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Whew! After several strenuous days, the team has been relaxing at Chilcabama, a traditional Ecuadorian farmhouse. The surrounding countryside is beautiful, with a knockout view of Cotopaxi. Our day has been spent on exploratory walks, extensive eating, pestering the resident llama, and gazing at Cotopaxi through the hotel's spyglass. Tomorrow we head up to the Cotopaxi hut for our next summit bid. Wish us luck! RMI Guides Billy Nugent, Katie Bono & Team

Our Four Day Summit Climb Team led by Dave Hahn and our Five Day Summit Climb led by Leon Davis both reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today. Dave reported great conditions with winds at about 10 - 12 mph from the southwest and the cloud deck at about 7,200'. The teams are going to spend some time on the top enjoying the view before making their way back to Camp Muir. Congratulations to today's teams!

Today the team said goodbye to the hustle and bustle of Quito and headed north to enjoy a little more of this beautiful country. We drove for about an hour to a place called Fuya Fuya where we climbed a small vegetated hill to nearly 14,000' to further our acclimatization. We hiked for about 3 hours on a mostly cloudy day that made for nice hiking temperatures but didn't provide great views. The hillside was covered with knee high grass and Achupallas (sort of looks like a large pineapple). After our enjoyable hike we headed to Hacienda San Luis where we currently are enjoying the beauty of this place and wonderful Ecuadorian hospitality. Everyone seems to be enjoying this place and are looking forward to heading into the mountains tomorrow. RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew

We're spending today resting and acclimatizing at Plaza Argentina under a beautiful sunny sky. We slept in, ate some bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast burritos, drank maté, and are hanging out. This will be our last night here at basecamp before we head up on the mountain. The weather (as far as we've heard, anyway) is supposed to hold and should make for a nice move up to Camp 1 tomorrow. We'll check in tomorrow night and let you know how it went... RMI Guide Billy Nugent

On The Map

The winds picked up again after dinner yesterday and continued to blow all night, not letting up until the early hours of the morning today. When we emerged from the tents they had died to a whisper around camp but they continued to rage higher up on the mountain. We could see gusts of wind carrying giant waves of spindrifted snow through the rocks at Camp 2 from down below as we ate breakfast. With the weather still poor up high we opted not to push up to Camp 2 today to cache gear, choosing instead to climb part of the way, focusing on reviewing climbing skills and acclimatizing a bit. Thankfully the winds seemed to stay above 14,000' today, making for great climbing conditions below. We left camp and set out onto the glacier, gradually ascending the lower slopes to a bench at ~12,600'. After so many days of travel and approach on the lower mountain, it felt great to at last be using our climbing gear on Elbrus. Above the bench the pitch steepens a bit and a sizable system of crevasses cuts across the slope, forcing us to carefully pick our way amongst them to gain the smoother slopes above. At ~13,500' we reached a false plateau where the winds from above began to hit us. With our training and acclimatization accomplished for the day, we headed back down our route to camp. Returning to camp by midafternoon, we spent a leisurely couple of hours lounging amid the rocks soaking in the sun. After 36 hours of intense winds and precipitation it felt nice to sit outside in short sleeves. We have just wrapped up dinner and are finishing sorting our gear for tomorrow. If our improving weather pattern holds we will move to Camp 2 tomorrow and be in position for a summit bid.

Early this morning, our 5-day climb led by RMI Guides Seth Burns and Avery Stolte reached the summit of Mt. Rainier!

The team reported moderate winds, mostly cloudy skies, and cool, pleasant temps—a perfect alpine morning.  

They’ve begun their descent and will spend the night at Camp Muir, with plans to return to Paradise by mid-afternoon tomorrow.

Huge congrats to the entire team on this incredible achievement! 

Out here, we remember to marvel. It’s so easy to forget how incredible this planet is but when you wake up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night at 17,500 ft and you are surrounded by a world of stars you can’t help but be in awe. That’s what these last two days have been like. We are amazed at the power of the ice and the glaciers around us, we can’t get enough of the stars at night, and base camp — to see a whole city built of tents in such a harsh and unforgiving place is pretty incredible.

Today we got to walk to the lower Khumbu ice fall and do some ice climbing and training for Lobuche. We learned how to use our ascenders (safety first!), how to rappel and how to climb training for Lobuche. We learned how to use our ascenders (safety first!), how to rappel and how to climb steep ice and snow.

I’m so impressed with everyone on this team and so excited to see what Lobuche has to offer us these next few days.

