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The Everest Base Camp team finally has arrived after some very long and tiring flights. Everyone is doing well after a well deserved night of rest here at the peaceful and appropriately named Yak & Yeti Hotel.
We started our day with a nice big buffet breakfast, then had a team meeting to discuss all the gear and review the details of the adventure that we are about to head out on.
After our meeting we headed out on a brief tour of Kathmandu were we visited the beautiful Monkey Temple, and the famous Boudhanath Stupa.
It's quite the culture shock visiting this busy city packed with nearly 4 million people. The streets are packed with people, motorcycles, and cars that honk endlessly.
I'm sure everyone is looking forward to peace and quietness of the Khumbu where we head tomorrow.
RMI Guide Casey Grom
Posted by: Elias de Andres Martos, Robby Young
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Peru Seminar
Elevation: 18,143'
Hello this is the Peru climbing team. Elias speaking, Robby next to me, and the climbers are taking a break at 5,000 meters. We were supposed to have called from the summit, but heavy winds and trying to get down delayed the phone call. But we have finished our last rappel. It was a pretty interesting one- a free-hanging rappel over bergschrund. We are taking a break just to anticipate the remaining ground, which is a pretty easy travel to Camp 1, from where we will be picking up our gear and heading out to base camp. We are pretty excited about that, but we still have a couple hours to go on the glacier. We just wanted to let you know everything went well with the last of our climbs, the most challenging one, Tocllaraju, 6,023 meters. We rocked it; we are pretty tired but psyched. The route has been as challenging as any of the two guys that are here who have climbed it, have ever seen it. We are happy with the work done. We will let you know more when we can post tomorrow when we arrive in Huaraz, where we can post some pictures. Thank you for all of the support to all of you who have been following our blog. The next post will be from Huaraz tomorrow. That's it for now, 2 pm on Thursday. Tocllaraju! The Peru Seminar will be over soon.
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos calling in after Tocllaraju summit.
WOW!! Must have been a glorious feeling…
both at the top and coming down.
Stay safe, MOM(B)
Posted by: MOM-B on 7/11/2014 at 7:19 pm
Way to go, Underbiktor!
Posted by: The Franktown Blochers on 7/11/2014 at 6:29 pm
Posted by: Adam Knoff, Lindsay Mann
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mt. McKinley
Elevation: 14,200'
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Thursday, July 2, 2014 – 4:43 PM PT
Yesterday our team experienced the unparalleled vistas of a clear sky at 16,200’ on Denali as we were finally handed a nearly perfect day. We loaded up three days of lunch and snack food plus a few personal items for our carry to the top of the fixed lines which crest Washburn’s Ridge—the most stimulating section of Denali’s West Buttress Route. The team did great learning how to jumar. All members of the St. Angelo family and Jay and Mary Lampas hit personal altitude records. Fatima did a great job breaking trail down the lines, literally paving the way for thirty other climbers on the same program as us.
The population of 14k camp has increased dramatically. What once was a camp that resembled a wide cow pasture with wandering wildlife now resembles a city with distinct neighborhoods on main thoroughfares. Just like a city, this can create traffic jams when multiple teams, all roped together, try to move around at the same time. This sudden influx of guided teams means we will need to wake up at 4 am, while the temperature here sits around 5 below, just to beat the crowds and avoid a bottleneck.
This afternoon we had a lengthy breakfast which leaned more along the lines of a leisurely brunch. We then took a beautiful stroll to an incredible precipice called the Edge of the World. Great weather allowed us more breathtaking views and inspired us for the hard days to come. Hopefully our next contact will be from high camp.
RMI Guide Adam Knoff
On The Map
Happy 4th of July and congrats on making it above 16,000!
The pics are breathtaking. Thanks for keeping us updated!
onward and upward!
Posted by: Lisa Albert on 7/4/2014 at 10:30 pm
To Mark Skinner and crew: Hang tight it’s been in the 90’s here. See you soon!!!
Posted by: Bill & Linda on 7/4/2014 at 7:09 pm
Hello Everybody,
This is Casey Grom checking in from Everest Base Camp. Our team actually arrived yesterday after making the summit of Kala Patar. Unfortunately we were not able to get a satellite call to let everyone know that we had safely arrived here. Everyone here is doing fantastic!
We woke up this morning to pretty blustery weather, but our wonderful cook Kumar actually got our hot shower up and running here. So it is nice for everyone to get a nice hot shower and just relax. This afternoon we went for a short walk from out camp down the start of the glacier where the route through the Kumbu Ice Fall starts. That was a nice treat for everybody to get to walk down there and try and get an idea of where the route will go in.
Everyone is doing great; we are currently sitting down for dinner. Our game plan is to head back down to Pheriche and we should have cell service Wi-Fi once we get back down there. We are looking forward to getting back down there and will hopefully send pictures then.
