Hi there this is Seth checking in from the Houston airport. The team awoke in Tlachichuca this morning after lots of slumbering last night. Everyone was pretty tired after a whirlwind couple of days.
After checking out of the Hotel Colonial in Puebla we drove to Tlachichuca, packed our bags and headed up to high camp. Once there we had time for an afternoon stroll and then it was off to bed. Just a few hours later we made a 1am start for the summit. Although a few of the climbers decided that it was best that they stayed at the hut while the bulk of the group went up.
Orizaba is an 'in your face' kind of climb and it's steep right out of the gate. After a couple of hours of trail and scree we reached The Labyrinth. This section can be trickery but for us it was straight forward. Steep ice and snow was the order of the day. Geoff, Alejandro and I anticipated this and had carried extra ropes to 'fix' the steep section. This took a little bit of time and we appreciated everyone's patience as we tried to make the climb as safe as possible.
Once we made our way through that section we began the long march up the Jamapa glacier. Everyone was pretty tuckered out when we finally topped out 7 hours and 15 minutes after starting. There wasn't a puff of wind while we were at the summit and the sun was shining. It was the nicest day I've ever had on that mountain.
Everyone had climbed strong and doubled down on the descent. We climbed down the glacier and then Geoff and Alejandro guided the climbers down The Labyrinth while I pulled the ropes. We returned to high camp just over 11 hours after starting out.
Now we're all disbanded and heading to our respective homes. It was a great experience and quite the uphill adventure!
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
Mark Tucker checking in. We are presently located at the airport, Kilimanjaro International. Great views of the mountain on the way here. We spent a few hours on the road today. Got through Tarangire one last time, saw many animals as expected. Had a lovely snack at the fabulous Dik Dik Resort, hot showers, and everybody is good to go. We are winging our way back home. Looking forward to seeing everybody in the states. Thanks for following the trip.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
The Summit Teams departed Camp Muir for an early alpine start today but were forced to turn around at approximately 11,400' due to high winds, poor visibility and reportedly high avalanche conditions. The Five Day Summit Climb May 25 - 29 and the Four Day Summit Climb May 26 - 29 teams returned safely to Camp Muir and rested for a few hours before starting their decent to Paradise.
Hi this is Seth checking in for Ed, Kevin and Mark. We’ve all returned from Denali safe and sound. We ended our trip without going to the summit which was a disappointment but was the best call for everyone. We had a great time but the unseasonably cold and windy conditions were not condusive to an enjoyable climb for us. For me climbing is all about the experience and the people you share it with and this trip was one of the most enjoyable that I have had. While we did not top out we did return safely. That is the best reward of all.
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
Ran into this team a few times between base camp and Kahiltna Pass while I was there last week. Got sick and had to descend in a bit of bad weather, so I totally know what it was like up there. Good work all. You had a pretty tight camp.
Posted by: Charles Miske on 5/17/2011 at 1:16 pm
Way to go to all who made it as far as you did. Kevin-we look forward to hearing about the experience & glad you are safe.
Our first Kautz seminar called in from the top of Mt. Rainier this morning! RMI guide Joe Hoch reported a sunny day despite the cold, windy weather surrounding them.
The team is on their descent to camp tonight and will return to Basecamp tomorrow afternoon.
The expedition officially kicked off Sunday afternoon with the arrival of Jon and Penn in Punta Arenas. After dozens of hours of flights, connections, luggage carts, and check-in counters, it was a huge relief to see all of our gear safely back in our hands here in Chile. We've spent the past two days completing the final preparation for the trip: packing and repacking our gear, chasing down the final but crucial odds and ends (fresh cheese & coffee!) that we need to feel fully outfitted, all the while keeping a careful eye toward the weather forecast for the coming days. With our bags fully packed, we checked in with our logistics partner ALE late this morning and weighed the some 300 pounds of food, supplies, climbing and ski gear into a somewhat manageable stack of duffels and ski bags. Once tagged and sorted, we sent them off to the airport to be loaded onto the plane to be ready at a moment's notice for the flight into Antarctica. It feels great to have the wheels in motion after so many months of preparation.
