June 17, 2014 - 7:14 pm PT
Once again the weather turned nasty overnight. We woke up to howling winds, snow, and low visibility. We waited until later in the morning and the weather began to get better. We decided to do our back carry since the weather was just good enough to travel. We made great time getting back down to our cache at 10,000'. We dug up our cache and were reunited with much of the food and gear that we will not be using until higher up on the mountain. As we were headed back up to camp, the skies cleared somewhat and the weather was downright pleasant the rest of the day.
Our plan for tomorrow is to cache much of the same food and gear up towards 14,000'. This will take some of the weight off from our move day and help us acclimatize to higher altitudes.
Climb high and sleep low.
RMI Guide Mike Haugen and "The Ocho"
Hi all! The skies are clear, winds calm, and it's a great day to fly to Kahiltna Base Camp. Our team is heading in first thing this morning to start moving towards our objective! We'll check in this evening from the glacier with more news of the day. All the best, and we'll keep you updated on our progress over the upcoming weeks.
RMI Guides Pete Van Deventer, Robby Young, Josh Maggard and team
Hey this is JJ Justman with the Kilimanjaro team here at High Camp. It is about 11:30 at night, and we are up and at’em! We’re getting some hot drinks and a little bit of breakfast. It is a beautiful night to start climbing Kilimanjaro, everyone is doing great. We are going to get headed out on the climbing route and hopefully in about seven hours from now we will give you a call and let you know we are on the summit and on top of the roof of Africa. We hope everyone is doing well back home. We will touch base will all of you soon.
Bye from Africa,
RMI Guide JJ Justman and Team
So glad the weather is clear for you all to begin the summit climb. Know it will be an experience of a lifetime. We are so proud of all the team- WOW!
Look forward to hearing all about it from Kalani and Dom!
The Five Day Summit Climb August 13 - 17 and the Four Day Summit Climb August 14 - 17 both reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning. The teams, led by RMI Guides Dan Windham and J.J. Justman, reported beautiful climbing conditions with light winds on the summit. They were beginning their descent from the crater rim shortly after 7 a.m. PT.
Congratulations to today's Summit Climb Teams!
Good evening again, this time from Yanapacha Moraine camp. After a good rest/acclimatizing rest day yesterday, we moved uphill today, and established our home for the next couple of nights in the vecinity of the glacier at 4800m. The hike was one the most beautiful ones that this guide remembers, with giants like Huandoy, Chacraraju and Huascarán North guarding our ascent over the steep grassy slopes on the foothills of Yanapacha.
Everyone did a good job, arriving ahead of schedule and we enjoyed an incredible meal pre-cooked by our chef Emilio. French fries with a beef stir fry was a hit at this elevation. We waved good bye to our porters, and as the sun went down, we crawled into our sleeping bags to remain warm and keep the psych for tomorrow's endeavor on Yanapacha. Stay tuned for more,
Guides Peter, JT, Elias & team.
Today the team explored the city of St. Petersburg, including a beautiful evening canal tour complete with dramatic sunset and hilarious narration from our tour guide. Tomorrow the team disbands, departing in the direction of our various homes or next destinations. A big thanks to everyone for coming together and bringing your A-game to this Mt. Elbrus Ski Expedition. Till next time...
RMI Guide Tyler Reid
June 23, 2014 - 7:31 pm PT
We decided that today would be a great day to do some more acclimatization at 14,000' on Mt. McKinley. Instead of carrying our gear higher we decided to rest today and then retrieve our gear on our move to 17,000' tomorrow. The team is feeling strong and we are feeling very positive about a good summit bid once we get into position at seventeen. Keep your fingers crossed for good weather for us for a few days!
RMI Guide Mike Haugen and Team "The Ocho"
June 12, 2014 9:20am PT
It looks like we got lucky with the weather and found ourselves a day to fly! The mountain is visible from Talkeetna which seems like it is a rarity this season. All systems go!
RMI Guide Mike Haugen & Team
June 6, 2014 - 8:37 pm PT
Today we woke to a grand flurry of climbers packing and moving up to the fourteen thousand camp. For us though, it was a day of rest and we crawled out of our sleeping bags after the sun warmed the air in the tents. We ate another great breakfast of bagels, cream cheese, and bacon, firing our spirits for a day of organizing our gear for tomorrow's carry up to the 14,200ft camp. We'll once again be separated from a few of our goodie bags and the gear we will use on the upper mountain.
We had a great review of advanced crampon technique, ice axe use, and general efficiency skills needed for our continued success at altitude as we move higher up. The real climbing starts from here, and we'll don our crampons and ice axe for climbing steeper, more technical terrain and entering the more challenging altitudes.
With this day of rest, light activity and acclimatization our carry should be no sweat for our crew. Send some more nice weather our way and we'll let you know when our cache has landed at its next destination!
Cheers,
RMI Guides Tyler, Garrett, Bryan, and the crew
Hello from Barafu Camp,
We had another gorgeous morning when we woke up. Since it was a fairly short hiking day we took our time packing up camp and had a nice leisurely breakfast. We walked out of camp at 9:00 and made very good use of the trail to continue working on our rest stepping, pacing and breathing so we will be ready for tomorrow. The group did great and we made it to camp in just over two hours.
We took full advantage of our afternoon by talking about all the details of the climb ahead as well as discussing what gear to bring and what gear can stay at camp.
Now we are getting ready for an early dinner so we can be in bed by 7:00. The alarm clock is set for o'dark thirty and the plan is to be walking out of camp at 1:00 am. Hopefully we will be calling in from the summit of Kilimanjaro around 8:00 am.
The entire team is strong and healthy and doing well. We all appreciate the comments that have been posted on the blog, thank you for sending the encouraging words.
Best regards,
RMI Guide Jeff Martin
Mike and Bruce,
We are eagerly awaiting each installment of the story! Happy climbing!
Kristina Stamatis
Posted by: Kristina on 6/18/2014 at 3:01 pm
Go Bruce! Wishing you well and remember to bring back some McKinley snow for me in a zip lock bag. =)
Posted by: Donald Chen on 6/18/2014 at 2:38 pm
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