May 28, 2014 - 10:33 pm PT
Evaluating the weather at 6:20 this morning from the vestibule of our tent I saw a somewhat similar scene to what I saw yesterday. With one exception. A little lightness shining through the clouds to the north. Faint in the early morning light, but there it was. So with that small glimmer of hope that the weather might cooperate for us today, we set the wheels in motion. Stoves were fired up and the call to wake up made. Still uncertain if the weather would improve enough, we held off packing up the tents until last.
But finally the clouds parted enough to give us the confidence to head to 14,200' camp. We could see the sun about 1,000' above the clouds we were in. Unfortunately, Mother Nature didn't want to make it too easy and threw some gusty winds our way on Squirrel Hill. It seemed like the weather might be changing, but everyone was climbing well so we persevered and by the time we got above that hill, things had mellowed out. Even Windy Corner wasn't too bad.
We eventually made it to camp at 14,200' where the sun was out and it was warm and pleasant. To make things even nicer, we were greeted by the RMI group ahead of us who were camped there. Led by Pete Van Deventer, the whole team came out to lend us a hand getting camp set up.
Everybody had great appetites at dinner, a good sign given that we had just moved 3,000' to our higher camp. It was a tired, but very happy team that put down bowl after bowl of Ramen tonight.
We're all ecstatic to be here tonight, and I couldn't be prouder of how the team climbed today.
Well, it's about time that I hit the sack as well.
Goodnight!
RMI Guides Brent, Leah and Nick
Daniel and Team: Great job guys!!! We were hoping the weather would be on your side finally and it was. So proud of you all for making it to 14,200. Beautiful pics! Love you/ Mom & Rob
Posted by: Lena Akerman on 5/30/2014 at 5:16 am
Bon courage ! Nous vous souhaitons, Mathieu et moi de la belle temperature pour les jours a venir. Bonjour a Brent et Robby, nous lisons vos messages tous les jours.
Hey everyone this is JJ and Solveig with the Mexico team here on Ixta. First we do want to let everyone know that everyone here on the team is safe and sound and second, we haven't heard any news but we hope that everyone in Acapulco and the coast land of Mexico is ok with that hurricane. Here on Ixta at High Camp at 14,700', we have received the inland storm, I believe the remnants of what happened with that hurricane. We received over a foot of snow last night, heavy winds and no visibility. The winds have died down, it is not snowing any more. We still don't have good visibility. But everyone is still in good spirits. Needless to say, the mountain certainly said no to us for going to the top today but this is a day that is pretty obvious that the mountains are to be enjoyed and not conquered. We are making the best of it, everyone is in great spirits, having fun and smiling. Now our focus is packing up and getting down off of Ixta and into Puebla. Everyone says hello on the team and thanks for following along. We will definitely show you some of the sites and sounds from Puebla, Mexico and maybe some of what it looked like yesterday getting up to high camp. Everyone is doing great and we will touch base soon. Our next objective is Orizaba and we are definitely keeping our fingers crossed for better weather. Take care everyone. Bye.
RMI Guide JJ Justman
RMI Guide JJ Justman checks in from high camp on Ixtaccihuatl.
This is the last day of the trip for us. We've had a really nice day here in St. Petersburg. We kicked off the morning by beating the crowd to the Hermitage Museum. Once we got in we disbanded and everyone took in the seemingly endless art works at their own pace. Everyone seemed to really enjoy the experience there.
Now we've all met up again for a boat tour on the canals. The weather is really nice here with plenty of sun and just a little crispness in the air.
Tomorrow we'll all head to the airport for our flights home. It's too bad the weather kept us from getting to the top of Mt. Elbrus but this group has really made the most of the situation. Pete and I feel really lucky that everyone had such a positive attitude throughout the trip.
Thanks guys!
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
Everyone is back at the Dik Dik hotel safe and sound! It was a whirlwind past few days on Kilimanjaro as we went from 15,200 feet up to 19,340 and all the way out in just over 24 hours. The team did really well and the weather was good, even though we got rained on a bit after the summit.
The weather for our climb was amazing and we all had great conditions on the summit. We started just after midnight under a partly cloudy sky. It was a windless night and that kept the temps from dropping to extreme lows. That said we did climb to over 18,000 feet before the sun came up so staying warm required us to be vigilant with our gear. Everyone kept their focus though and we all made it up. We summitted in a big wave spread out over about 45 min which was really cool for me as I got to spend a lot of time on top.
After returning from high camp we resisted the urge to relax too much as we still had a decent hike down to our last camp. As we snacked on french toast the clouds came up and we started to get some light rain. The rain picked up as we hiked down to Mweka camp and that added some challenge to the day but our excellent staff had dry tents and hot tea waiting for us. After dinner we dropped onto our sleeping pads for a well deserved rest.
This morning we woke up to more cloud cover. After another excellent meal we had a wrap up celebration with our mountain staff. The guys from the Dik Dik do an amazing job and we all wanted to make sure that they know we greatly appreciate the hard work. Then we hit the trail. A few hours of hiking was nothing for this crew and before we know it we were down at the gate.
We will have dinner in a couple of hours and toast to the great times we had on Kilimanjaro! Tomorrow it's safari time!!!
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
RMI's guides would like to recognize the special women behind the scenes at RMI Expeditions.
Autumn, Sarah, Lacey, Melissa, and Bridget are our office support system, ensuring that all of our trips run seamlessly. Thank you for your hard work, reliability, and flexibility. Your contributions to RMI are appreciated and recognized by all of us.
Other special mothers on staff include our shuttle drivers, Mara, Jennifer, and Lola! We could not be more grateful for your enthusiasm, support, and for your treats on warm summer days!
Finally, a special thank you to our mothers. Thank you for continually supporting our passion for exploring the mountains.
From Everest to Ashford, we wish everyone a Happy Mother’s Day.
- The RMI Guides
There wasn't much chance to finish the journey this morning as it snowed until about 8 AM. By nine the sun was poking through and we knew we couldn't count on the glacier surface being firm enough for safe travel. So we sat for the day and waited for a clear and cold night. We've waited through many days on this trip and this was one of the tougher ones. Denali was out in all of its glory and although from a distance we could no longer tell just how much snow it had gotten or how hard the wind might be blowing, it sure looked climbable. Our climbing tomorrow morning will be in the other direction, but these will surely be the most important steps we take on the entire trip. The lower glacier in mid-July demands respect. We'll get moving by three or four in the morning and will try to reach the airstrip by 9 or 10.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Dr. Spencer Guinn, What an amazing journey! We miss you and can’t wait to hear some stories! We will be praying for you & the entire team’s safe return! -Your OR Family
Today was our first day of safari and we headed west to visit the beautiful Lake Manyara National Park. The lake is known for its many migratory animals and home to more than 300 different birds.
Everyone enjoyed our first day cruising around in our safari vehicles with cold beverages in hand while seeing the animals up close, and I do mean close! I have to report that we got “crop dusted”
by one of the big elephants from about 8 ft away. That wasn’t on our bucket list.
We also manage to see a lots of baboons, a few impalas, warthogs, lots of birds, but unfortunately no big cats.
All in all it was a really nice introduction to the incredible diversity of wildlife that Africa has and the team is looking forward to seeing more tomorrow.
It has been a windy snowy 24 hrs at 11,000ft. Not very pleasant to be outside of the tents for long. We are biding our time, waiting to make a break for it.
We woke from our first day at 14,000' camp to beautifully clear skies and stunning views of the West Buttress to our north and the rest of the Alaska Range to our south, punctuated by the other two massive peaks in the range, Mt. Hunter & Foraker.
After a modest breakfast of granola and hot drinks, we headed back down hill to retrieve our cache, just shy of Windy Corner. That trip involved just over an hour of moving, so we're enjoying lots of rest the rest of the day. Besides resting, eating, and hydrating, were doing some chores around camp, like improving our kitchen/eating tent by digging it deeper and wider and buffing out the seating.
We have a rest day planned for tomorrow. That usually means sleeping in and some form of bacon and eggs breakfast burritos for an extended brunch. We'll touch base again tomorrow.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
July 10, 2014 - 10:32 pm PT
Hey all,
Today we awoke to just about the same weather we went to bed with yesterday, that is mostly cloudy with a little wind and snow. Knowing that we weren't walking up hill in it, we had a multiple-course breakfast of bacon, fried tortillas with sugar, bagels, eggs, and even some sausage gravy. By the time we finished up the weather had trended from poor to stormy. With winds and snow on the rise, everyone helped in building some walls and re-anchoring our cook tent. Looking above to high camp we radioed with some of the other teams. They said they were in pretty much the same weather and were staying put. The whole team is keeping vibes positive as we wait for Denali to stop what it does best.....storm, storm, storm.
All the best,
RMI Guide Ben Liken
Thanks for the birthday wishes Joe and Sean. Hope you and the rest of the team get a break in the weather soon. Cheers to all of you and have a wonderful day!
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Daniel and Team: Great job guys!!! We were hoping the weather would be on your side finally and it was. So proud of you all for making it to 14,200. Beautiful pics! Love you/ Mom & Rob
Posted by: Lena Akerman on 5/30/2014 at 5:16 am
Bon courage ! Nous vous souhaitons, Mathieu et moi de la belle temperature pour les jours a venir. Bonjour a Brent et Robby, nous lisons vos messages tous les jours.
Genevieve
Posted by: Genevieve on 5/29/2014 at 9:11 pm
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