Good Night Everybody!
RMI Guide Casey Grom and Crew
Casey Grom Checking in from Everest Base Camp
On The Map
Posted by: Casey Grom
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Kilimanjaro
Today we visited the famous Ngorongoro Crater, believed by many to be the 8th wonder of the world. It is a two million year old collapsed caldera that is home to more than 25,000 large mammals, and has a dense population of lions.
We spent nearly the entire day driving around looking at all the animals and waiting at times for either the wildebeest, or zebras to get out of our way. We saw about a dozen lions, a far off black rhino, thousands of pink flamingos and many others. I'm pretty sure everyone had a great day.
We finished off the day with a quick visit to a working Maasai Village to see how this semi-nomadic group of people still live the way they have for thousands of years.
Hopefully tomorrow we'll catch a glimpse of a cheetah and leopard to round out the safari.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
Words cannot describe my envy, but so happy at the same time for these experiences for you. Love and miss you (and Gig ‘Em)!
Posted by: Tasha on 9/14/2013 at 7:34 am
WOW. Just like on Wild Kingdom. “Jim, jump down and get that lion”. ( showing my age here). Waiting on giraffe pictures.
Posted by: Tracy O. on 9/13/2013 at 8:44 pm
We're at Shira Plateau Camp! We had another great day on the trail and everyone is adjusting to mountain life. We got up with the sun and had a great breakfast. Fruit and eggs and of course the wonderful bread from the Dik Dik is a great way to start a day.
Unfortunately for us though one of our team had to head home due to a work emergency. We'll miss him sorely and feel bad that he had to leave the trip.
After our goodbyes we hit the trail for a 4 hour and 45 minute hike to camp. The weather was mostly cloudy which meant we were inside the clouds all day. That is until we hit the top of the Shira Plateau where we moved out of the cloud deck. Once we topped out we were greeted with an amazing view of the summit. It's still a long way off but tomorrow we'll get right up under it!
A message from team member Gayle: She wanted to say hi to her Mom.
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
On The Map
Happy birthday to our beautiful daughter! And a big Hugo Kalin as well. Enjoy every minute of this trip of a lifetime! Love, mom and dad
Posted by: Mary Beth Denefe on 7/26/2013 at 8:28 pm
Posted by: JJ Justman, Pete Van Deventer
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 1,800'
Our team met this morning for our six day Mt. Rainier program. It was the first day of orientation for our Expedition Skills Seminar - Muir. We spent the day ensuring we had all the right equipment and could pack efficiently. In the afternoon we grabbed our harnesses, boots, ice tools and crampons and spent time on the climbing walls at Rainier BaseCamp.
Just because we are not on the mountain doesn't mean we can't have fun.
Stay tuned as our team ventures on the mountain starting tomorrow!
RMI Guide JJ Justman
Matt hope you are enjoying your climb be safe! love mom
Posted by: terri mcmahand on 6/4/2013 at 9:04 pm
Hello again from the SE fork of the Kahiltna Glacier. Temperatures have remained chilly at night around here. Although a brief period of snow yesterday afternoon brought in some slightly warmer temperatures.
Yesterday we walked underneath the north Buttress of Mt. Hunter as we traveled further up the SE fork for some training. The scenery was breathtaking. The weather has been splendid.
Today we all summitted the Control Tower. Some moderate glacier travel gave us access to a beautiful Alaska snow ridge to the top. Wonderful views of the Alaskan Range were had from the top.
Everyone has adjusted well to life on the glacier.
Ciao,
RMI Guide Jason Thompson
(Voicemail from Linden)
Hello, this is Linden calling. It is Sunday evening our time and we are calling from Everest Base Camp. We left Lobuche this morning with our nicest weather yet. We stopped in Gorak Shep for morning tea and continued through the glacier, ice and morraine to arrive at Base Camp by mid afternoon.
Our Sherpa team has been working really hard up here these last few weeks and have established our camp and been getting things ready for our Everest Expedition team.
We enjoyed lunch and a relaxing afternoon here at Everest Base Camp looking back through the valley where we have just traveled.
Our team is doing well and feeling very strong. We made great time today. We plan to do some training tomorrow at Base Camp in preparation for our Island Peak Climb. We will check in again tomorrow.
A couple of days ago we hit an important benchmark, and had a successful day for the team. It was just as we did the previous morning we set out, only this time we actually left Basecamp. Everybody else did too...I've never seen quite so many in the Khumbu Icefall. Since it was effectively "closed" yesterday, the traffic of two days was wedged into one.
I was very excited for the great job that Erica was doing - but I'll admit that the crowding and congestion in dangerous places was something I was continually uncomfortable with. I suppose it was business as usual in the busy season - but as I said - I hadn't seen things quite so bad before. From small teams that seemed unacclimatized and unskilled blocking the route, to massive Sherpa teams of 30 and 40 coming down all at once.
