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This is from KING 5 News special coverage about United Way's Climb for the Community up Mount Rainier, which took place July 5-8, 2009. The climb team, which was lead by mountaineering legend Ed Viesturs, included NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, Seattle Seahawks coach Jim Mora and United Way CEO Jon Fine.

When I moved to Boulder, Colorado in the fall of 2017, Eldorado Canyon was a place that I treated with a high degree of respect. Known for its delicate route-finding, variable rock quality, and stiff, old-school grading, Eldo is a humbling place to climb. Rock guiding in Eldo has always struck me as particularly impressive--the variability of the terrain in the canyon necessitates a familiarity with a wide range of guiding techniques in order to stay safe with a group of newer climbers. This is one of the main reasons why I chose this venue for my Rock Guide Course. My second mock lead on the course tackled an aesthetic, rambling three pitch climb on the Wind Tower. I had done the climb before, but had never been responsible for three other mock-climbers. I found myself doing nearly everything differently with my mock-climbers in tow--positioning my climbers out of the way of loose rock, breaking pitches up into shorter, up-and-down sections, and rigging lowers down exposed, short steps that I had always simply down-climbed. All told, a climb that had taken a mere hour and a half climbing independently took me three quite involved hours to guide. To me, that is the part of guiding that I will always love the most--the challenge of using every trick in your toolbox to make a section of terrain as safe as you can for your climbers. My Rock Guide Course endowed me with plenty of tricks, from terrain belays to rigging rappels to rope management systems. The real excitement of the course, though, was getting experience applying these tricks in one of the most complex rock climbing areas in the country.

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

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!

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,

Adam Knoff 

SUMMIT! Our Four Day Summit Climb Teams led by Paul Maier and Mike Haugen made it to the summit of Mt. Rainier today. The teams were able to spend a moment on top before heading downhill and are now en route to Camp Muir. Congratulations to today's teams!

This is Dave Hahn calling in from Advanced Base Camp again. Another windy day up here at the head of the Western Cwm. Apparently the jet stream winds are still on the mountain and it’s sure sounding like it. All day long big roaring noise as the air was hitting the south west face of Mt. Everest and the north face of Lhotse. And just ripping over the tops of the mountains. Didn’t make sense to do any hard climbing in those conditions, for us. That wouldn’t have worked for us anyway today we were into light exercise activities and trying to gain acclimatization. We all had a good night last night and we are try build on that. We just went for a short, couple hour long hike to gain a little elevation but didn’t get on to any technical ground. We returned back to camp and took it easy the rest of the afternoon. We are looking forward to some change in the wind and still surprised at how icy and dry the upper mountains are. I wouldn’t mind that changing a little bit and getting a little snow cover on the hills. But, everybody is doing well and we will keep you up to date. RMI Guide Dave Hahn

On The Map

The use of trekking poles during climbs (in appropriate terrain) can dramatically reduce your expended effort, allow you to move more efficiently, and ultimately let you climb longer and further.  Trekking poles help us to balance, taking some of the work away from the small muscles in our feet and ankles responsible for balancing, and involving the core and skeleton instead.  They also help enormously when it comes to managing a large and unwieldy backpack.  There are ways to use and hold trekking poles that improve their efficiency.   A common question is how long should the poles be?  For climbers’ purposes, trekking poles should be significantly shorter than most would think: right around hip height.  By setting our poles at hip height, and holding the pole by placing the palm on the top of the grip and draping fingers over the pole, the skeleton can take much of the load from the pole, reducing fatigue and effort.  The shorter height allows the bones of the arm to stack over each other, taking the load rather than the muscles.  Remember, this is not cross country skiing and having the pole tall and out in front of you only means more, yet less effective, work for your arms.   Another element to think about is how overly active arms can actually create more exertion for your body.   Imagine that you were hiking up a set of stairs.  Now put a tall pair of poles in your hand, and hike the same stairs while you try to push yourself up with the poles at the same time.  Rather than two of your limbs working hard to move your mass uphill (lots of work already!) all four are doing the job; only your arms, working out in front of you, act as levers instead of pistons (like your legs) so they are mechanically much less suited to the task.  But, by moving your arms and trying to push on those levers, your heart rate will rise with the extra exertion; the result is a higher heart rate, earlier fatigue, and less efficient use of your system if your poles are out in front of you (like a cross country skier).  Even with the poles set to hip height, we see this happen often on steep rolls, when climbers don’t lower their grip on the pole to keep their hands at a comfortable height.  Once the hands are above the heart, they have little effect on balance or upward motion, and the heart has to work harder to pump blood uphill to them. Through small steep terrain features it's key to choke up on your poles to avoid this.   These are not absolute principles but suggestions. Play with them during your training to teach yourself to move more comfortably and efficiently with poles.  It will pay big dividends on your next climb, and can help to take some of the training stress of hiking up and downhill with heavy packs, off of your joints, helping to prevent injury! Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!

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!

RMI Guide Hannah Smith checked from the Summit of Mt. Baker at 12:04 pm PDT today. The team successfully reached the summit via the Easton Glacier Route. Hannah let us know, that the team is stoked and had a beautiful day of climbing. The team will descend to the trailhead tomorrow. 

Congratulations Team!