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Wednesday, May 11, 2022 - 9:56 pm PT

We awoke to another blue bird day in the amazing Ruth Gorge. The morning was spent enjoying a leisurely breakfast while waiting for the sun to hit camp. Once the sun had warmed us up from the evenings cold, we geared up and set out to do some exploring and training. We headed off across the glacier until we reached the eastern edge of the Ruth Glacier. After picking our way through the jumbled labyrinth of the broken edge of the glacier, we ascended a moraine and refreshed our mountaineering skills and learned a few new ones. Lunch was had with beautiful views of the 5,000 foot granite east face of Mt. Dickey. Then we meandered back to camp, practiced anchors, devoured some bacon cheese burgers and relaxed for the evening. Tomorrow we will combine all our technical skills acquired so far and learn crevasse rescue using a real live crevasse!

RMI Guide Avery Parrinello

Another big day out in East Africa. It was tough to leave the comfortable Plantation Lodge this morning, but we had things to do and places to see. We stopped for some plain old tourism in the morning--shopping for gifts and souvenirs. Next up was a visit to a Maasai village. The Maasai are famous among the many tribes of Tanzania for holding onto their traditional ways. The villagers demonstrated their chanting and singing. They showed how high they could jump and invited our team to join in the competition. They brought us into the central corral, built of thorny branches and trees arranged in a tight circle, where their cattle are protected from predators each night. After demonstrating building a fire without matches, they explained a little of how their families are structured and welcomed us into their well-built but very small homes made of sticks, mud and dung. Our team tried bargaining for some of the handmade craft pieces the Maasai women were offering and then we got on the road for Tarangire National Park. Tarangire is a vast park encompassing three parallel river courses. As soon as we were past the giant baobab trees that mark the park entrance, we began seeing zebra, impala and wildebeest in such numbers that we began taking these animals for granted. We got selective, only wanting to slow down for giraffes and elephants. None of us were casual or blasé about seeing a big sleepy leopard draped over the branches of an acacia tree. He or she (there was some debate) was exceedingly beautiful. We spied a lioness watching the world from a camouflaged clump of brush on a riverbank. And we saw many elephant families of mothers with their young ranging from 6 months to a year or two. We watched them feed and rest in the shade, we saw them using their trunks as straws to pull water from underground. We saw grassy savannas and thickets of trees and palms. Essentially we saw wildlife and wilderness from horizon to horizon. When we were deep within the park, we entered Balloon Camp, our lodging for this, our final evening together. We savored an evening watching sunset, moonrise and “bush television” (a campfire) before dinner. The adventure isn’t finished just yet, we still hope for new discoveries in the morning...but everyone has airplanes to catch at some point tomorrow. Best Regards, Dave Hahn

Hello! Another day here in the Ishinca Valley, and another summit for your ESS-Peru Team! Around 9:00am this morning, we stood on top of Urus Este, around 17,800’, after a beautiful evening of challenging climbing where the team gave it a huge effort! It’s a lean snow year here in the Cordillera Blanca and the route was bit rockier than normal, but the team managed that challenging terrain exceptionally well. The weather was so nice on top that we were able to spend almost 45 minutes enjoying the views of the surrounding peaks and turquoise blue lakes that the Cordillera is famous for. We returned back to camp midday to a wonderful lunch, as usual, and took the afternoon to rest, recuperate, and enjoy our last day here in the Ishinca Valley after a week of calling it home. Dinner is almost served this evening, and we’re looking forward to catching a night back in the comforts of our hotel in Huaraz tomorrow evening. Shortly, we’ll find ourselves headed back to the hills for a closing climb to end our program with a bang! We’ll touch base from town tomorrow, and we’ll send some pics! RMI Guide Robby, William, Alfie, and Team Summit!

