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Posted by: Mike King, Avery Parrinello, Dominic Cifelli
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mt. McKinley
Elevation: 13,000'
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Sunday, June 9, 2019 - 3:47 PM PT
The calm and mostly clear weather continues to give our Team great windows to get our gear, food and fuel moved up Denali. This morning we got a good start with cold temperatures to avoid being out in the heat. The temps dropped slightly as we climbed motorcycle hill then squirrel hill and onto the lower polo fields (actual names of these landmarks, not hypoxia kicking in). Despite the steep aspects and heavy packs the Team crushed the difficult carry and was rewarded with a sunny and warm not so “Windy Corner” of Denali’s West Buttress. We could see teams moving up towards the fixed lines out of 14 Camp and got a chance to talk with RMI guide Robby Young as his team was headed up the fixed lines. The grand scale of the Alaska Range has kept people mesmerized along with the constantly changing scenery as we climb higher. We will rest for the remainder of the day and there’s bound to be more laughter once people get a nap in. It’s been a great group and trip so far. Tomorrow our plans are to pack up camp and move to 14,200’ and get our base camp hang dialed in so we can take advantage of the next favorable forecast window.
RMI Guide Mike King
On The Map
We enjoyed a full night's rest and had a leisurely morning of coffee and eggs as we packed up our gear to head to our high camp at about 5200 meters on Huayna Potosi. The strong wind abated overnight and left us with blue skies and sun for our two-hour walk to high camp. We are all resting and relaxing as we will attempt to summit Huanya Potosi tomorrow at 6088 meters. Everyone is doing great in anticipation of the big day tomorrow!
RMI Guide Eric Frank
Posted by: Pete Van Deventer
Categories: Mountaineering Fitness & Training
There is no way around it: there are some days where fitting my planned workout into my schedule is impossible. On the days when chores and errands catch up with me and I don’t have much time to do a workout, I have a go-to workout that I know I can do in 45-50 minutes. On a day when life feels too busy and I’m tempted to blow my workout off, having a quick workout ready helps me to stay motivated and get out the door.
My workout involves a short, 10 minute running warm-up, 15 minutes of short intervals, a 5-10 minute cool-down, and a short series of core exercises. Depending on what phase of training I am in and what my goals are, I may alter the pace, number, or duration of my intervals. During my aerobic building phase, I might run at a tempo that is slightly slower than my 5k race pace for 2 minutes, recover at a light jog for 1 minute, and repeat 4 more times. This bump in pace helps to mix up my tempo and keeps my legs feeling a bit quicker, but the effort isn’t so hard that I’m building up large amounts of lactic acid. Later in the season during an intensity phase, I might push the pace of those intervals right to my threshold, or do shorter 1 minute, all out efforts, with a full minute of recovery in between. This helps to build my anaerobic threshold, and develop my ability to recover as well. The warm up and cool down are really important for preventing injuries, and I try to resist the temptation to skip or cut short either.
The light core session to close doesn’t necessarily build a lot more strength, like a dedicated strength session would be designed to do, but it gives me maintenance. I mix up the exercises, but an example workout might be:
- 3 sets of 50 crunches
- 3 sets of 20 pushups
- and 3 sets of 20 dips
- 100 crunches (feet on the ground, curling my torso towards my knees, but not a full sit-up)
- 50 sit-ups to the side (alternating sides)
- 25 leg raises (some straight on, some to either side)
- and 100 more crunches to finish
Posted by: Robby Young, Pete Van Deventer, Josh Maggard
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mt. McKinley
Elevation: 14,200'
May 26, 2015 - 12:17 am PT
Just like Johnny Cash said, "that train keeps a rollin'." The winds were down, a cloud of sparkling ice crystals hung around, reflecting the sunlight and solar baking everything, and we returned to a dead calm Windy Corner to retrieve our cash. We are one step closer now with all of our food up here with us. The next step is to take a run at the fixed lines and cache some food in the West Buttress. To prepare, we spent the afternoon practicing with our ascenders and getting prepped for that potential carry tomorrow. Mac and cheese with bacon for dinner to fuel us tomorrow. We'll hope to wake up with a green light to head up. For now, good night!
RMI Guides Pete, Robby, Josh, and team
On The Map
Go Renee. Am waiting with bated breath to hear you’re at the summit. I hope it’s as awesome as the views do far. I think all of the VEC are behind you babe. Good luck and much love xxxxx
Posted by: Glenda on 5/30/2015 at 1:46 am
Rennee you are doing not only us here at the VEC, but your family and more importantly yourself proud ! Everyone is 100% right behind you all the way my friend :)
Thanks to the rest of the team for looking after our little Duvo ! Great photo’s and updates !
Onwards and upwards all :)
Posted by: Paul your GOD Webbyyyyy on 5/26/2015 at 9:23 pm
Once again clouds hungover Base Camp this morning and the moisture and cold temps covered camp in a thin layer of frost. We broke down camp and packed up our gear in the cold early morning shadows, stopping now and again to warm our hands while brushing frost off of the tents and packing them away.
The first rays of morning sunshine found us climbing out of Base Camp on our way to Camp 1. The rest and added acclimatization from yesterday paid off as we moved up the trail, making switchback after switchback up the rocky slope. By midday we reached Camp 1 and taking advantage of the good weather quickly set up our tents. Camp sits on a gentle slope at 16,600', just above a series of spires and cliff faces that roll off below us. The slope meant we had to put in some work rearranging rocks and flattening the platforms but before long we had everything set up and tied down in case the winds picked up.
