Domingo. This is the Spanish equivalent to Sunday. And as we all know, on the seventh day of God's exhausting work week he rested. Granted he did create all living things, the land and sea as well as the heavens so deservingly so he earned the right to sit on the couch and mourn a Green Bay packers loss. Our team simply climbed a 19,000 foot mountain which God would dismiss as child's play but we are mere mortals. Regardless, Sunday greeted our freshly washed group at La Cienega with beautiful sunshine and happy humming birds. After breakfast we loaded the van and rolled back to Quito to celebrate Ginger and Albert's time with us. By mid afternoon the team had sniffed out the most American sports bar this side of the amazon and watched what us gringos consider "real" football. Jaime keeps calling it hand ball and for some reason I can't find a witty comeback. All I can say is God is a Green Bay packer fan. After football we rested some more and then headed out for our fair well dinner. We have all passed this one Mexican restaurant with a short mariachi man standing on the corner blowing a toy trumpet trying to persuade any hungry looking gringo into his place. Because I seem to promise this funny little guy we will come in next time, I figured it would be bad karma to pass him up again. So Mexican it was. Sadly they can't serve beer after 4pm on Sundays because too many people were getting sloshed after church and crashing their cars, so I had to sooth my jalapeño burns with red wine. The food turned out to be great so the team went back to the hotel content. We now head south to Chimborazo. Albert and Ginger, we will miss you. Wish us luck.
RMI Guides Adam Knoff & Casey Grom
There are two distinct sounds that jar me away from the day to day life at Basecamp and instantly remind me of the sobering landscape in which we are living. The first starts as a low grumble, like a distant roll of thunder moving up the valley, then turns to a deep guttural roar that shakes through camp. It is as if the mountains themselves are groaning under the weight of their icy loads and they shift to ease their burdens. At the head of the Khumbu valley and surrounded by a full 270 degrees soaring peaks, Basecamp is ringed by steep flanks of rock, ice, and snow. The panorama surrounding Basecamp is stunning as some of the world's highest peaks rear up directly above. Beginning with the hanging glaciers flowing from Pumori's almost perfect conical summit, and stretching over Lingtren, Cholatse, Lho La Pass, Everests' West Ridge, the Khumbu Icefall, and Nuptse's impressive West Face, the Himalayas dwarf Basecamp. And from these faces comes the deep groans. It is the sound of falling ice and rock as the glaciers hanging high on the mountains above calve off, sending tons upon tons of ice crashing down the faces below. From Basecamp the first distant grumble echoes across the valley, growing in intensity as the falling chunks gain speed, breaking apart as they hit the mountain sides and dispersing into fine clouds of billowing ice crystals. These clouds of ice blast across the valley floor, like the smoke from a canon as it discharges its deadly load, billowing up in boiling white curtains that rushes through Basecamp.
The second sound is so sudden that I often question whether I heard it at all. It is a quick and sudden, loud, sharp crack. It passes through camp like a bolt of lightening, often leaving me clutching my morning cup of coffee, a bit startled and shaken. The Khumbu Glacier, upon whose edges Basecamp sits, flows in an incessant icy march downward from the peaks above, continually adjusting and repositioning itself. With water this results in a continuous flow, but with ice, it is a jerky, spontaneous, and unpredictable dance downward. The ice reaches the point where it can no longer bear the tension and in a loud crack it readjusts itself, however imperceptibly to the casual observer. These creaks and cracks that run through the ice underfoot can be muffled, occurring deep in the ice below, or alarmingly loud, their vibrations running through the ice and startlingly me from sleep. However harmless they are in retrospect, they never fail to startle, always causing me to pause and look around. The bustle of activity that makes up Basecamp can distract from the reality of the place. It is a short-lived settlement on a continually shifting sea of ice and rock. Five months ago, when I came to Basecamp during the waning days of November to establish RMI's Basecamp location for the First Ascent Expedition, the site I stood on was almost undistinguishable from the other parts of the glacier. A few flat stones positioned a bit too precisely to be random, a couple of icy shelves suspiciously sized to fit a tent, a half collapsed rock wall, were the only clues to the excitement and activity the place had seen six months before, and would see again soon. Instead of the gathering of nylon tents I see around me now, Basecamp was a frozen desert. Dunes of ice strewn with a blanket of rocks, like a stormy sea whose waves were frozen in the midst of a tempest.
Yet now, the same place is a hub of activity, a village of clusters of brightly colored tents, connected by narrow paths, continually flattened by the boots of climbers and the hooves of yaks that pass along them. Above hang strings upon strings of prayer flags fluttering in the winds. Their bright colors never cease to mesmerize me, breaking apart the drab palette of grays and whites that surround us. Friends and other expedition members stop by to say hello, and the days pass, settling into a routine that borders on normality. Despite falling into the habit of day to day tasks at Basecamp, the distant roars of the mountain sides and the loud cracks that race through Basecamp instantly remind me of the reality of this place, of the immense size and power of the mountains at whose feet we live. Soon, all of this activity will retract back down the glacier, back down the valley and disperse across the world. The stormy frozen sea will continue to buck and roll and gradually the ice will reclaim its shape, leaving few clues of its recent past. The deep roar of ice fall high on the mountain sides and the sharp cracks of the ice itself will echo across an empty landscape of ice and stone.
The climbers have all arrived and day one is in the books. While the guides were kept busy with preparations for the coming days, the climbers that arrived early had a chance to experience a bit of Mendoza. Everyone is excited and eager for the days to come. Hopefully the sudden thunderstorm this evening means our bit of moisture for the trip has come and gone and sunny, blue skies await us on the mountain. Here’s to hoping!
The Four Day Summit Climb Teams led by RMI Guides Leon Davis and Geoff Schellens were forced to turn around at 8,000' today en route to Camp Muir. The teams experienced wet and windy weather with low visibility. They made the tough decision to descend and return to Paradise. The teams arrived at Rainier BaseCamp just before 3 pm PT.
Hi everyone. You know...it certainly can be disappointing. I guess that's why they call it Disappointment Cleaver, which is where we are right now.
However, our team is having fun and smiling. Hey! That's part of climbing. The mountain said no and we have to respect that. We will climb another day and we are happy about that.
Now, we will finish taking photos and focus on the most important part of climbing, getting down safely.
Ciao from Rainier.
RMI Guide JJ Justman
We put in nearly seven miles of walking on our rest day. But it was restful. Lungdhen sits on the edge of a big broad valley with steep peaks on either side. It was another blue sky morning and we set out up valley. There were just a handful of yak corrals and not many buildings in our valley. We came across zero trekkers. The valley is pretty quiet since the nearby Tibet border is closed to any passage. We went to about 14,900 ft. A bit farther than intended, but we kept seeing new and beautiful peaks. Even so, we were back at our tea house by 12:30PM, just in time for lunch, some naps and some packing and preparing for the Renjo La tomorrow. It will be a big day in terms of distance, altitude, cold and most especially views. We are planning an early morning start, so the team is already in bed at 7 PM.
We woke for our last morning at Everest Base Camp. Clouds obscured our views of the surrounding peaks as snow danced down. We ate our breakfast and said goodbye to two team members who aren't participating in the climb. Instead they took a helicopter back to Lukla. The six remaining team members rallied to Lobuche for lunch and then made their way up to high camp on Lobuche peak. The trail was snowy and snow began falling from the sky. It was a wintery ascent to camp with some slippery spots. If anyone did want to go down, it was much easier to continue up than to go down. But the team did great and handled the conditions well. We are now curled up in our sleeping bags waiting for dinner. The snow is still falling and the temps are not warm. We shall see what we get tonight for our summit bid. It's already been a great trip and a summit of Lobuche would be a cherry on top.
The snow and wind from yesterday persisted through the night and into the morning, and now, at midday it continues. The weather is forecast to improve as we move into the weekend, and we are poised to move to 14,000' when that moment arises. In the meantime we're lounging, reading, snoozing, and also digging out our tents. Spirits are high as we continue to weather our first Denali storm. We're all all looking forward to seeing the sun again and getting back to our upward progression. Hard days of climbing and long days waiting out storms are hallmarks of a Denali expedition.
"...snow falls and it passes..."
We'll touch base again tomorrow to let you know the latest.
Hi Daryl and all,
Looks like you’ve been playing the waiting game. I hope you are safe and having a great time. You ROCK!
Posted by: Will on 6/29/2021 at 8:52 pm
Told everyone today Daryl on the Mtn and everyone so impressed! Wishing everyone a good days rest! No such thing as bad weather.. just gotta be prepared for it! Which you all are!
At low camp, we woke to another thoroughly cloudy day. But it wasn't as cold as yesterday and there wasn't any wind up above that we could detect. We ate our usual late breakfast and checked in with Vinson Basecamp via the radio to hear the latest forecast (the same folks at Union Glacier who try to find weather windows for the Ilyushin also take a stab at mountain weather predictions). The forecast was just plain good. Clouds diminishing, no significant winds. We packed up low camp and headed for high camp. It was 2 PM by the time we were roped up and walking toward the fixed lines. We climbed in a murky world of cloud, between murky layers of other clouds down low and up high. But we made good and steady progress, reaching high camp at 12,300 ft by 8:30 PM. We worked to get a camp built and a kitchen going. At 10 PM we got our first sunshine of the day, which, thankfully kept on beaming down through clearing skies to make dinner and going to bed a lot easier. Tomorrow could be our big day... Depending, of course on how the weather shapes up and how the climbing team looks at breakfast.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Looks like a wonderful trip stay hydrated get rest and most of all enjoy the view.
Posted by: PATTI RICHARDS on 1/21/2020 at 4:45 pm
Safe travels all! And hoping for beautiful weather for all the days ahead! :) XO
Guide Mom - Coeli Scott
Posted by: Coeli Scott on 1/21/2020 at 3:11 am
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