This is Dave Hahn Calling in from the Mt. Everest Climb. We are spending our second night here Deboche tonight. We weren’t able to send out email from here, that’s why you haven’t heard from us, but all is well. Today was our rest day here. What did was we hiked over to Tengboche and got our blessing from Lama Geshi, a blessing for attempting the mountain. That was a great time; we went out lunch in Tengboche afterward and came back here in the afternoon. Everybody is going really well. Tomorrow it is our intention is to move up to Pheriche. We hope we will have email communication then. Take care for now, Bye. RMI Guides Dave Hahn, JJ Justman, Billy Nugent & Team

Hello from the Khumbu everyone! Today we caught our early flights from Kathmandu and safely arrived at the famous Lukla airport on what was one of the smoothest flights I've ever had. Luckily for us there were no clouds in sight which allowed us an easy and very scenic flight into the heart of the Himalayas. Once in Lukla we relaxed and had breakfast at one of the tea houses while our bags were sorted and readied for our porters. We hit the trail just after 8 am and hiked casually along the trail taking in the clean fresh mountain air and all the beautiful sights of the surrounding peaks. We hiked for just over three hours stopping along the way to snap photos and enjoy the scenery of the lush green forest with towering snow capped mountains overhead. The team is comfortably settled in to another tea house here in a village called Phakding that sits on the edge of a beautiful blue river. All is well and everyone is delighted to be here. RMI Guide Casey Grom and Crew

On The Map

Hey there, this is Seth checking in from Camp 1 on the northside of Mount Elbrus. We tried to go to the summit tonight, last night, but that was not to be for us. The wind is out of control, you might be able to here my tent flapping in the breeze. Although calm when we woke up, the snow had stopped about a foot to two feet, where it had drifted in. Pete Van Deventer and I broke trail for a few thousand feet towards the summit. The winds just steadily grew and grew as we climbed. And just became to where we couldn't really see too far in front of our faces anymore due to ground blizzard conditions and decided it just wasn't safe. The winds have been decreasing on our descent and back down here at high camp, we are all hunkered in all safe and sound. Tomorrow brings a new day and we'll check in then. Ciao. RMI Guide Seth Waterfall

On The Map

More sun today with light winds and nearly perfect temperatures made for a great carry up to Camp 2. Our group is starting to work like that proverbial well-oiled machine with solid efforts the last couple days moving and pushing carries up the mountain. Our foray took us above 18,000' which was an altitude record for many and certainly the highest anybody in the group had carried a heavy load. We enjoyed a "picnic" with beautiful new views up at Camp 2 while we built up our cache of food and fuel in a nook among the rocks. And after hanging for an hour or so we made short work of our descent back to Camp 1. All in all we were on the go for only 3.5 hours and about 4.5 hours round trip. The team is feeling strong, motivated, and ready for the hard work ahead! RMI Guide Billy Nugent

On The Map

Well today we began our day a little earlier than usual. We elected to go for a little glacier tour this morning and with how hot its been during the day the cool temps felt nice. We went to the base of Annie's Ridge and had a little glaciology talk from a rad location. On the walk back we saw a big ice fall release on Mt. Foraker which was lovely, they are always impressive no matter how many times you see them. We chilled out this afternoon hiding from the afternoon sun. We regrouped for a crevasse rescue station. Everyone is sending and building mechanical advantage systems to haul climbers skyward. We are also organizing our gear for a move tomorrow up towards Kahiltna Dome which sits at 12,525'. If the weather plays nice, hopefully we will be back in 4 days. RMI Guide Jason Thompson

On The Map

Hello from Tanzania! This is Seth along with the Kilimanjaro Team. Everyone has arrived on schedule and we have just enjoyed our first evening at the Dik Dik Hotel. The hotel staff is really great and the food they serve here is top notch, which was very welcoming after our long travels. Tomorrow we will take the first step towards the mountain by prepping our gear and packing. After that we all plan to head into the city of Arusha to experience the market there. We'll check in again tomorrow. RMI Guide Seth Waterfall

Sunday, February 9, 2025, Day 10.

It was a bright and beautiful morning. We sat in silence, slurping our coffee, and enjoying the last bites of our final basecamp breakfast. Our last for the foreseeable future. We embraced our basecamp staff members with smiles on our faces and set out to begin our official climb on Cerro Aconcagua. "¡Buenas Suerte!" they said, as we waved goodbye. "¡Hasta luego!" we said, as we know we will get to see them again.

As we journeyed up the trail to Camp 1, we could still feel the cool breeze from the early morning freeze. It wasn't long, however, before the high altitude sun warmed us. It was another tough day getting to our destination, but we arrived in high spirits and indulged in some much needed rest. We again witnessed a stormy spectacle as we ate tasty bites for dinner. Now we're settled into the warmth of our sleeping bags, excited to see what all the hooplah is about at Camp 2 tomorrow before returning to Camp 1 for another night.

RMI Guide Ben Luedtke & Team