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Hello from Kilimanjaro,
After a great breakfast at the Dik Dik Hotel, we loaded our bags and packs into the vehicle and headed for our objective, Kilimanjaro. We arrived at the Machame Gate, our entrance to Kilimanjaro National Park, and after registering our team for the climb began the trek to our first camp. It felt great to stretch our legs after the many hours of travel and we were excited to get started after the many months of training and planning. We started out in a light rain but were quickly walking under the canopy cover of the lush forest and were able to shed our rain gear. It was a very pleasant hike with beautiful weather and glimpses of monkeys in the trees above.
We reached the Machame Camp (9,800') after six hours on the trail. Aside from a little mud on our boots, everyone was dry and happy upon arriving in camp. We enjoyed our first great meal on the mountain, prepared by our mountain staff, of hot soup and fresh vegetables from the Dik Dik garden..
We are settling into camp for our first night on the mountain.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
The Four Day Summit Climbs July 10 - 13 led by Brent Okita and J.J. Justman reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today. J.J. reported clear skies and cold temperatures with winds below 20 mph. There is a cloud deck below them at 9,500' but blue skies above.
Congratulations to today's summit teams!
The big event today was the establishment of Camp III at 24,000 ft by our Sherpa team. Nima and Tsering were part of a rope-fixing effort composed of Sherpas from a number of different teams. This was the second day of fixing lines on the Lhotse Face and although things seem to have gone well enough, it will still be a few more days before the route is good all the way to the South Col at 26,000 ft.
Casey Grom and Rob Suero got up early at Camp One this morning and made quick work of the route to ABC. After a few hot drinks there, they motored on down to Basecamp, arriving in time for lunch. Michael Brown spent his first "rest" day in BC editing and sorting the images and footage he'd collected over the past four days up the hill, while Leif Whittaker and I simply rested, ate and drank the day away. Scott Jones and Chad Peele also seemed content to take things easy today. Mark Tucker sorted gear, made plans with the Sherpa team and hiked toward Pumori to stretch his legs. Seth Waterfall is back in camp this evening after a quick run down to Pheriche.
Hello, this is Eric Frank, good afternoon. I'm calling from the summit of Malchin Peak, here in Mongolia 13,200'. It is a perfect day up here, our whole team is sitting on top, beautiful weather, light winds just enjoying the view of all the mountains surrounding us. So this is the first peak of the trip, hopefully not the last. Thank you so much for following along.
RMI Guide Eric Frank
Posted by: Mike Haugen, Pepper Dee, Gloria Roe
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mt. McKinley
We are off the mountain! After a 4 am start and a nearly ten mile slog with heavy packs and sleds, we made it to the base camp airstrip with beautiful flying weather. We waited for a short time before the first of the planes came to shuttle us to Talkeetna and civilization. When we arrived in Talkeetna to dark clouds and rain, but we were all just excited to get a hot shower and food that did not need to be rehydrated. We want to thank all of our team members for their incredible attitudes and hard work that this trip successful. Also, thank you to all of our friends and family for your support. Your blog comments kept us entertained as well as focused on the task at hand!
RMI Guide Mike Haugen
Posted by: Kel Rossiter
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mt. McKinley
Our trip just keeps getting better and better.
Today we woke up with a crispy couple of new inches of snow in one of the most beautiful places in Earth, Alaska. We enjoyed breakfast with our teammates and got ready to learn about snow anchors, belay systems and other technical systems. The weather is little stormy so we decided to stay around camp to train today.
After lunch we helped pack the bush plane runway and got to move our legs and exercise for a bit. The group is doing great and enjoy each other's company. Tomorrow we are hoping for a good window of weather to go climb.
All best from RMI Guide Andres Marin &the Alaska Alpine seminar
On The Map
The Four Day Summit Climb August 5 - 8 led by Seth Waterfall reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today! The teams enjoyed a beautiful climb this morning with clear skies, warm temperatures and not a breath of wind. They began their descent from the crater rim shortly before 7 a.m. PT en route to Camp Muir. The team will continue their descent to Paradise later this afternoon.
