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Mountain Guides can be a superstitious bunch. So as we did a little bit of training including rope travel, self arrest and cramponing in our second day of gorgeous weather. My superstitious side is coming out.
Tomorrow is our summit day on
Elbrus and we are knocking on wood that the weather stays beautiful. But if I may ask all of you (because this worked for me before), please leave a comment on this post wishing our team luck. The more posts we get from you the better the weather will be. And that means great photos and video to share with all of you when we get safely down.
RMI Guide JJ Justman
Well the snow continues to pile up. Our storm board is reading 68 cm of snow in the past 36-hour period. The wind has been picking up, intensifying the storm. Turns out, this storm is a little bigger then they first thought.
We spent three hours this morning digging out our tents and the cook tent. We're all staying busy here on the glacier, experiencing the other part of
Alaska, the weather.
Well not too much else to report, hopefully we'll be off the glacier sooner then later.
RMI Guide Jason Thompson
Leaving Puebla after a good breakfast we drove though fields of cactus and learned about the different ways you can eat them from our driver Rogelio. Once in Tlachichuca, we sorted gear and piled into an old Dodge Power truck and drove to the high hut on Orizaba. Fortunately it had snowed recently and the roads were not very dusty and we made it up to the hut with great views of our upcoming climb. Once at the hut we ate and rested and listened to the cold wind on the hut as we waited for our early start. Wish us luck.
January 26, 2023
The wind is a feral creature, lamenting into the void. Our nearly constant companion, shifting mercurial between head and tailwind the moment we accept whatever circumstances fate most recently dealt us.
We sojourned beyond the impossible luxuries of basecamp, making our way up serpentine paths through scree and scramble, to deposit material ever higher in preparation for climbs to come.
While the sun shown splendid, the wind conspired with the very rock to threaten barrages of stones upon our heads. Luckily, our benevolent overlords: Don Dom, Toothpick, and Gator, ensured protective gear emplacement, forestalling calamity and facilitating a timely return to basecamp, amid jubilation for our first successful climb of the trip and empanadas without equal, from our generous Grajales hosts.
Climber Jack R
We spent yesterday packing and going through all of our equipment for our Denali Expedition. Our gear is all packed and ready to be loaded onto the glacier planes, two DeHavilland Otters flown by our amazing pilots at K2 Aviation. We’ll meet at 8am and get an update on the current weather and flying conditions. The forecast is for snow today, so it is still uncertain if we will be able to fly in to Base Camp today. We’ll keep you posted as we prepare to live on a glacier for the next few weeks. Fingers are crossed…
RMI Guide Mike Walter
Hello again everyone. We're finally back in the cell and wifi zone!
I'm not sure if the last few sat phone calls went through but here's a quick recap:
Thursday night it snowed for a few hours before we woke for our
Island Peak summit climb. Thankfully it was only a few inches and the weather cleared before we started climbing. However, it was just enough to obscure the trail and make our going a little slippery, not dangerous, just very slow and tiring. We climbed up a steep slope into a tricky rock gulley that led to the start of the glacier where we strapped on our crampons and pulled out our ice axes. The start of the glacier was very broken and again required our full attention and lots of stamina, then eased off before the final steep headwall. The last few hundred feet had us ascending fixed rope to the summit and was exhausting due to the thin air. We took a few photos and started rapelling back down to the glacier. All in all it took us eight hours to reach the summit and another five to get back to camp. Three of our six climbers were able to battle to the top and the others gave us as much support as they could.
Today we hiked all the way back to Tengboche and are currently relaxing in a tea house and are very excited about hot showers tomorrow in Namche.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
Hello from the Dik Dik,
Our mountain adventure ended today with 10 very happy climbers. Even though we had a very long day yesterday, the team wanted to get an early start and hike down to the Mweka Gate. You could tell that everyone wanted showers as we made record time descending the 4,400' to the end of the trail. You can feel it is the last day as porters are ready to get paid, and the climbers are still on the high of summiting yesterday. We had a big lunch spread waiting for us at the gate and then we tipped out our mountain crew for all their hard work over the last seven days.
Now we are back at the hotel and sitting down for drinks before our celebration dinner. We are all cleaned up and have packed away all our mountain gear.
Tomorrow we are heading out on our safari. The perfect way to recover from the physical effort expended to reach the top of
Kilimanjaro. First stop is Lake Manyara!
Best regards,
RMI Guide Jeff Martin
The
Four Day Summit Climbs August 13 - 16, 2013 led by RMI Guides BIlly Nugent and Lindsay Mann reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning. The teams delayed their start from Camp Muir due to high winds but were fortunate that the winds decreased enough to allow them to climb.
They began their descent from the crater rim shortly after 9 am PT. The teams will return to Camp Muir for a short break before continuing down to Paradise.
The
Expedition Skills Seminar - Kautz enjoyed of week of training on Mt. Rainier. They spent their final night on the mountain last night. This morning they broke camp and started down to Paradise.
Congratulations to today's summit climbers! We look forward to seeing all teams at Ashford BaseCamp this afternoon.
After a good night of sleep and a belly full of fresh fruit, bread and an assortment of meats and cheeses we headed out to
explore the city a bit. Our hotel is perfectly located in central Moscow with the Kremlin and Red Square just a short walk away, so that's where we headed first. We payed a brief visit to the Red Square then watched the changing of the guard at Russia's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier before spending a little more than 2 hours inside the beautiful Kremlin. Once back outside we opted for a tour of the famous Moscow subway which sits hundreds of feet underground and is incredibly efficient and meticulously decorated. Apparently it was built so deep it could double as a bomb shelter during the Cold War years. It was amazing and a little overwhelming too.
The team then took a break for lunch and so members took naps and others explored a bit on their own. We have wrapped up the evening with a great meal and a nice little walk. Everyone is still feeling the jet-lag, but doing great otherwise.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
After many days of going without much of a stop, we took a good rest day today.
It started off wonderfully, with Caroline cooking up a good batch of bacon and powdered eggs - darn good down here in Antarctica.
After that, there was much gear sorting, drying gloves and socks and other items in tents under the warm sun. And, for Ed, Cindy, David, and Ben, packing in
anticipation of a Twin Otter coming to ferry them down to Union Glacier this afternoon.
At 5:00, we finally heard the low-pitch whine of propellers coming over Vinson, and caught sight of the Otter flying in after picking up two scientists on the other
side of the peak. A powdery landing on the glacier, and two Ski-Doo's were offloaded to make room for our team. Before long, the Otter was in flight again; Ed, Cindy,
David, and Ben are back now at Union Glacier, awaiting an Ilyushin flight on to Punta Arenas.
Peter, Seth, Caroline, Kent, and I are settling in, eager to begin the next phase of our Antarctic journey: ski. Tomorrow, we'll sniff around VBC a bit, ski some
lines, get a feel for the snow, and scour our maps for less-tracked terrain for the days to come.
Much fun awaits...
-Jake Norton
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Hope the weather held- keep it holding for our trip as well!!! Safe travels back to St. Petersburg.
Posted by: Elsie Bemiss on 7/9/2012 at 5:48 am
Good luck all. Hope the weather holds and you have a good climb!
Posted by: Chris Foley on 7/8/2012 at 1:18 pm
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