RMI Guide Jess Wedel and the climbing team  

Monday, May 23, 2023  - 9:01 pm PT

Hello fellow readers,

Today was our first rest day of the trip and much needed. Our sunburnt lips and face, chaffed hips, and tired bodies needed the well deserved rest. We enjoyed a casual morning with coffee and pancakes at 9:30 am, followed by lots of down time in our tents. The afternoon was spent gathering our group gear piles for our cache tomorrow and reviewing crampon technique for tomorrow's steep ascent up motorcycle hill. The team is ready and psyched to head further up Denali and get closer to being on top. Camp is bustling with more hopeful people. As per usual we have all crawled into our tents to get settled for the night to rest up for tomorrow's cold early start.

Goodnight all,

RMI Guide Hannah, Devin, Erika, and Team

Editor’s Note: This "pulse check," adapted from the end of John Colver’s Fit To Climb Program, a sixteen-week Mt. Rainier training program, is a general check-in two weeks before the climb.  You really can’t build any more fitness less than two weeks before the climb. The other side of that point is there really is the potential to squander the benefits you’ve worked for by doing too much in the coming weeks and arriving to the climb thoroughly exhausted. For some people, the crux of the training is managing the reduced amount of effort and intensity. In a very similar way to being stuck on a mountain waiting for a storm to pass, this reduced workload may test your patience, but you have to recognize that to overdo it now would be akin to stepping out into the storm. There is just no point. Roughly speaking, the training intensity and volume are reduced by 50% in the coming days. Some ways to manage the additional downtime can be reviewing your gear, reading about the climb, watching a movie or catching up with friends and family. The last few weeks of training are busy and your climb is coming up at the end of next week. It’s time to relax. Given that your climb is coming up very soon, this week’s and next week’s preparation really blend into each other. As you look ahead at your schedule for the next ten days, bear in mind that it’s perfectly fine to juggle around the days to suit your needs. Another important thing to bear in mind is that it’s certainly okay to skip training days. The goal from now onwards is rest and preparation. The climb is the event that all the training has been leading up to. Most people are going to be a little nervous. If your nerves are getting the best of you, now is a good time to start actively practicing relaxation and anxiety management skills. My frank observation is that no matter what concerns or doubts come up between the start and the end of this week, the right thing to do in almost every case is to relax and focus on the next hour. You will need all of your energy to climb this mountain and you should feel confident that the training you have will afford you the opportunity to reach the summit of Mount Rainier. There are, however, many things that cannot be controlled, weather and snow conditions being the biggest factors. It is easy to worry about both of these things, but I can promise you as a guide I learned not to worry about those things until the time is actually right. The determination of whether to continue or turn back is always a calculated decision made in the moment, and this is one of the fascinations of the challenge. A climbing team can have a hundred percent perfect weather forecast and if there’s a slight air pressure change two hours from the summit, this can result in white-out conditions and winds so high that turning around is the only reasonable option. It is also true that many successful climbs start out in poor visibility and inclement weather which dissipates as the team climbs higher. No one knows what the conditions will be like on your summit day and this is why the gear list contains clothing and equipment for all conditions. What you can count on is the knowledge that no matter how many times your guide has walked out of Camp Muir in the middle of the night, she or he does not forget what it was it is like the first time. Try and suspend thinking about what is happening above the clouds; I say this with absolute assurance, you will be supported by a world-class guide team. On this note, many people report that the experience of being part of a team is one of the most memorable aspects of the climb. Being connected by carabiners and a thin nylon rope is certainly a bonding experience. The famous French guide and writer Gaston Rébuffat often spoke of the “Brotherhood of the Rope” to symbolize the connectedness of everyone on the team. It’s an amazing experience to share the mountains with like-minded climbers! If at the end of next week, you stand on the summit of Mount Rainier, it will be because you put one foot in front of the other, over and over again, and met the challenge of climbing 9,000’ from the alpine meadows of Rainier’s foot to the glacier capped summit. Along the way, you will find synchronicity with your teammates. You will boost them when they are tired and they will do the same for you. _________ John Colver is a longtime climber, former mountain guide, and certified personal trainer with the American Council of Exercise. Colver introduced outdoor fitness classes to athletic clubs throughout the greater Puget Sound region before creating his adventX brand. Currently, adventX leads training programs in Seattle and Colver presents clinics on outdoor fitness at companies such as Microsoft, Boeing, the American Lung Association, and REI. Colver lives in Seattle. Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!

Greetings from Camp 3 on Aconcagua. Our team just returned after a successful summit bid with some happy and tired faces. We are looking forward to a little bit of dinner and some much needed rest before we start heading down, down, down tomorrow. All is well out here. Thanks for all the good wishes back home and we'll talk to you guys further on down the trail. RMI Guide Jake Beren

On The Map