. Elbrus, It wouldn't be an expedition without a little bad weather. Today we awoke to rain and thunder showers. However, it wasn't really that bad so we packed our bags and hit the road for Camp One. The team did great carrying heavy packs that only got heavier with all the rain. We made it into camp mid afternoon, got our camp set up and just finished a hot gourmet meal by yours truly. Tomorrow we are going to wake up late, enjoy some Starbucks coffee at 12,500 feet and then head down to 11,500 feet to grab the rest of our gear. We hope everyone is enjoying our blog. Take care and we will touch base again soon. RMI Guide J.J. Justman

On The Map

Today our team enjoyed a city tour of Moscow with our Guide Nina. She was a wealth of knowledge and we all learned a great deal. We visited of course Red Square, St. Basil's Cathedral and fortunately the subway of Moscow. At first I was a little skeptical. Mainly because I was expecting something like NYC and some dude in a snakeskin jacket and a funny hat saying, "that ain't a knife...this is a knife". However a nice jaunt underground displayed some spectacular artwork fit for a King and Queen. What a way to start a Mt. Elbrus adventure! Thanks Nina!! RMI Guide J.J. Justman

Hello points North, this is Jake on the summit of Pico de Orizaba with our team who did a great job today getting up in good style. We had awesome weather, light winds, warm, we are on the top looking into the crater right now. Enjoying some great views and really unbelievable day. So thanks to everybody back home for all of the support and we will be calling you when we get down. Well, all right, that's it from the third highest point in North America. Take care up there and we'll be seeing you soon. RMI Guide Jake Beren

On The Map