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The little town of Talkeetna, Alaska, was beginning to wake from its quiet winter slumber when we arrived yesterday evening. The long warm evening calling out locals and climbers alike to relax on the outdoor patios along the main strip. After dropping off our gear we grabbed a quick bite at the legendary West Rib Pub, enjoying some excellent caribou burgers as our last meal before heading into the mountains. The morning was perfectly clear and calm and after checking in with the National Park Service we headed over to the airplane hangar at the Talkeetna Airport to finalize our gear preparations - spreading warm clothes, bags of food, skis, and climbing gear across the floor of the hangar, taking careful count of everything, and then miraculously packing it all back up into our bags. By early afternoon we were ready. We traded out our jeans and flip flips for high tech synthetic shells, pulled on our boots, and clambered into the ski plane - a turbo prop with skis known locally as a Beaver - and took off for the Alaska Range. As soon as we climbed above Talkeetna, the incredible mass of the Alaska Range loomed in front of us over the dash board of the plane, crowned by the recognizable summits of Denali, Mt. Hunter, and Mt. Foraker. We flew above the landscape of thinning forests and lakes and gradually the formidable wall of mountains began to fade into series of valleys, ridges, peaks, and glaciers. When we reached the toe of the Ruth Glacier we made a gradual turn to the north and flew right up the center into the Ruth Gorge - a stunning stretch of glacier lined by the massive granite walls of Moose's Tooth, Mt. Dickey, and Mt. Braille. North of the Gorge stands the Ruth Amphitheater - a huge glacial cirque surrounded by massive peaks, including the summit of Denali high above. After making a few extra circles because the views were simply too stunning to pass up, we landed on the glacier near the Mountain House, a small hut perched on a rocky outcropping in the middle of the glacier. We unloaded the plane, said goodbye to the pilot, and opting for the true McKinley experience, set to work establishing our camp on a shallow ridge to the west of the Mountain House. After getting ourselves settled in, we took advantage of the good weather to spend a few hours reviewing glacier travel skills and crevasse rescue techniques. Once the sun finally began to creep behind the nearby ridgelines, the temperatures began to sink and we found ourselves pulling out our parkas and adding layers - despite the warm weather it is still early season in the Alaska Range. We are all settled into camp after an excellent dinner and getting ready for bed despite the sun still being high in the horizon, not much darkness up here this time of year. We are planning on leaving our Base Camp here early tomorrow morning and traveling back into the Gorge to scope out some potential climbing objectives before we set up camp. We are all doing well and very excited to be in the mountains! RMI Guide Linden Mallory & Team

On The Map

The Four Day Summit Climb led by Tyler Jones and the Five Day Summit Climb led by Pete Van Deventer were forced to turn their climbs at 11,000’ due to limited visibility, high avalanche conditions, and blowing snow. The teams are descending the Muir Snowfield en route to Paradise and will be back in Ashford later this morning.

The weather was beautiful today, sunny and warm, and barely a breath of wind. We took a quick trip back to Windy Corner (13,600') to retrieve the cache we left there well over a week ago. The hike back to the cache took us 15 minutes, and about an hour to ascend back to the 14,200' camp that we established yesterday. The rest of the day was spent buffing out camp and practicing fixed rope travel techniques in preparation for tomorrow. Tomorrow we plan on carry supplies up above 16,000' to get ready for our summit bid. The weather looks good for the next few days; hopefully the forecast pans out. Tomorrow will be two weeks into our expedition, and we're all excited to get up high soon. We'll let you know how our carry goes. Stay tuned... RMI Guide Mike Walter & Team

On The Map

RMI Guides Adam Knoff and Tyler Jones led their teams to the Mt. Rainier summit this morning! A cloud cap was snuggled over the top of the mountain, which brought on some 30-40 mph winds. Both teams are doing well and began their descent at 7:30 a.m. Congratulations to today's summit climbers!

Our Expedition Skills Seminar - Muir was a microcosm of mountaineering: athletic, challenging, moments of joy and occasional disappointment, but ultimately and most importantly a safe adventure. Heavy rain on Monday negated our planned ascent to Camp Muir, but we had a productive day at Rainier Basecamp going over numerous techniques. We reached Camp Muir on Tuesday and spent the next three days practicing skills and preparing folks for future climbs. These skills were crevasse rescue, cramponing, ice climbing, beacon searches, rope travel, route finding and more! Conditions at Muir were sunny, windy and icy most of the week. We encountered a layer of hard ice on the surface of the Cowlitz Glacier (and above) which unfortunately prevented a summit attempt. Our high point was the top of Cathedral Gap, approximately 10,500’. RMI Guide Casey Grom

