Greetings from the Dik Dik Hotel in Arusha, Tanzania.
Today was our fist full day together as a team. We started the day with a leisurely breakfast, a discussion of the trip itinerary and then a gear check. After lunch most of the team went into Arusha to do some shopping and sight seeing. Now we have finished dinner and are getting ready for an early departure for Kilimanjaro. We'll check in again from our first camp tomorrow.
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
Way to go Eddie! You made it through the gear check. You’re on your way now! Let’s see how many names you can remeber of your team mates. We’ll spot you Tom and Bob.
POOKA POWER!
Posted by: Jim Citrano on 8/2/2012 at 3:04 pm
Hope everyone enjoys their climb! Have fun Chris, and all be safe.
Posted by: Elizabeth & Doug on 8/2/2012 at 4:33 am
Hey there! This is Billy calling in with our dispatch for July 3rd. The team woke up pretty early here in Quito. We got out of the hotel pretty quickly after a nice breakfast. We headed south of town to the Illinizas which is a really cool park to do another training hike. We ended up hiking for a few hours, climbing up above 15,000’. We made it to a Refugio which sits right in the saddle between Illiniza Norte and Illiniza Sur. We had some hot drinks then cruised on down. The team performed super well and so we were really psyched. After that we descended where Victor, our driver, rendezvoused with us again at the trailhead and we headed up to the Chilcabamba Eco Lodge where we had a fantastic meal and an awesome night! We are really enjoying the super, super bright full moon and amazing views of Cotopaxi which is our next big adjective. Tomorrow we are planning on heading that way, towards Cotopaxi, so we will give you a call and let you know how things are developing. That’s all for now, bye.
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
Last night as we were drifting off to sleep our first big storm with high winds and some snow hit us out of the blue. Even with the protective walls around our tents the winds were strong enough to buffet them and make you wonder how much stronger the winds would need to be to collapse them. But we had done everything right and all the wind served to do was keep us from sleeping as well as we might. Oh, and I guess it kept us from the summit once again.
My biggest concern was for our Posh tent that relies on a single pole to support the paper thin fabric of the body. But, thankfully, besides about 600 pounds of Snow drifted onto one side, the thing held up well. So, we're still in business with our dining/cook tent. And a good thing that was when Kristen brought out her deck of cards for a few afternoon games of poker.
Just some routine maintenance around camp, shoveling, repairing sagging walls, had us out for a little while after poker, but we're all back in the tents relaxing and even getting in a little sleep.
All for now from 17,200' (where we're waiting patiently for better weather to find us)
Until next time,
RMI Guides Brent, Leon and Lindsay
P.S. As I send this a few hours later the latest weather forecast indicates that Tuesday or Wednesday may bode well for an attempt. That's good because that's about how much food we have left for up here. But we'll have some major trail breaking to do given the snow, It'll be a du challenge.
Way to stick it out up there! Ive been off the mountain for almost a week now and was surprised to hear you guys were still up there! For all that you guys have endured staying at 17 that long I really hope you get a chance today or tomorrow, you deserve it!!!
Posted by: Evan on 6/12/2012 at 3:04 pm
Even when here in San Diego is COLD (68) I am a good sport and wish all of you the best Summit ever, Good Luck ~!!
P.S. Hey AA, I hope you have the car key over there !!!
Our time in the Alaska Range finished wrapped up just a couple of days ago. We had an extra 2 bonus days in the mountains. Our fly off date was set, but the weather determines our true fly off date. The snow began to fall the night before our scheduled departure date, it kept snowing for the following 2 days. Veteran climbers stated that this had been one of the biggest snowstorms, at Base Camp, that they could remember in the past
7 years. Over 3 ft of snow fell in a little more than a 36 hr period. We woke up on Saturday morning to crystal clear skies, soon the planes began to fill the skies. Everyone at base camp looking for a flight out spent the previous evening stomping out the run way for the planes. Still, when the planes landed it was obvious how deep the snow was for the planes. I think the pilots were getting faceshots, as the snow was hitting the windshields of the planes. We all arrived back in Talkeetna in the early afternoon, on Saturday.