Sure, there were plenty of the usual encounters with friends. I was happy to see Apa Sherpa gunning for his world record 19th Everest summit. There were Peter Whittaker, Ed Viesturs, Jake Norton and John Griber, who we hadn't seen for the better part of a week. And as usual it was fun to run into Vern Tejas, Scott Woolums and a sampling of the great cast of characters that Everest attracts every spring.
Mostly though, I kept my concentration on my small tight team of Erica, Seth, Kent and Ang Kaji. Our training and patience paid off. Even with the numerous hold-ups, we pulled into Camp 1 at 10 a.m., having spent a respectable and reasonable 4 hours and 45 minutes in the big jumble. I was especially proud to find that we had enough reserve energy to blast quickly through the dangerous avalanche zone near the top of the Icefall and the start of the Western Cwm. It was a great feeling to be in the Cwm itself - back on the glacier surface instead of continually being under large, heavy and unstable things. By that point, we'd found the sunshine and warmth and it was clear that we had passed our first big test on the road to the summit. And how!
At Camp 1 we climbed into the tents to escape the big reflector oven heat of the Cwm at midday. It took a few hours of running stoves to melt enough snow for the water we badly needed - but then we had not much else to do - just rest, relax, acclimate!
The following day our Sherpa team had the real acclimatization of the day. Lam Babu and Tendi were part of a cooperative team of Sherpas from different expeditions that set out for the arduous and important task of setting fixed ropes on the Lhotse face. They succeeded in a big way, fixing not one but two parallel lines to 24,000 ft. This will allow safer flow of traffic on the steep blue ice of the Lhotse face. Lam Babu and Tendi also sited the First Ascent Camp 3 location - an important milestone where flat spaces big enough for a tent are few and far between. The alternative - hours of chopping with an ice axe on a 40 degree slope - is best avoided.
We saw the tiny dots inching up the Lhotse face from Camp 1 at the other end of the Western Cwm. Our day was easy-and a relief after a windy and mean night. We were hit repeatedly with cannon blasts of wind rocketing down the 3,000 ft. face of Everest's west shoulder. The wind was noisy - and a strain - threatening to flatten our tents and uproot us from our moorings. Kent Harvey came out of his tent, smiling about the good sleep he'd gotten - but Seth and Ang Kaji didn't get a wink, Erica was somewhere in the middle, as was I. Even so, we took advantage when the wind quit in the morning-brewing up coffee and then stretching our legs with an hour-long walk up the Cwm. We knew we wanted to be back in camp before the sun made work in the Cwm unbearable.
It was good to see Gerry Moffatt and Melissa Arnot getting an early start down from ABC. They were bound for Basecamp and showers and comforts that our team isn't really missing yet. We kept in radio contact with Peter Whittaker and Linden Mallory down in Basecamp throughout the day.
Today we fired the stoves at 5 a.m. and left Camp 1 by 7:30 a.m., bound for ABC (Camp II). The route from C1 goes seemingly right under the summit of Nuptse. I know that isn't actually possible, but it is physically difficult to bend one's neck back far enough to take in the 5,000 ft. of vertical relief straight up to the summit.
We crossed a half dozen easy ladders over crevasses, and then got on "easy" terrain, clomping up the glacier in our crampons. Our biggest challenge seemed to be getting out of the way of the many friendly Sherpa on the route. The guys going up had come all the way from Basecamp under heavy loads, the guys going down had already emptied their loads at ABC, and so were moving fast down to Basecamp and smiling a lot.
Erica moved along as if she'd been to ABC a number of times. At such points I have a tough time reminding myself that she is seventeen - and an even tougher time remembering what I was capable of when I was seventeen (not this - but sometimes waking up on time and perhaps dressing correctly).
Erica is not the only 17-year-old on Everest this year. In fact, two "Johnnys" were both camped within 100 meters of us last night -one with Damian Benegas and one who is working with Scott Woolums. And they both appear to be doing great. But I'm pretty sure that Erica is the first 17-year-old that I walked into ABC with.
Erica, Seth, Kent, Ang Kaji, and I hit camp at 10:30 a.m., and celebrated with round after round of Tang toasts. We're here for 2 nights and I'll tell you all about the place tomorrow.
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Rob- thought I saw you in the restaurant picture with EBC crew. Have a great trip up the Khumbu. Sorry to miss you for Spain and Norway with Gabi. Namaste.
Posted by: Elsie Bemiss on 3/17/2019 at 8:52 pm
Congrats on making it to the destination, Eileen! You rock! :) Love you!
Posted by: AJ & Steph Mikloiche on 3/17/2019 at 12:17 pm
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