So it goes with climbing sometimes we take what the mountain gives us and unfortunately that isn't always the summit. The team awoke around 11pm to beautiful weather and had an incredible few hours of climbing under the stars on the upper slopes of Antisana. Every member of Team Cuy Frito showed off their impressive strength navigating a breathtaking and complex glacier, it was really a sight to see. As the team got just above 18,000 feet, we encountered some instabilities in the snow and made the decision to turn around due to avalanche concerns. While we didn't get to stand on top of this one, it was still a wonderful day of climbing. It has been a joy to watch the team come together as one big goofy family over the course of this adventure. We will all be coming back with memories to last a lifetime and our head's held high knowing we kicked some serious butt in the mountains along the way. Thank you for all the support at home and we will be seeing you all soon!
Hey Dustin & Team!
You gave it your best and Im sure it was an Incredible experience! Being a farmer Mother Nature is always the boss and sometimes she will over rule us!
Farmer Dave
Over the last week we’ve been trekking in the mountainous area above Gorkha. This area was at the epicenter of the quake. The villages we were getting “eyes on” had previously been declared “OK” by the Indian Army by helicopter observations. But these villages were anything but OK. Most were almost totally flattened.
Don Bowie has been our fearless leader. His ability to coordinate with large NGOs, and even the UN, to facilitate supply drops to these hard hit and hard to reach areas has been amazing. And when I say hard to reach I’m NOT kidding. Our first day from Baluwa to Laprak was another precarious scramble up a 10,000′ vertical gain and unknown linear mileage over rough, broken, and treacherous terrain. The heat had us all hurting and in many places landslides made the trek in very precarious. Descending down from Laprak, through the villages of Lapu and Bhirkuna, was straight-up steep no-fall terrain through a thick prickly jungle. Landslides in this area took the trail out, so we had to bushwhack a new trail. All in all, though, we were able to deliver accurate needs assessment reports from these remote villages. Once we made our assessments we would then forward these by SAT phone to the NGOs incident command with the ability to respond by arranging to helicopter in the supplies which was our objective.
Today Don Bowie, Ben Erdmann, Jess Roskelley and Cody Tuttle left to work with the UN’s World Food Program headquarters in Gorkha to assist in coordinating overland aid distribution. For more information, on Don and team check out donbowie.com.
Whats next? Soon I’m headed back to Kathmandu then stateside to begin the guiding season on Mt Rainier with RMI.
RMI Guide Alex Barber
Well, we earned this one. We woke up early, at 10:30pm, to eat 'breakfast' and don our climbing clothes. At first it was warm and calm at the hut; soon it was foggy with light rain. We weren't sure what to expect. The first hour was dry and very warm. The last hour to the summit was anything but. On our ascent of Cotopaxi, we climbed through various intensities of rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow. The winds picked up in third hour of our climb, and were persistently strong and gusty, strong enough to make us work even harder to maintain our balance. Our climbers were as persistent as the winds though, and eight hours after starting out we were standing on the summit of Cotopaxi (19,347')! The summit celebrations were short-lived because of the weather. After a tiring decent, we were all back at the parking lot, safe and sound, twelve hours round trip.
For the bulk of the climb we were all covered in rime ice; our ropes looked like frozen fire hoses, and we were glad to have helmets on when a flapping jacket hood would clock you from behind. We gave up any semblance of a view from the summit for the opportunity to test our merit in full alpine conditions. And we came away with no more than a few blisters and some tired climbers.
I'm proud of our Ecuador Volcanoes team for climbing hard all day today...we were the only team on the mountain today, and we even got a summit! Now we're en route to Quito, anticipating hot showers and well-deserved cervesas (with maybe a nap or three thrown in there) before meeting for a celebration dinner tonight. Great job team!
RMI Guide Mike Walter
So proud of you Matt!! Sounds like a week of accomplishments that pushed you all!! Enjoy a hot shower, get some rest & will see you at airport Friday night!! Love you & Congrats to all of you!!
Mom & Dad
Posted by: Jodi on 6/26/2014 at 5:03 pm
Way to go Shobita, cannot wait to hear more from you
The Four Day Summit Climb Team led by Casey Grom and the Five Day Summit Climb Team led by Zeb Blais reached the summit of Mt. Rainier at 8:00 am PT. The teams reported clear skies and good climbing conditions with some chilly temperatures. They were able to enjoy some time on top today and began their descent around 9:20 am. The teams will return to Camp Muir for a short break before continuing down to Paradise. We look forward to seeing them at Rainier BaseCamp later today.
Congratulations to today's Summit Climb Teams!