The week consisted of lots of information being uploaded and downloaded to a very enthusiastic group of climbers. Us guides were very impressed with how much information this group of climbers soaked up. Topics covered a wide variety of mountain tactics, how to simply live comfortably in an environment that was cold and snowy, how to set up a camp, crevasse rescue, snow and ice anchors, climber responsibilities, avalanches and rescue, ice climbing and the list continues.
Everyone had a great time experiencing the Alaska range. Ideas have already been hatched for future trips to visit Little Switzerland, the Ruth Gorge or other objectives around the base camp area, from members of this group. Climbing around the Kahiltna base camp area offers a great experience for your first time to Alaska. Hopefully we will see you up here soon.
Everyone is on their way home now but memories will last a long time of this very special place.
Thanks again from Jason, Andres, Anne Gilbert and RMI
Habari!
This is the Kili team checking in from the top of the Barranco Wall. We've just ascended the steepest part of our trek. We started this morning at 12,600' and have climbed just over 1,000 vertical feet. The views of the Heim Glaciers on the upper mountain were awesome this morning. The clouds have come in now which will give us pleasant hiking conditions the rest of the way.
Tomorrow we will ascend to high camp!
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall & Team
What do you do in Antarctica when you want to kill time? you eat, sleep, read, play games, write in your journal and.... do first ascents. Not a bad program, isn't it?
After a great breakfast of french toasts and beautiful lunch, I headed out with Nick, Victor's client, to do one more line on the north face of Mount Russman. It takes about 30mins down the now well travelled ski track to the base of the face. There, we trade skis for crampons and poles for ice aces. Victor followed behind with the Union Glacier camp head chef, Gavin.
Today's line was a mix of steep snow and steeper ice with wild mushroom formations stacked on top of each other. The climbing was smooth and we moved quickly through this untouched terrain. As we neared the top, huge cornices were towering overhead and the terrain was steeper than what it had seemed like from the bottom. We topped out 2hours after leaving our skis. We radioed in to camp to notify them of our success on the route and to let them know that we were headed straight back to camp. It's requirement and we need to communicate with camp on a regular basis while out in the field.
This was Gavin's first first ascent, just like it had been for Richard Parks a few days ago. So, he got to name the route. He offered a few names, but the one that stuck with "Route du Jour". It was a perfect fit for a chef and also because this is realy what it is like: we wake up in the morning and wonder which route is going to get plummed that day, much like a chef decides on what menu he is going to prepare.
We just got news that we are likely not flying tomorrow night. So, there might be more "Route du Jour" to come!
A fun, bumpy 4x4 ride delivered us to the climbers hut where we unpacked and settled into the penthouse suite. That is a nice way to say we had to haul all our gear up a bunch of stairs and everyone was breathing heavy.
After moving in, we refreshed our walking and cramponing techniques on the rocks and dirt just above the hut.
We also met the rest of our guide team, Carmelo, Jorge and Gustavo who joined us for dinner. They are warm and friendly and quickly becoming part of the team.
We enjoyed a delicious dinner of quinoa-potato soup, followed by chicken and rice. We are getting to bed early in preparation for our early start tomorrow.
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
The winds are calm and it's snowing lightly at Denali 14K Camp. Our plan is to pack up camp this afternoon and journey down into the thicker clouds, hopefully making it to Basecamp sometime in the middle of the night. We're not overly optimistic that we'll be able to fly tomorrow...the pilots at K2 Aviation tell us that this weather is supposed to stick around until Saturday. If all goes well we'll at least be in position to fly off the glacier if a clearing presents itself.
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Way to go Eddie! You made it through the gear check. You’re on your way now! Let’s see how many names you can remeber of your team mates. We’ll spot you Tom and Bob.
POOKA POWER!
Posted by: Jim Citrano on 8/2/2012 at 3:04 pm
Hope everyone enjoys their climb! Have fun Chris, and all be safe.
Posted by: Elizabeth & Doug on 8/2/2012 at 4:33 am
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