A restful rest day was had by all... Mostly. We slept late, until almost 9 in the morning, and then emerged to find the world a dozen shades of grey as multiple cloud layers shifted slowly about. Our chefs prepared a sumptuous breakfast of egg and bacon quesadillas and we sat about in down coats telling stories for a bit before returning to the comfort of the tents for the day, determined to catch up on sleep and hydration. Our weather forecast made it plain today that we could expect at least a couple days of snow and so it was decided to grab back two days of food from the cache we'd placed at 16,200' yesterday. Geoff and Zeb made the round trip in 2 hours and 15 minutes... just in time since shortly after their return it began to snow heavily. Continued snow will make the cache inaccessible for a time as we may need to let avalanche conditions settle. The team got out in the weather long enough to beef up the tent anchors and eat a hot dinner in the POSH dining tent. Despite the forecast and the snow, spirits remain high. RMI Guide Dave Hahn

This mornings attempt to summit with Clay ended as thoughts of family and a safe return home overwhelmed any ambition to tag a summit that, by this time in the expedition, seemed somewhat less important than the experience of the trip as a whole. So, on the return back to 17,200' we decided to break camp and get off the upper mountain. By that time clouds were building and the winds started getting stronger. Our descent down the Buttress went smoothly even as snow and clouds increased. I was impressed with how the skill level of these climbers had so dramatically improved in the short time we had been climbing together. At 14,200' camp we were greeted by RMI Guides Adam and Andres of the RMI West Rib trip, who, along with several other guides and climbers, congratulated the team on slipping in the summit before the big change in weather. So, now here we are at 11,200' camp where we've picked up our cache from a week ago. The RMI Team lead by Walter Hailes is camped here and helped us out tremendously, allowing us to eat a quick dinner in their place and fill water bottles. We are now trying to get a few hours of sleep before waking up at 2:00 am to make our final descent to Kahiltna basecamp. We're getting on a nighttime schedule and traveling on glaciers frozen by the night's colder temperatures which are safer and less liable to collapse under a climbers weight. But, we are in a race of sorts to get to the airstrip on the SE fork of the Kahiltna before the next weather system arrives. So, goodnight again as we turn in to catch a couple of hours of shut eye. RMI Guides Brent, Leon and Maile

Thursday, July 4, 2019 - 9:38 PM PT Independence Day on Denali dawned clear and a bit gusty. Moving higher wasn’t terribly practical for us on this day, although it didn’t seem impossible. We were encouraged at our 9 AM breakfast to know that Mike Haugen’s RMI team was starting out from high camp bound for the summit. That will make our move tomorrow a great deal easier as we’ll be able to coordinate a "gear swap". Today, forecasts called for high pressure building, hence the wind, but the prediction was that the wind would calm as the day went on, which is what we saw. It was still gusting pretty good as we set off at noon for the “Edge of the World”. Twenty minutes of roped glacier travel brought us to the very edge of the plateau we are camped upon. It is always a fun shock to look virtually straight down for thousands of feet to the glaciers below. After days of camping on a flat expanse, one can forget how high we’ve already climbed and a visit to the edge serves as a great reminder. The views of the West Rib and a portion of Denali’s South Face are stupendous and today we enjoyed smoke-free views of the southern Alaska Range. Mt Spurr and the Tordrillos seemed much closer than their hundred miles. We each ventured out on an overhanging granite boulder for a hero shot or two and a look into the abyss. Back at camp we organized and pared down and packed for moving up. Best Regards, RMI Guide Dave Hahn

On The Map

Geese gabble on the banks of the Crooked River as it winds around the cliffs of lithified volcanic ash that make up our classroom here in Smith Rock State Park, Oregon. It's day nine of ten on the American Mountain Guide Association (AMGA) Rock Guide Course, a program focused on multi-pitch rock guiding and rescue techniques in fourth and fifth class terrain. This course is the first step to becoming certified by the AMGA in one of three guiding disciplines - rock, alpine and skiing. In the days leading up to this we have worked through systems on the ground and on the cliff, and have guided each other while maintaining a play-by-play discussion to ensure that each participant learns from the mistakes and successes of the others. As participants, we are here to transition from competent recreational climbers to facilitators of climbing in a professional setting. There are myriad new techniques and subtleties that I have been exposed to in the last eight days. Today is framed as a mock exam in which participants are put in the driver’s seat for a few pitches of climbing and descending. I do my best to put it all together - to select the best new tool in my tool box and implement it successfully. Throughout the exercise I notice how much more comfortable and confident I am with this process since the first time I was given the reins only a few days ago. I now feel equipped to enter the realm beyond recreational rock climbing. My participation in this course was made possible by the RMI Guide Grant, and I cannot express my gratitude enough. RMI Guide Hannah McGowan

It was another majestic day here in Africa! Today we visited the Ngorogoro Crater, considered by many to be the 8th wonder of the world. It's a 2 million year old caldera that over time trapped many animals inside its walls as it eroded. There are natural springs that feed the many bodies of water which keep the animals from migrating. We saw three of the big five and got nearly within arms reach of a female lion. It was a pretty amazing day being so close to all the wildlife and it has left many of us in awe! We rounded the day off with a visit to a working Maasai village and have returned to the Plantation Lodge for another great meal. RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew