Most Popular Entries

Dobry vecher from Moscow, By seven last night the entire team - including all bags and gear! - reached our hotel in Moscow to kick off the 2009 RMI Elbrus Northside Expedition! The team was tired from the hours of traveling from halfway around the world, but excited to be here as we shared a drink with the sun setting over the buildings and illuminating the Moscow River. We found a little cafe down the street from the hotel where, with two English menus amongst the ten of us, we managed to order a delicious dinner through a mix of broken English and phrasebook Russian. Afterwards, we returned to the hotel for a well deserved rest. This morning we made the short walk from our hotel across the Moscow River and along the red walls of the Kremlin to Red Square. We arrived early enough to beat the crowds of tourists and admired the stunning architecture of the GUM (the Soviet State Department Store), St. Basil's Cathedral with it's unmistakable brightly colored onion-shaped domes, and the dark red walls of the Kremlin, the seat of Soviet and now Russian government. After visiting Lenin's tomb, walking through the dark and somber marble building, we met our local Muscovite, Nina, who led us on a tour of this famous area. We walked through the shops of the GUM whose shelves used to stock basic provisions and now houses luxury brands like Dior, then explored the dozens of small, beautifully painted chapels that make up St. Basil's Cathedral, before watching the changing of the guards at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. We ended our tour by making our way through the gates of the Kremlin and exploring it's beautiful churches, gardens, and monuments - such as the largest bell and cannon in the world. After a full day of sightseeing we relaxed for a few hours in the afternoon, taking some time to explore Moscow on our own. We are headed to a fantastic Georgian restaurant tonight to sample cuisine straight from the Caucasus before we head down there ourselves tomorrow. We are catching a morning flight to Mineralyne-Vody, the gateway to the northern Caucasus. We will check-in tomorrow night from the town of Kislovodsk, our launching point for our climb of Elbrus' wild northside.

Hello everyone,

Today we headed to Tarangire National Park known for its abundant elephants, and it didn’t disappoint. Not sure how many we saw, but it was quite a few, and we got pretty close to boot.  There were lots of giraffes, impalas, monkeys, ostriches, and many, many birds. We did manage to see a leopard, unfortunately it wasn’t that close and seemed to just be napping in the afternoon heat.

We are spending our last night here in Africa at Nykani Tented Camp, which has beautiful tented rooms with screen windows to allow the sounds of the African bush in. Everyone is doing great and hoping to see a few more big cats on our way out of the park tomorrow morning. Then it will be back to our main lodge near Arusha for a brief stop before catching our flights home.

Thanks for following,

RMI Guides Casey Grom, Jess Wedel and crew!

Today we visited the famous Ngorongoro Crater. The crater is roughly 100 square miles and is known for its abundance of animals that call the crater home, some estimates are as high as 30,000 mammals. 

We hit the road early with hopes of catching a few of the big cats before the heat of the day. 
There were many sightings today of hyenas, zebras, wildebeest, Cape buffalo, ostrich, and countless other birds. We managed to see several lions, including 2 up very close. Apparently it was date night, and things got a little exciting.

We also saw two Black Rhino not too far in the distance, which have become very rare due to poaching.  

We wrapped up the day with a visit to a Maasai village not far from the crater rim. The Maasai people are a semi-nomadic tribe that exist almost entirely off of their cattle. The team spent time asking questions and enjoyed being shown around their small and simple village. 

We have just finished another wonderful meal here at the Plantation Lodge 

RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew

It was another pre-dawn start... not quite as early or arduous as our Kilimanjaro summit day though. We piled into the Landcruisers and rolled out of Plantation Lodge at 6:30 AM bound for Ngorongoro Crater. The clouds were already low and thick and we were gaining altitude -so by the time we hit the rim of the giant collapsed volcano, we were in fog and murk. Michael and Francis didn’t have any trouble bringing the 4X4’s along the rough dirt road, giving the team the quintessential “African Massage” as we bounced along. Visibility had improved by the time we dropped into the crater with the critters. We began -as we had yesterday- focusing on individual animals, until the scale of this new place became apparent and we started counting herds rather than heads. Zebras caught our attention initially, since they were swarming the road. But Cape Buffalo, Wildebeest and gazelles became commonplace and routine within minutes as we saw them by the thousand. Early on we happened on a big pride of lions resting in the grass. There were two big males and perhaps 15 females and youngsters of various ages. Those included three tiny lion cubs that continually climbed over and under their mom, giving out little yelps and meows. The lions would sit up from time to time looking intently at hartebeest and zebra who were trying to figure out how close was too close in their morning walk to water. We moved on to cross the crater and visit hippos and a million new birds. Our picnic lunch was alongside a bunch more hippos in another corner of the crater. By this point, the clouds were clearing and the day was warming up. Our goal following lunch was to find Rhinos. We scoured the hills at the margins of the crater, we trained binoculars on a hundred distant grey rocks and logs and suspect shadows under trees. But the Rhinos didn’t come out to play. We contented ourselves with finding two mature bull elephants with enormous tusks. In late afternoon, our guides put the cruisers in four wheel drive and took us up and out of the crater. We made it back to the Plantation in plenty of time for sundown in the lap of luxury. Best Regards RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Hey, this is Andy with RMI we had a successful beautiful summit today on Huayna Potosi, not a cloud in the sky! 100%! Everyone is looking forward to showers and a meal tonight in La Paz. Everyone's doing great and we'll check in with you guys later!

Greetings from Machame Camp, The missing bag finally showed up last night and we have one very happy climber. For the last few days the weather has been a little unstable, with some heavy rain showers in the lowlands. But this morning, just as we were approaching the mountain, the clouds started to thin and we saw Kilimanjaro for the first time. After people got over the initial surprise of how big it looks from a distance, it became obvious that the unstable weather we had in town, had covered the mountain with a white blanket of snow. Usually you have to look pretty hard to find snow on the mountain, so this was a pretty cool sight to see. It won't affect our climb though, as most of it will melt before we reach high camp. Having left our hotel this morning right on time, we were at the park gate before any of the other climbing groups showed up. We made quick work of taking care of the permits and registration. And after the final porter's bag was weighed, we were off and walking. The weather continued to improve all day and we had perfect temperatures all the way to camp. We walked into camp at 3:30 and got settled into our new accommodations at 10,000'. Everyone did great today on the trail. This group showed up well prepared, and ready for the challenge ahead. We'll send out another update tomorrow when we get to Shira Camp. Best, RMI Guide Jeff Martin

On The Map

Namaste from Kathmandu. Yes, we are out of the mountains... the team has finished the trek! The last couple of days of our descent have been really exciting dear friends. Upon our arrival into Namche Bazaar, we took a rest day to enjoy the magic that embraces one when in the Khumbu. With the best weather one can imagine and with the image of the highest mountains of the world very vivid in our memories, we found ourselves having an incredible surprise: we'd take a helicopter tour around Everest! Story aside, it is worth mentioning how seeing from the air lines that wrote history in mountain climbing, like the Hornbein Couloir made our eyes "watery". We'd finish our descent to Lukla and bask in thick air as the smell of the aviation fuel brought us to realize we were getting to the end of an incredible trek. We flew into Kathmandu this morning where we await our flights back home at the same time as we will be witnessing tomorrow the second democratic elections in this small Himalayan country. Nepali people are to elect a government to end a five-year period of an unstable care-taking government since the abolition of their monarchy... but this is a "summit" Nepal has to climb and we wish them luck. That has been all from our trip. Thanks to all of you who followed our adventure through our RMI Blog, to our great Sherpa Nawang Dorjee, to our Nepali outfitter HAD and Sagar in particular and to the mountains for being there and providing such an experience and making us feel so small. RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos

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

We've been enjoying good weather on the Kahiltna Glacier, and today was no different. After a trace of new snow overnight, we awoke to partly sunny skies. A breakfast of smoked salmon with bagels and cream cheese started off our day. After breakfast, we packed up camp and began the climb up towards Kahiltna Pass, en route to the 11k camp. We're taking advantage of the good weather and making good progress so far. Tomorrow we'll sleep in and take a rest day and prepare a cache of supplies to carry up around Windy Corner. We'll keep you posted on our next move. Until then, we'll be resting...we've earned it. Mike & team

On The Map

The Four Day Summit Climb September 12 - 15 led by RMI Guide Billy Nugent reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning. The team reported calm winds and cold temperatures with high cirrus clouds above. Shortly after 9 am PT they began their descent from the crater rim. They will return to Camp Muir and then continue down to Paradise. We look forward to seeing them in Ashford later today. Congratulations to today's summit climbers!