The fickle Patagonian weather was still holding clear so with our gear in order and facing the luxury of an unstructured afternoon, we caught a ride to the base of Cerro Mirador, the local ski area that sits above town, to shake out the travel from our legs. The spindly but dense trees along the hillside provided just enough protection from the whipping wind to keep us warm as we climbed. Near the summit the vegetation thinned and the full gale of the normal afternoon Patagonian winds swept around us, shaking the towers and brightly painted chairs of the chairlift where we ended. The gusts were strong enough to push us from out stances every now and again but the views down over Punta Arenas and across the Straits of Magellan toward Tierra del Fuego - and eventually Antarctica - kept us focused. After a few minutes of gazing out across the whitecaps far below, we retreated down through the woods and made our way back to town by mid-afternoon.
In the evening we joined up with Dave's team and headed over to ALE's pre-flight briefing. After running through the ins/outs of flight logistics, what to expect when disembarking on an ice runway, and how to handle passport control when heading to Antarctica, our ALE coordinator gave us the news we've been waiting for the past few days: the forecast summary and planned flight schedule. Typically the conditions and forecast are reviewed every morning and periodically throughout the day before making the decision whether to fly or not. In the next 24 hours, however, the ALE team is feeling so optimistic about the weather that they went ahead and gave us the thumbs up to fly tomorrow morning. We are crossing the Drake Passage to Antarctica so we're prepared for the best laid plans to go awry, but we're all thrilled to hopefully being on the ice by midday tomorrow. We're back at the hotel now wrapping some final loose ends and heading to bed shortly before our early departure for the airport and into the interior of Antarctica tomorrow.
RMI Guide Linden Mallory & Team
Jambo! We are back in Arusha getting our last minute shopping in. Today's game viewing in Tarangire was excellent. We started with several close ups of elephant families and then, right before we exited the park, we came upon a pride of lions that was stalking a herd of wildebeests. The lions made several runs at the wildebeests but did not make any kills. It was still really cool to see the big cats in action though.
After we finish shopping we will head back to the Dik Dik to clean up and then it's off to the airport for our flights home. It's been a great trip and today was the icing on the cake.
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
This morning we drove to Moscow's domestic airport and caught a morning flight 600km to the south to Mineralnye Vody, the airport used to access the Caucasus. An hour's drive finally brought us to Kislovodsk, our point of departure for Elbrus. We spent the afternoon sorting, repacking, and making our final preparations for the mountain. The team is doing well and in fine spirits. All are ready to get into the mountains after the days of travel and preparation.
We have an early start tomorrow morning as we head across the lower slopes of the Caucasus and finally reach Basecamp on the north side of Elbrus.
Hope all is well at home
RMI guides, Jack Delaney and Jackson Breen, had good news to report from Sandy Camp this afternoon. Their team navigated late season conditions on Mt. Baker and made it successfully to the summit!
We battled our way down to 11,000 ft. A big day of work. Lots of packing, lots of dicey climbing down the tricky steps of the West Buttress. This day was supposed to be a nice one, but we could see every sign that the storm was coming in early. We had to fight a little to get around Windy Corner. It snowed on us as we climbed down and as we fought to get a camp up at 11,000'. But we are happy to have made such progress should the storm now come in hard.
Ran into this team a few times between base camp and Kahiltna Pass while I was there last week. Got sick and had to descend in a bit of bad weather, so I totally know what it was like up there. Good work all. You had a pretty tight camp.
Posted by: Charles Miske on 5/17/2011 at 1:16 pm
Way to go to all who made it as far as you did. Kevin-we look forward to hearing about the experience & glad you are safe.
Posted by: Jim Hards on 5/16/2011 at 3:44 pm
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