Most Popular Entries
We woke to a perfect day at Union Glacier and proceeded to make the most of it. By 10:15 AM we were getting airborne in a Canadian Twin Otter. There were no clouds to be seen, just mountain after mountain and glacier after glacier. Thirty something minutes into our flight, the mountains got enormous, which meant we were headed in the right direction. A few minutes more and we were circling the Branscomb Glacier and checking out the snow strip runway. After a flawless touchdown, the team got out, said "wow" a lot and began hauling gear toward a likely set of tent sites. We built camp, sorted gear, sat for a great briefing with ALE's Basecamp manager and by 5 PM were ready to go for a walk. The teams that had come in yesterday were already moving up the mountain, but we were content to simply do a carry up to "half camp" and then return to base for the night.
Vinson base is at 7,000 ft and so to get used to the altitude and the rhythms of glacier travel we carried food and equipment for a little more than two hours, cached it and walked another hour back downhill. We were in camp again by 9 PM which left plenty of strong sunshine hours for dinner and prepping for bed.
It sure took us a while to get to the mountain, but now we are all pretty excited to have arrived.
Best Regards
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
On The Map
Great first day on the ground here in
Quito. After a leisurely breakfast here at our hotel, we met up with our trusty city tour guide Jorge and hit the streets. Touring the Basilica and Old Town districts and paying the Virgin of Quito a visit, we got a pretty good set of views this morning. The afternoon took us to the
Equator where we marveled at how easy it is to jump from one hemisphere to another and tested which way the water spins (or doesn't) in the North and South.
Now it's time to rest before getting an early-ish start and exploring
Rucu Pinchincha, an extinct volcano accessed by a Teleferico from town.
Buenes noches,
RMI Guide Jake Beren
What a wonderful adventure we have had here in Ecuador.
We woke last night to a beautifully clear and warm night. With all of the weather we have been having we were quite surprised to see a sky full of stars. We had our standard morning breakfast of not so delicious oatmeal and washed it down with some nice coffee. We left the hut with many other teams trying to take advantage of the exceptional weather.
The route from the Refugio (climbers hut) was full of surprises nearly the whole way to the summit. With crevasse crossings, steep slopes, and even a snow/ice tunnel to negotiate, the most exciting part for the team was climbing down into and then back out of a crevasse in order to continue on the route. Even with all of these obstacles, the route took us just over 6 hours and we stood on top of Cotopaxi around 7:15am with barely a breath of wind. It was so clear we could see all 10 of the 15,000' mountains in Ecuador. Having no wind and warm temperatures allowed us to linger on top for nearly an hour without getting chilled. Then it was back down to the hut to pack up and leave before the daily hail/thunderstorm moved in. We arrived back in Quito and have just finished up our last supper and have said goodbye to our team mates.
Thanks for following and we'll see you next time.
Team Ecuador
Hello from our 14,000' camp on Mt. McKinley.
This is Mike Uchal, Gilbert, Jake, and team just hanging out after a carry to the fixed lined this afternoon. We made a cache up high and came down to a little bit of weather coming in.
So we are going to hold tight for a day or two and see what develops and then hopefully move higher for our summit day. Everyone is doing well, and we will check in again later!
RMI Guide Mike Uchal
On The Map
Monday, May 16, 2022 - 6:54 am PT
We spent our first night in the Alaska range cozy in our -20 bags and woke to clear skis and a stunning view all around. The peak of Denali above had a small cloud hat, but otherwise the mountains jutted up into the blue and the sky promised another gorgeous day. We fired the stoves for breakfast and as the sun got closer to camp, woke everyone.
After bagel bacon sandwiches, we set to the task of organizing what gear we were going to move uphill to cache. A fair bit of our food and fuel made up the bulk of it. We departed, loads considerably lighter than yesterday and worked our way up Ski Hill. Several hours of steady uphill work brought us to 9700', where we opted to dig a deep hole in the snow and hide our treasure, to be retrieved in a few days. Moving light and downhill, we made quick work of the descent back to camp and a dinner of burritos. And so goes the rhythm of Denali - wake, eat, walk, eat, sleep. We'll touch base tomorrow.