The rest of the afternoon passed building rock walls for wind protection and retreating to the tents when occasional squalls of snow blew through. Thankfully nothing major came about and by early evening the clouds lifted a bit, giving us amazing views of the glaciers and peaks above Base Camp while we had dinner.
We're tucked into the tents and heading to bed to get some rest before tomorrow. Our plan is to make another carry to Camp 2, getting more supplies up there for when we move the following day. It's great to be out of Base Camp an up on the mountain. Tom and Thomas continue to climb very well and we are all adjusting to the altitude smoothly. Buenas noches from Campo Uno!
RMI Guide Linden Mallory
Hello again everyone.
After 5 days of trekking we have finally arrived at High Camp!
Today we moved up a few thousand feet and are comfortably sitting just shy of 15'000ft. Despite having made good time to camp our amazing support still managed to beat us and have camp ready once again. We are camped on the southeast side of Kilimanjaro and have a great view of the route ahead as well as the valleys below. Our route ascends up a wide ridge and should be relatively easy for this crew that has done such a great job thus far. Our plan is to wake up at midnight and have breakfast then hopefully start our summit bid around 1am. If all goes well I'm expecting us to reach the summit sometime around 8am.Everyone is in good spirits and excited about the climb.
Thanks for all the blog post! It's wonderful to hear from everyone back home and we appreciate all the support.
Wish us luck!
RMI Guide Casey and Crew
On The Map
Chambos,
Call when you get there! : )
Posted by: Jordo on 8/25/2013 at 4:18 am
Hello Bruce, Michael, Katie, Jess and Chris…. and congratulations!!! We have been following closely knowing there is a 7 hour difference. You’re not missing anything here. Have a safe trek down. Cant wait to see that view from the summit. Get a small rock from the mountain as a paperweight. Love you all. Mom
Posted by: Joyce on 8/24/2013 at 8:10 pm
Posted by:
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Kilimanjaro
Jambo
Our team arrived safely in Arusha, Tanzania on July 24th. We spent two nights at the beautiful Dik Dik Hotel resting and recovering from our long flights and adjusting to this new climate and time zone. After sorting our gear, repacking our bags are readying ourselves for the mountain, our trek of Kilimanjaro has finally begun. The Dik Dik hotel is fantastic but it is great to get started on the mountain. We enjoyed perfect climbing conditions today. We drove from the Dik Dik Hotel to the Machame Entrance of Kilimanjaro National Park. We donned our day packs and started out, enjoying the feel of our feet on the trail after so many hours of travel. From the entrance to our first camp, the Machame camp, we gained about 3,800'. We pulled into the Machame Camp (9,800') in good style. We are resting, eating popcorn in our nice dining tent and enjoying each others company.
Everybody feels great and did just fine today. We are looking forward to a good nights sleep and another good day on the trail tomorrow.
We will check in again soon.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
Posted by:
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mt. McKinley
Hey!! We got flown off Denali this afternoon. It was our 21st day on the mountain and it began with low cloud and unflyable conditions. We cooked up a casual breakfast on the glacier and waited patiently, checking in hourly with K2 Aviation via sat-phone. By mid-afternoon, the sun was trying to peak through and our visibility had improved a great deal. K2 was having some difficulty with thick cloud blocking the approaches on their side of the mountain, but they kept on trying to find holes. At three PM their perseverance paid off, in came the airplanes and out we went. The gang is getting together one last time in just a few minutes. Time for a triumphant feast at the West Rib and a few toasts to a good mountain, good luck and good friends.
Today we went for our first acclimatization hike to Rucu Pichincha, one of the volcanoes that frame in Quito. We took a Gondola from 10,000' to 13,000', and then hiked to around 15,200'. The weather was very nice for hiking: a bit breezy and cloudy in the morning, and then sunny and warm in the afternoon. We had views of the impressive glaciated volcanoes Cotopaxi, Cayambe, and Antisana on our descent. Everyone did very well with our first venture up into that type of altitude - and it was an altitude record for many on the trip- hopefully there will be a lot more of those to come!
Last night we dined at a very nice restaurant that served typical Ecuadorian cuisine. Everyone sampled different local dishes, including cuy (guinea pig)- an Ecuadorian delicacy.
Tomorrow we are off for another acclimatization hike to the climbing hut on the Ilinizas, and we'll spend the night at a hacienda before heading on towards Cotopaxi.
I will check in tomorrow.
Chad Peele reporting from 21,000 ft
Casey, Scott, Rob and I moved up from Basecamp yesterday. We woke to clear skies here at Camp Two. After a nice breakfast we walked up to the base of the Lhotse face for exercise. We are preparing to climb up to Camp Three on the face tomorrow and spend the night, weather permitting.
At Basecamp today, Tuck and some of the RMI Basecamp cook staff, along with a group from the HimEx team, helped build a second heli pad.
Word on the street is that four more people stood on top of the world at 6:00 am today.
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Please tell Allan Oliver that Emily and I are thinking about him and can’t help but be super impressed that he is doing this! Amazing! Chris
Posted by: Chris Beecroft on 6/10/2019 at 12:49 pm
Hi Mike and team,
I couldn’t find y’all in the registry. Gorem and team coming down, while your behind Nick, et al. So happy for all to get better weather. What’s on the menu? And, how about a shot of Foraker please. Windy corner looks gnarly! Have fun, and step safe
Posted by: Susan Moore on 6/9/2019 at 7:47 pm
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