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Hello from the Altzimoni Hut on Ixta. Today we picked up our two delayed climbers in the village of Amecameca. They had been delayed due to weather in the U.S. but thanks to our outfitter, Servimont, we are now a united team. On our drive to Amecameca we had great views of Ixta, but as we drove up the Paseo de Cortez clouds rolled in. We hiked for a few hours this afternoon in breezy conditions with the occasional snow flurry. Everyone is doing great though and we're all looking forward to spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner. I'll check in tomorrow from high camp.

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.

The Five Day teams led by RMI Guides Casey Grom and Ray Holt were unable to make a summit attempt due to unsafe route conditions. Recent rain and low temperatures brought significant snowfall and created icy conditions on the upper mountain—conditions that a couple warm days will improve.

Instead of summiting, the teams spent two days at Camp Muir focusing on additional training, including a skills session up at Ingraham Flats. They are currently descending from Camp Muir and are expected to arrive back at our Ashford Basecamp later this afternoon.

Tuesday, June 25, 2019 - 5:24 PM PT The early wake up call in the cold was well worth it as our team was able to move efficiently up the fixed ropes and along the ridge to Denali High Camp. We arrives by noon, which gave us ample time to build camp and get some rest. The weather is beautiful, and almost warm in the sun. If this weather persists through tomorrow we will give the summit a shot. We won't know until we wake up, but we're optimistic. RMI Guide Mike Walter

On The Map

Greetings from Arusha, Tanzania, Our Kilimanjaro climb has officially started! After some quick introductions and a champagne toast, it was time to complete the very last leg of our long travels - a short drive to our hotel. We had a nice three-course meal waiting for us when we arrived and we sat out on the patio enjoying the fine dining and the sights and sounds of a new destination. We are waiting for one more climber to join the team later tonight, and then we will start tomorrow with a team meeting after breakfast, discussing all the details of our climb. La la salama (good night), RMI Guide Jeff Martin

Day two of the Ecuador Skills Seminar started well with a healthy breakfast, the thankful arrival of Shannon who missed his Quito connection by a bitter ten minutes no thanks to mad airline boondoggling. He did manage to save the day when he was able to pick up my "lost" duffel, which flew down a day later than I did but must have told Shannon's duffel it was uncool to arrive on time so we are still one bag short for the group. After our morning rituals were complete it was off to our first mountain which, by most people's standards is no gimme with its summit pushing 15,700 feet. No gimme indeed but a 3,000-foot gondola ride did help our cause. Nick and I keep wondering why we don't have such a luxury to take us to Camp Muir on Mt. Rainier and all we could figure out is because Rucu Pichincha has erupted a few times in the last fifty years, a cable car makes good sense. The hike went off without a hitch, or major rain event which was forecasted but never materialized and the team enjoyed a great first Ecuadorian summit. Thank you volcano gods! After the hike we returned to the hotel to pack, rest and prepare for tomorrow's adventure. Everyone is doing great and getting along famously. Tomorrow we leave the big city for the big mountains. Yippee. RMI Guide Adam Knoff

On The Map

Hello this is RMI Guide Mark Tucker checking in from the Dik Dik Hotel in Tanzania. We completed our safari today after an exciting night at the Kikoti Camp. There were elephants just outside our doors last night and literally brushing up against the tent. We returned to the Dik Dik to collect all of luggage, rest and relax. We had another great meal here before being transferred to the Kilimanjaro International Airport for our out bound flights. Thanks to all of our team members for a great adventure. We hope to you all another time!

The Four Day Summit Climbs lead by Win Whittaker and Jason Thompson reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today. It was a clear and cold morning with light winds at about 10mph. Congratulations to the teams!

It's another beautiful day here in Russia, which was perfect for our move to our base camp. We started with two gondola rides and finished with a single chair lift to reach our home for the next few days (sounds tough I know). Our base is a series of giant barrels that sit at 12,000' about half way up the mountain. There are 12 barrels in total and they are shared by climbers from all over the world. After our move and a quick lunch we headed uphill on Elbrus to further help our acclimatization. We climbed uphill for about 2 hours and reached just over 14,000'. The team has return to camp and are currently awaiting dinner. Everyone is doing great and looking forward to a good night's sleep.

We seem to be repeating ourselves here in the Khumbu, saying "that couldn't have gone any smoother" over and over. Sure enough we got out of Katmandu right on schedule yesterday morning with an easy flight in a Dornier 228 twin engine prop plane. We all survived the uphill landing in Lukla, had a fine breakfast there and then hit the trail at around 8 AM. There are twelve of us at the moment, plus Raju and Lama Babu (our climbing sirdar). We'll be joined any day now by climber Michael Brown, but for the moment, there are four climbers, four guides, two trekkers and two team managers and everybody is walking well. The gang walked just fine on somewhat crowded trails yesterday, through farms and small villages to Phak Ding. There we moved into Jo's Garden, a traditional "tea house", for the night. It is a peaceful place, with the Dudh Khosi -a river of constant whitewater- flowing furiously past and erasing all other sound. For many of us, the night was our first of full sleep in what seemed like a week -what with the hectic packing, repacking, flying, packing, more flying, early starting and jet-lagging. Today all seemed to be in good moods and good health and so we joined the busy trail again for the walk upriver. By late morning, we'd entered the National Park and found a nice outside table at a cafe for lunch. A few plates of rice and potatoes later and we got back into the walking. We tackled the notorious Namche Hill and cruised past about a hundred trekkers, porters and pack animals all grinding up in low gear. Conditions were just perfect for gaining about 2000 vertical feet since the ample cloud cover and a few gentle breezes kept the heat tolerable. But the clouds did rob us of what could have been a first view of Everest from the trail. No matter, we'll see it soon enough. The team is tucked in at Camp De Base, a fine lodge in Namche, the "Sherpa Capital" as everyone calls it. We'll spend three nights here, trying to get used to the big jump in altitude (we are up around 11,500 ft now) and enjoying the shopping, communications and social opportunities of this bustling and spectacularly placed town. Tonight, since it will be the first at true altitude, we won't be able to drink much alchohol... but if we could, we'd be toasting Mark Tucker's mom, who turned eighty back in California. Happy Birthday from the RMI Everest 2010 team!