Couldn’t have asked for a nicer day to climb the 3rd highest peak in North America! The entire Team is here, feeling a little worked but with smiles on their faces. Warm, clear night to start and a slight breeze once up in the glacier. We have a lot of smoke obscuring the views to the East and clear skies our to the West with Ixta, Popo and La Malinche. We have a long descent ahead of us and we will check in once back at Sr. Reye’s hostel. Drew, we missed you up here, hope the flight went well!
RMI Guide Mike King
June 26, 2017
Today was a well deserved rest day! Yesterday was quite the endeavor and I think everyone was happy to not have an alarm clock to answer to. We stayed cozied in our sleeping bags until the sun hit our tents and the warmth beckoned us out around 9:45 am. Emerging from our tents we wet straight into a leisurely Quesadilla breakfast, a special request by Pepper Dee, who turned 26 today! Later in the day we took a walk to the Edge of the World and everyone got to strike a pose while peering out over the vast expanse of glaciers and mountain peaks. I may be bias but I think the best picture involved a blow up couch that the birthday boy had hauled up all the way from base camp! We finished the day off with a quick dinner and chat about plans for tomorrow. If the weather cooperates we will be headed to 17,000' camp in order to be in position for our summit bid! Yeehaw!
Good night from 14!
RMI Guide Mike Haugen
Julian… AMAZING!!!
Nice work pulling it up to 17K on the big wall and fixed lines.
The photo back down at The Edge in 14 camp is spectacular. Happy that you and your team that have amazing weather. Saturday looks like it might dump metres of snow again, but then you’ll be back in the clear. Best of luck!!! Stay safe.
Stephen
Posted by: Stephen Wright on 6/28/2017 at 11:03 am
What kind of pose did you strike Gloria!
Posted by: Michelle Weekly on 6/28/2017 at 1:11 am
Good morning, this is RMI Guide Eric Frank checking in from the summit of Alpamayo. It's just before noon here in Peru. We had a pretty amazing climb today. Woke up to gorgeous weather, clear skies. Everyone made it to the top. We are just about to start rappelling down. We will leave a message and let you know we got down safely. Thanks for following along. Bye.
Update: July 10, 2014 2:21 PM PT
The team is back at high camp safe and sound. They are packing up to head down to base camp and are looking forward to an amazing meal prepared by their base camp cook.
RMI Guide Eric Frank
RMI Guide Eric Frank calls in from the Alpamayo summit!
After an early start this morning from the hotel in Kathmandu, the team boarded a plane to Lukla. Then the trek began. We met our Sherpa team and began our trek to Everest Base Camp with a hike along the Dudh Kosi River to Phakding. The weather was very nice for hiking today. Now, we are checked in at our first tea house of the trip. We are excited to have stretched our legs a bit and arrived in the mountains.
We will check in tomorrow from Namche Bazarre.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
It's here! The final RMI Aconcagua expedition of 2014! The team of climbers and Guide extraordinaire Katrina and myself are set to go. We had a great time in Mendoza and Penitentes and we are revving to go. We have a day of sunshine ahead of us to get to our first trek camp at Pampa de Las Leñas. Follow along to see how much fun we have on Aconcagua.
RMI Guide JJ Justman
The team looks great. Bob, I am so proud of you. As I write this on 2/13, I know you have all been doing great. Enjoy this fabulous, difficult, amazing trip. Jeanette
Posted by: Jeanette on 2/13/2014 at 10:58 am
Hey Rich…stay warm and safe. We love you! Mom and Dad
Our crew is resting today at Camp 3 (11,200'). We were tempted to move up to Camp 4 (14,200') today but the weather was a little squirrely this morning. Our team is strong, and climbing very well, but I decided that we would all benefit from rest and more time at 11,200' before pushing camp up to 14,200'. We're all eager to move up higher, and we're hopeful that tomorrow will be the day.
Hopefully next time I update our progress it will be from Camp 4. May the weather gods cooperate!
RMI Guide Mike Walter
Today the team managed to summit El Pico de Orizaba!