RMI Guide Pete Van Deventer, Leif Bergstrom, Erika Birkeland, and team
Couldn’t have asked for a nicer day to climb the
3rd highest peak in North America! The entire Team is here, feeling a little worked but with smiles on their faces. Warm, clear night to start and a slight breeze once up in the glacier. We have a lot of smoke obscuring the views to the East and clear skies our to the West with Ixta, Popo and La Malinche. We have a long descent ahead of us and we will check in once back at Sr. Reye’s hostel. Drew, we missed you up here, hope the flight went well!
RMI Guide Mike King
We launched for the north side of
Volcan Llaima with overnight gear, optimism, and our fuel tanks filled to the brim with carne. Our send off from Malalcahuello was the asado of all asados: Chilean grass fed beef, homemade sausages, and lamb slow cooked over a wood fired grill masterfully by Sergio (our Chilean outfitter and owner of the lodge in Malalcahuello).
The wind was steady and the views nonexistent as we toured up an expansive lava field that just five years ago was flowing red. Above the monkey puzzle trees the wind was whipping, and feeling energetic we opted for the storm camping experience. We carved tent platforms into the leeward side of a small rock outcrop and proceeded to build Alaska style wind walls around our camp.
The next morning was frigid. The sun came out and as we packed up our gear for the summit ascent, we had the feeling that everything was lining up. Almost. The nice springlike snow surface we'd skinned up the day before was now a skating rink. Our ski crampons, even under full body weight, were not biting into the ice. This was not the type of frozen snow that softens throughout the day.
About 600 vertical feet above camp it became apparent that the snow wasn't getting any better. Getting on the face above us - which Katy and I had learned the year before is deceptively enormous and quite steep at the top, was out of the question. Just climbing the 3,700' would require pitching out full rope lengths and building 40+ anchors.
We ripped our skins and skied east coast style "packed powder" (very loud turns) 1,000' down to a small sub peak to the east. Views across the way of Sierra Nevada rising above the beautiful Lago Conguillio (a huge lake) began to the open up. We cramponed to the summit of our mini peak, skied down, and as we contoured back to camp, the decision not to go higher on
Llaima was further reinforced. The winds ramped up, and visibility dropped to ping-pong ball status. We packed up camp and skied down out of the clouds.
El Niño has had some influence on every one of our ski outings on this trip, whether providing powder turns in September, a deep snowpack and fantastic coverage... or a moist wind that turns a big beautiful face into a sheet of ice. We've had a blast every day of this trip, whether standing on summits, or touring in stormy weather.
Overused statement of the trip, uttered multiple times at the end of every ski day: "Well that was an adventure."
This is a truly amazing place to have skis on your feet.
RMI Guide Tyler Reid
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
On The Map
With over two days of flying behind us, our team has arrived in Kathmandu. All of the luggage has arrived and everyone is excited for the adventure to Everest Base Camp and climb of Island Peak.
We will meet for dinner tonight to discuss the details of the upcoming days. Our plan for tomorrow will be to take a tour of Kathmandu and then pack and organize our gear for the flight into the Khumbu Valley.
We will keep you posted on our adventures in Kathmandu!
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
On The Map
Tuesday, June 6, 2023 - 9:53 am PT
The weather is cooperating and we're taking off to the Alaska Range and landing on the Kahiltna glacier! Our next update will be via satellite messenger and the climb will have started!
Bon voyage!
RMI Guides Andy Bond, Jack Delaney and Joey Manship
Previous Page
Next Page
Hola equipo:
Les deseamos mucha suerte en su ascenso.
Juan, amor. Recuerda siempre que te amamos y estamos siempre contigo. Estamos muy orgullosos de ti y te extrañamos muchísimo.
Ve por la cima y vuelve pronto, que aquí te estamos esperando.
Besos
Tu familia
Posted by: Eva Glenn on 12/3/2013 at 6:46 pm
View All Comments