Congratulations to today's Summit Climb!
Posted by: Jake Beren, Steve Gately, Mike King
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Aconcagua
Elevation: 18,000'
Holá amigos! We awoke to clear skies and moderate winds again as we had a leisurely morning preparing for our move to Camp 2 (18,000ft). The team did great navigating gusty winds and heavy packs to push into Camp 2 in phenomenal style. With camp all established, we'll enjoy a short siesta before firing stoves, eating dinner and looking forward to a rest day tomorrow! All the best from Aconcagua.
RMI Guide Steve Gately
On The Map
Happy New Year Beng Hoe. It is so cool being able to follow the expedition through the blog. All the more so as we are able to see you in the a number of the photos, even if it is the back of your head! It is so beautiful out there. It must be amazing to be spending New Year up there. Miss you. Helen, Laura and Andrew
Posted by: Helen Lim on 1/2/2014 at 8:45 pm
Hey Steve and team,
I’ll trade you some of your heat for the 18 inches of snow and sub zero wind chills we’re expecting in Boston over the next 24 hours!
Hike well and be safe.
Posted by: Bill Gately on 1/2/2014 at 3:57 am
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Categories: Expedition Dispatches Kilimanjaro
Jambo,
After the long day of travel, we decided to take full advantage of sleeping in this morning. We sat down for breakfast around 9:00 am, and then started in with our first team meeting of the trip. The last member of the team arrived this morning, which makes a total of eleven in our group. For most, this will be their first climb. For everybody, this climb will break all previous trip altitude records.
We spent much of the morning going over the details of our Kilimanjaro climb, covering the route, distances, and elevations of the camps, how to best pack all of the gear needed for the mountain, and the daily routines that we will need to use in order to climb efficiently at altitude. We ended the meeting with a thorough equipment check for each climber just to make sure we have everything needed for the next seven days.
We headed into Arusha after lunch and spent several hours exploring the main market, with its many vendors selling everything from Maasai medicines to some of the biggest avocados one has ever seen. Then we made our way to the tourist part of town to buy some small souvenirs and local handicrafts.
By the time we got back to the hotel, it was already dinner time and we sat down to a wonderful 5 course meal. It's early to bed tonight as we have an early wake up call in the morning. Our hope is to be driving to the Machame Gate at 7:30 and walking the first stretch of trail by 10:30.
We'll check in tomorrow from Machame Camp.
RMI Guide Jeff Martin
Here is one to write home about!
Today we woke at dawn to the clearest skies in a week. Mount Rainier and the surrounding volcanoes of Hood and Adams were clear and bathed in morning alpenglow without a breath of wind in the air. Below our home at Camp Muir we had quite a treat waiting for us, 4500 feet of untracked snow begging for our signature. We obliged and milked powder turns down the snowfield, grinning from ear to ear as we skied the best conditions our host had to offer. It doesn’t get better than this, skiing so much vertical with all the hard work done and a perfect day to match our enthusiasm. Our finest pitch was just into our old camp and we could admire our tracks while we clicked in for our last push to the parking lot. One last look up at Mount Rainier to admire our stellar morning and we could see our route down before a cloud swallowed Camp Muir and sealed the day.
Perfect weather, conditions, and team - couldn’t ask for more. Thanks Marci, Kirk and Uncle Bob for an excellent time skiing in the mountains,
RMI Guides Jake Beren, Solveig Gerhart and the RMI team
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Yo Meri! Looks like a wonderful time! Wish I were there! Love, Mimi
Posted by: Mimi on 8/11/2011 at 8:05 pm
Hi Meri and Kilimanjaro crew!
You guys look awesome with the green in the backgroungd, can’t wait to see the white! :-)
Have a most excellent time and know that all of us back home are JEALOUS!
M-
Posted by: Mauraan on 8/10/2011 at 10:39 am
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