We needed a perfect weather setup and that's just what we got. Sunshine yesterday combined with wind from just the right direction diminished the avalanche hazard from the previous storm. We awoke before midnight to crystal clear skis and no wind. After suffering through the storm on Ixta, and never even roping up, the team was psyched to go for the summit on Orizaba. The unusually large snowpack this year was a delight as the normally rocky and challenging lower mountain was a snow-climb right out of the hut. However as we ascended onto the Jamapa glacier our tough luck returned in the form of a cold wind that averaged at least 25 miles an hour. This made the final hours of the climb a total battle. It was cold enough that we spent less than 10 minutes on the summit before retreating, but the success after all of our adversity felt great.
Tonight we overnight in Tlachichuca and tomorrow we head to the airport in Mexico City for our flights home.
Well done team!
Everything and everyone is in place at the tip of South America... ready for a flight to Antarctica. The past few days have been fun, but also a little stressful and hectic. There were the usual assortment of missed flights and lost luggage, but in the end, our team of five climbers made it down the length of the world intact. I arrived two days ago with the bulk of the team equipment and spent a day shopping for extra provisions and getting over jet lag. Today was the official start to things, as we began at 10 AM with our official introductory meeting with ALE (our logistics company for this trip) This orientation was a two-hour long gathering of all those who will be sharing the Ilyushin 76 transport plane with us to Antarctica. Roughly, there are about 25 climbers bound for Vinson who will be the big Russian jet's final customers bound for the Ice this season.
It has been fun to run into old friends and guiding partners down here, as usual. Mike Sharp, one of the principals of ALE, gave our briefing today and had me reflecting back to my first visit to the continent in 1995 when he and I spent a stormy week in a tent together at Jone's Sound on the Antarctic Peninsula. He showed slides of the operation at Patriot Hills and described the program out at Vinson Basecamp. He tried to impress on those assembled just how far from any government bases they would be and how independent and self sufficient the company and its customers must be. Afterward, I walked with my five climbers (we'll meet our second guide, Namgya, down on the ice, where he is already working with other teams) out into the bustling but friendly center of Punta Arenas. This city of 150,000 is a gateway for tourists coming to see Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego as well as Antarctica, but it is also an industrial town of great importance to Chile. We walked the few blocks back toward Magellan's Strait, and into our hotel at the water's edge. The next task was to get rid of the bulk of our gear and supplies. We brought it all downstairs to be weighed and collected on a truck. ALE will do the heavy work of loading the mammoth IL 76 out at the airport today in the hope that we'll get to fly tomorrow morning.
I got together with the team in the evening to go over maps and pictures of the Ellsworth Mountains in order to get everybody up to speed on which glaciers we'd be landing on and climbing up. We discussed strategies and expected hurdles... but I hope that we also got rid of some of the worry and nervousness that stems from choosing a goal in such a far-off and unique environment.
The work done, it was time for a dinner out on the town and a little relaxation. Punta Arenas has great dining spots... but we don't want to visit many more of them. Our hope is that we get a call early tomorrow telling us that the weather window is open and that we should get our boots on and get set for flying to Antarctica.
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.
The team had a very nice day here on Kilimanjaro, waking to beautiful clear skies and hiking in sunshine all day. We started with a 6:30 wake up and packing before moving into our dining tent for a nice breakfast with porridge, scrambled eggs, toast, bacon fresh fruit and even fresh dark roast Tanzanian coffee.
We hit the trail around 9 am and slowly made our way up the rocky trail with incredible views of Kili above. After about five hours we reached our next camp that sits on the Shira Plateau, which is one of the three dormant volcanoes that make up Kili.
A lot of wet soggy cloths and gear is now bone dry, getting us back into great shape for our next few days on the trail.
All is well at 12,500'.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
Y’all are doing it!!!!! Sara, fantastic newsletter!!!! Your way with words is so powerful! We are all rooting for your team and cannot wait to hear the stories!!!! Congrats on taking a BIG dream and making it reality!!! #primefamily #squeezetheglutes #dreambig
Posted by: RAB on 7/19/2019 at 8:41 am
So excited to read about your adventure!! You all are amazing people and I am so proud of you!!! Stay strong and safe!!!
Wow! Amazing pictures! Glad you all made it safe and sound.
Posted by: Jean Wittmier on 2/24/2019 at 6:49 pm
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