Early this morning the Four Day Summit Climb led by Brent Okita reached the summit of Mt. Rainier. Brent reported clouds above and winds 20 mph, and some new snow on the mountain. The team has started their descent and are now en route back to Camp Muir.
The Expedition Skills Seminar - Emmons Team led by Seth Waterfall reached the summit via the Emmons route at 11:50am this morning. The will spend a bit of time on the summit before starting their descent.
Congratulations to Today's Teams!
Our string of good days continues. We made good use of this one as well, climbing in good style to our 12,300 ft high camp. We were up at the crack of 11:15 AM as usual for low camp... waiting for the sun. But then it was a big flurry of activity for us as we ate brunch, knocked down the tents and packed up our packs. Spikes were on and we hit the trail at 1:30 PM. We made great progress today, with everybody feeling strong and enjoying the limitless scenery. Likely we are getting the benefit of having already climbed most of the way on our carry two days back, and certainly yesterday's rest didn't hurt. As we got higher on the fixed lines, it did seem like we were able to see for hundreds of miles... the horizon couldn't actually have been that far, but when it is ice as far as the eye can see, it does start to feel global in scale.
We were lucky to have calm conditions as we exited the ropes and made our way up the last 500 vertical feet to camp. We managed it all in a respectable six hours, pulling in at 7:30 PM. Everybody was in a pretty good and optimistic mood, as they should be. If the good weather continues we could be on the summit tomorrow afternoon.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
The Kilimanjaro Family Climb departed Shira Plateau today, passing Lava Tower - and setting a few new personal altitude records along the way - before reaching Barranco Camp beneath Kilimanjaro's Southern Breach Wall. Watch the video dispatch of today's climb:
On our first day of safari we headed south to Lake Manyara, which is know for its colorful flamingos and tree climbing lions. It wasn't long before we spotted our first of many elephants to come. In fact we stopped just short of a mother and her baby and watched them cross between our two safari vehicles. It was surreal to see them so close and feel as if we could almost touch them, while they barely noticed us. We then headed off to our normal lunch spot but had to find another place as several lions had beaten us there. We think we counted 5 all together, two young males and a few females, but it was a little tough to tell as they were trying to stay cool in the bush.
After a nice hot meal provide by our traveling chef Michael, we headed off to see other animals and a quick visit to the hippo pond. Along the way we spotted a huge Monitor (giant lizard) in a creek and spotted many zebras, giraffes, wildebeest, bush bucks, and a few warthogs too.
All in all it was a pretty rewarding first day on safari.
We are spending the night overlooking the lake in a nice tented camp called Kirurumu. Everyone is doing great and excited for what tomorrow might bring.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and Crew
Well we are moving right along. Team is doing well after a couple of trams and a chair lift. Here we are at 12000', the Garabashi luxury dorm-type living. We are sticking with the normal program that has worked so well in the past. We did a nice three-hour hike, acclimatization is going well. Was under nice weather. We are just resting, hydrating, and nesting in our lovely barrel. We're waiting our turn in the dining area. There's a few other groups that are sharing our support crew up here and we're all getting along just fine. Although there is just one guy up here. I think he goes by JJ. You know there always has to be one of those in the bunch. So psyched the team is doing well. Should be another good night to catch up a little more on that jet lag.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
RMI Guide Mark Tucker calls in from the Garabashi Hut.
Hey, this is Mike Walter calling on Tuesday the 25th of June. We are all at Chilcabamba Hacienda outside of Cotopaxi National Park. We spent two days at Cayambe, sleeping up above 15,000'. Yesterday we went out for our summit bid on Cayambe, we had a great day of climbing. The winds turned us around above 18,000'. We were within about 1,000' of the summit maybe 700' of the summit. But the winds, a cloud cap and some riming ice on our clothing turned us around. We are back at Chilcabamba resting and we'll head to Cotopaxi tomorrow to attempt that one. We are all doing well and enjoying our climbing here in Ecuador.
RMI Guide Mike Walter checks in from Ecuador after Cayambe climb.
The Five Day Summit Climb led by Mark Falender along with the Four Day Summit Climb led by Chad Peele were forced to turn around at the top of Disappointment Cleaver (approx. 12,300') due to high winds and poor visibility. The teams returned safely to Camp Muir and will begin their descent to Paradise around 9 a.m. PT.
Our team had a great training hike today, taking a gondola from Quito to an altitude of around 13,000'. There we started our hike up towards Rucu Pichincha, the dominating volcano that towers over Quito. We hiked in clouds to an altitude of ~15,200'. Everyone did great with the thin air, and climbed very strong. After descending, we had a little free time to explore Quito before dinner. Dinner was delicious Ecuadorian cuisine including tomales, sea bass, and potato and cheese soup.
We're exited to head out tomorrow morning for our second training hike to the Illiniza volcanoes.
A thunderstorm swept in yesterday evening, enveloping the peaks across the valley in thunder and lighning, giving us a spectacular lightshow from the rooms of our teahouse. Thin, whispy clouds wrapped around the summits were all that were left of the faroff storm this morning. Leaving Namche as the sun crept into town, we climbed a series of switchbacks out of the bowl in which Namche sits and up to Syangboche, a collection of a few homes perched on the plateau above town and where a dirt airstrip is found. Closed for several years to planes and accessible only by helicopter, the Syangboche strip was recently reopened to cargo flights in a small single prop plane that has been busy ferrying construction supplies - rebar, lumbar, and plastic piping. Continuing across the airstrip and into a small forest of juniper we traversed the hilly plateau to a prominent outcropping on the northeastern side. There, sitting amongst the pines, sits the Mount Everest View Hotel, a large hotel built by the Japanese several years ago that features oxygen and pressurized rooms, in addition to spectacular views of Cholatse, Everest, Lhotse, and Ama Dablam. While Cholatse and Ama Dablam were visible the Everest / Lhotse Massif was cloaked on clouds, lifting only ocassionally to reveal it's steep rock and ice slopes. We sat down to a cup of tea on the back porch waiting in hopes the clouds would lift but they never did.
Leaving the sunny backporch of the Mount Everest View Hotel, we dropped into a shallow valley to the north, where the villages of Khumjung and Khunde are found. Although close to Namche, they couldn't be more different, as far as Sherpa villages go. Compared to Namche, steep, narrow, busy streets full of commerce, Khumjung and Khunde's big fields, winding footpaths, and quiet streets offer a very different experience. As we walked through Khumjung the path in front of us began to fill with children, running towards us, giggling and playing as they walked by, with their schoolbooks tucked under their arms. Soon we came to the grounds of the Hillary School in Khumnjung, the largest school in the area serving primary through high school grades. Classes had just finished for the morning and many of the students were returning home for lunch.
After visiting the school's grounds, we continued onto Khunde, just a few minutes walk away where we stopped in at the Hillary Hospital there - both organized and funded by Sir Edmund Hillary. While at the hospital a patient arrived carried by the local ambulance, a pony. He was quickly escorted in while his ride waited patiently outside.
We returned to Namche by climbing over the hills from Khunde, past rows and rows of Mani stones, and dropping down the steep hillsides into Namche. We relaxed for the rest of the afternoon, walking through Namche, catching up on reading and writing, and savoring a last hot shower.
Tomorrow we climb further up the valley to the small village of Deboche, located in the shadow of the Tengboche Monastery, the largest in the region. We will do our best to keep you updated to our progress as we move higher.
Fresh off our successful summit of Malinche dodging thunder storms, our Mexico Volcanoes team pulled into La Joya, our basecamp for Volcan Iztaccihautl, to find dime-sized hail falling and lightening cracking just overhead.
We overheard a trip report from some nice climbers who had camped at 15,500'. “Our hair was buzzing. We threw everything metal out of the tent, then the lightening struck! I still can’t feel my thumbs!”
This pretty well made our decision for us to not walk out into the storm to our high camp on a ridge. Easy decision, but it meant that summiting Ixta the next day would be anything but easy, and could only be done in a single push from La Joya.
We discussed with the team that this would be a very long and demanding day, and they were all excited for the challenge.
And they crushed it! We left camp at 1am and walked the normal three miles and 2,000 feet to high camp, then turned to the upper mountain, and no one flinched. Eight and a half total hours of climbing later we all stood in the sun on the 17,169' summit of Ixta.
Our total time on the climb was a little over 14 hours, with somewhere around 5,500 vertical feet. Half of which we normally do in a big day the day before. Strong work by our whole team!
As we pulled into Puebla around 6pm for our much needed rest day, there wasn't an open eye in the van.
Good job NS fellas! Hope you have some good snaps to show us - looking forward to you coming home :)
Posted by: Megan on 6/24/2014 at 6:53 pm
Well done Andrew and crew. Suggest you take the elevator on the way back down. I guess you are the next guy to climb the mast.
Posted by: Herbie on 6/24/2014 at 5:48 pm
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