Hi this Seth. I'm up at Camp Muir with this week's Expedition Skills Seminar. We had a really fun walk up the Muir Snowfield today. We had expected rain and it started out like that but after a couple of hours we broke into some sun! The clouds were in and out for the rest of the day so we stayed pretty dry. We are all settled in at camp now getting ready for our first night on the mountain.
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
Hey Seth here checking in from Mweka Camp, that is our last camp on Kilimanjaro. We made it back to High Camp in really good time and the good weather continued all the way down. Everyone is tucked into our tents and just waiting for dinner. We are going to crash out early tonight after a super long day, but a successful one. Tomorrow we are off the mountain and back at the hotel. I will send summit photos when we get back into Wi-Fi range.
That’s it for us.
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall and team.
Unbelievable accomplishment for this team. A huge congrats to Phil and Susan. We are super proud of you both, but Susan, you rock! Missed you in the Hood, but what you did there can’t be topped. Ciao! D & W
Posted by: Denise and Wayne on 8/13/2013 at 10:01 pm
We had a great, mellow day today at the 14k foot camp. After going back to our cache at Windy Corner, we spent the rest of the day building snow walls around our camp to protect us from any wind. We also spent time making our cook tent more comfortable, as well as creating a luxurious bathroom (the little things make a big difference up here!). Now we're getting ready to feast on some tasty chicken quesadillas, with fresh veggies (to be honest, the fresh veggies froze on day one of the trip...but they are thawed out now, and they will be delicious).
We're planning to take a full rest day tomorrow, in order to acclimate and get strong for carrying supplies up high on the West Buttress. The weather has been nice and sunny with virtually no wind, and we hope that it persists as we prepare for moving up to high camp and on to the summit.
Thanks for all the blog comments. We'll touch base again tomorrow.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
HI Mai, I hope you had a spectacular Birthday! It is amazing that I can follow you on this incredible adventure via the lovely internet. Be Safe. I Love You - Jill
Posted by: JILL CARR on 5/21/2012 at 8:24 pm
How lucky for you all to have the great views and weather to enjoy on a rest day! At 14k no less. Mai would you consider taking a love grown wrapper to the summit (if you should be so fortunate)? I think Maddy would appreciate it. Hi Mike!
Cheers, B&R
Posted by: Bob & Ruth Wade on 5/21/2012 at 8:06 am
RMI Guide Casey Grom radioed at 7:23 a.m. from the summit of Mt. Rainier today, Columbia Crest. The Four Day Summit Climb September 9 - 12 led by Casey and RMI Guide J.J. Justman enjoyed a beautiful climb today. They reported temperatures in the mid twenties with a 10 - 15 mph wind. The sun is shining and starting to warm the climbers. The teams will begin descend to Camp Muir and continue down to Paradise later this afternoon.
Congratulations to today's Summit Climb team!
Somehow we kept busy all afternoon at ABC yesterday. Seth Waterfall figured out and fixed problems with the solar panels that the radio "base station" was dependent on. Then he figured out how to make the antenna and base station talk to each other a little better so that ABC could dependably have radio communication with anywhere else on the mountain. Kent Harvey then suggested a little foray out on to the ice just west of camp, which Seth and I found quite interesting. As I've said many times, there is little or no snow from the past winter on Mount Everest. The glacier surfaces are down to old snow and ice; everything is melting out and exposed. Within just a few minutes of poking around, we were finding old and intact oxygen bottles from the 1960's and 70's. Treasure. I have to catch myself every now and then...remembering that not everybody has an oxygen bottle collection...but I do. I love finding old bottles and then matching them to legendary expeditions and climbers of the past. Some of the bottles I've found over the years will eventually be in museums, none will ever be on eBay...they mean too much to me (although they severely challenge my living room decor). As Kent and Seth and I continued to crunch around the glacial surface with our crampons and heavy boots. I came upon a cardboard box, looking... a lot like a damp heap of trash on a 21,000 ft glacier. But when I folded over this particular trash, it said in big black letters "1975 British Everest Expedition". While this wasn't the kind of treasure I could reasonably burden my living room with, it was none-the-less very special to me...in a trash-picking sort of way. I'd already been thinking of the 1975 British Everest Expedition...all day, in fact, as we'd gone for our hike under the great Southwest Face that the '75 BEE famously climbed. All morning I'd been straining to understand again how Chris Bonnington's boys had managed to get up something so steep and foreboding. And out there next to that soggy box I began blathering on about Doug Scott and Dougal Haston and Peter Boardman and Pertemba and that post-monsoon hardman climb, until I could see Kent and Seth's eyeballs rolling back in their heads.
We trudged back over the ice-rolls to our ABC and an afternoon of minor chores in camp. Word came via radio that Nga Tenji had reached the South Col with the rope fixing team and was figuring out a place for our highest camp. He reported strong winds up there, and that certainly seemed to be the case by the time Erica, Seth, Kent and I gathered for dinner in our big dome tent. The strong winds were finding their way down into the Western Cwm. We each went to bed knowing that it would be a noisy night.
And it was. There was the noise of great waves of air periodically rolling down a mountainside...then the frantic flapping as a wave would crash on the 50 tents just uphill from us, and finally the noise of the wind blowing on our own tents and trying to flatten or remove them. But while we couldn't exactly sleep through it all, we could at least relax in the knowledge that we'd diligently done our chores in anchoring and properly securing our strong tents. Poking our heads out into the gusty morning at 5:45 AM, we could see many surrounding tents that were radically different in shape from the previous evening, but our camp had been largely spared. I told Erica not to worry too much about the sleep she'd missed out on in the night. We were going to basecamp...land of good naps. We geared up and crammed a little breakfast and coffee. The wind still whipped around us as we climbed into our crampons. I was interested to see high cloud covering the sky at just about the level of Everest's summit. We've had so many days begin with nothing but pure blue skies that it seemed eerie and frightening to have a sudden change in the pattern. As we thanked our chef and walked out of camp, I could see a silver lining to the cloud cover. I knew that it would make our time down in the Icefall a little more comfortable by blocking out the morning sun...perhaps it would even make things safer.
Ang Kaji, Kent, Seth and Erica let me lead on down the Western Cwm. We passed plenty of the usual "Sherpa Army" moving loads all the way from BC to ABC and then running back down empty. And we began to pass our own gang as they made their way up from BC to take our places up high. Ed Viesturs, Jake Norton, Peter Whittaker and John Griber each seemed to be making fine progress after their 4AM start down low. We moved through Camp I and then down into the chaos of the Icefall itself. I knew it hadn't been just the wind keeping me awake in the night -there were also plenty of wayward thoughts of things that could possibly go wrong with our descent. It would be another big test for Erica's skill and stamina. I didn't let her take the test alone, of course. I pestered her to clip this rope and unclip that one, step fast on that ice chunk before it collapses, step over here to let the Sherpas pass, do this and don't do that...QUICK! And Seth watched and pestered her from behind. She was probably wishing we'd just let her plug in her iPod to drown out all the excess coaching. But she passed another test with flying colors. We radioed Linden Mallory at basecamp just after 10AM to let him know our team of five was out of danger and headed for food, friendship, thick sleeping pads and the low, fat air of 17,500 ft.
It’s been 8 days since my last dispatch. Eight days since those heady times at 11,000' Camp, when our pounds and pounds of food seemed excessive, when trading for extra toilet paper and coffee were moments of mirth; now we covet our remaining pounds of food, and those trades seem like masterstrokes of genius.
Our first week at 14,000' is coming to a close, our team has experienced wind, snow, and searing heat. Being simultaneously as hot and cold as we have ever been in our lives. While the recent weather has not been as amenable to a quick summit as we would have liked, this past week has still been an incredible and hard to describe experience. The views (when they are available) are breathtaking, reminding us of how lucky we are to be here at all, and how thankful we are for our family, friends, and coworkers supporting us back in the real world allowing us to stay focused on our goal.
The team’s morale remains high, supported by our amazing guiding team of Dom, Ben, and Mike, who keep us active, both physically and mentally, every day. Special shoutout to Dominic’s wife for providing the team a rousing trivia night via satellite messaging a few days back.
As we enter our second week at 14,000', the team is a coiled spring, ready to launch as our hopeful weather window approaches, but until then thank you for all the love and support as we wait out the weather (but god save us if the hot sauce runs out).
Hi Mikayla, I sent you a message yesterday, however it didn’t post properly. Anyways, I think of you and your teams struggles everyday. I sending you warm wishes and huge cyber hugs. Bloom where you are planted and keep your eye on the prize. I’m praying for you and the team. We love you!! Papa the Bear
Posted by: Dan DeMers on 6/26/2025 at 4:02 pm
It sounds like it’s time to dig deep Denali climbers! How exciting! Stay safe, Onward and upward!
Love you Cakes!
Posted by: Michelle DeMers on 6/26/2025 at 3:42 pm
Hey Dustin & Team!
You gave it your best and Im sure it was an Incredible experience! Being a farmer Mother Nature is always the boss and sometimes she will over rule us!
Farmer Dave
Posted by: Dave Kestel on 12/14/2023 at 2:55 am
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