Hey, this is Dave Hahn with the RMI Everest Climb calling in from Deboche. We set out this morning about 8:30 from Namche. A beautiful morning, blue sky, sunshine and everybody feeling good. It took us about 5 hours or so to go across the hillside down to the river and back across the hill at Pangboche, the big hill, and down the other side to Deboche. At our lodge tonight but figured we'd just checking with you. Great views of Mt. Everest and Ama Dablam today. Looking up there is a bunch of new snow on Everest and Lhotse. It clouded up a little bit this afternoon, but not a big deal. We are enjoying having the trails to our selves, I think we are a few days ahead of many of the climbers. [connection lost]
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
RMI Guide Dave Hahn calls from Deboche with an update on the progress of the Everest team.
Hi Hans and all together,
it´s phantastic to follow you on your trek higher and higher…stay in a good mood with sunny weather and keep you warm…
Lot of love to you, Hans - Ute
Posted by: Ute Novak on 3/30/2015 at 2:04 pm
Uncle Larry,
be careful and congratulations on getting to climb the highest mountain in the world. maybe after this you want to hop to train with me. Lol be safe up there. I agree with mom your beard hopefull keep u worm.
RMI Guide Jake Beren and the Mount Rainier summit climb began their descent from the crater rim at 7:55 a.m. They spent over an hour on the summit in beautiful and crisp weather.
Congratulations to today's summit climbers!
The Four Day Summit Climb team led by RMI Guide JJ Justman and the Five Day Summit Climb team led by RMI Guide Leon Davis reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning. The teams reported clear skies with 15-20 mph winds. The teams will descend to Camp Muir and take a short break before continuing their descent to Paradise.
We look forward to seeing the teams back at Rainier BaseCamp this afternoon.
Congratulations to today's Summit Climb teams!
OMG! Great job Ron I didn’t doubt even a sec you were gonna make it. Congratulations. Now you can check this item of your bucket list. Diego says you are unbelievable! Lol:)
Posted by: Edda Zabala on 8/7/2014 at 12:38 am
Way to go guys! An amazing accomplishment to add to your lists!
Our team made the summit of Mt. Elbrus! It was an interesting weather day. It wasn't bad but it wasn't good. The wind and the cold challenged everyone including myself.
Our team did a fantastic job motivating each other and looking after one another. I was really proud to climb with all of them and they all deserve a huge congratulations!
We are now safely down back in the ski town of Cheget. A well deserved rest after a good Russian meal is in store!
RMI Guide JJ Justman
Yeah!!! Well done everyone! Good job Cindee~ can’t wait to hear all about it when you get home!! Xoxo, Maija
Posted by: Maija Markula on 7/28/2014 at 9:23 am
Congratulations!! Cindee, you are amazing. Well done for the entire team!! Great adventure and climb for everyone! Be safe and enjoy the rest if your trip.
Karen
June 5, 2014 - 11:57 pm PT
We slept in a bit this morning as light snow fell on camp. After a leisurely breakfast of bagels with bacon and cream cheese, we walked 30 minutes down to our cache at 9,900'. After returning to 11K Camp, we rested before building snow walls around our tents. Everyone is doing very well and excited to keep working up. With light snow still falling this evening, we are going to keep watching the weather and take it day by day.
Thanks for following along with us.
RMI Guides Eric Frank, Geoff Schellens and the UWR team
It would appear that you have a terrific team climbing with you this year. They need to know that they are in good hands. Your knowledge, understanding and skill on Denali is unprecedented. Your ability to transfer those traits and abilities to provide a great experience to us average climbers can not be acknowledged enough. Your ability to weigh risk and benefit to determine appropriate action or task is exceptional. I have enjoyed following your team so far. Looks like you have some significant weather coming at you over the next few days. Climb safe. JB 2012
Posted by: Jeff Boskind on 6/7/2014 at 9:20 am
Looking good gentlemen!! Thank you for keeping us all up to speed on your astounding progress.
I’m appreciative of being able to live vicariously through you courageous, crazy specimens all the way from sunny California. Proud of you guys…
Hi Everyone!
We are enjoying a relaxing evening here at the beautiful La Casa Sol near the city of Otavalo.
We left the comforts of Quito this morning and headed into the mountains (where many of us actually feel more comfortable!) for our second acclimatization hike. As we watched the city disappear in the rear view mirror we traded well paved roads for cobblestones and washboard. The van bumped along, and our driver skillfully negotiated the hazards of rural driving... while we all fought the urge to hold our breath and cross our fingers. Maybe we should have, because our luck soon ran out and Friday the 13th delivered us a logistical sucker punch.
With a loud crack, our vehicle let us know it was done going uphill for the day. A dislodged cobblestone had broken the axel and stopped us, quite suddenly, in our tracks.
Fortunately, our group has the perfect easy going attitude, and after getting the baggage and van transfer sorted out, we shouldered our daypacks and set off for some slightly more oxygenated exercise. Nearly three hours and five miles later we arrived at the trailhead!
One of our local guides, Esteban (nicknamed Topo), had been busy reorganizing our logistics while we strolled, and he and a few others arrived to our rescue shortly thereafter in shining Toyota Hilux's.
Delivered safely to our hacienda we enjoyed a delicious dinner and are now all busy packing our gear and getting organized and prepared to tackle our first big objective. Wish us luck as we travel towards Cayambe tomorrow!
RMI Guide Solveig Waterfall
We woke up this morning at Camp 2 (Advanced Basecamp-ABC) to a few inches of snow and thought it would be a tent bound day. However, the weather cleared and it turned out to be a great day. The teams were able to move about the mountain in very nice weather.
Dave, Leif, Michael and I climbed up to Camp 3, after enjoying the view and a snack or two we returned safely to ABC for another night. Casey, Scott, Rob and Chad ascended from Camp 1 for their first night at Camp 2.
Currently, the whole climbing team is together at ABC getting ready for dinner.
We dragged out an oxygen bottle to practice with, just after breakfast. It does take a little practice, by the way, to get good with the systems we rely on up high. Today we were just familiarizing ourselves with how the regulators attach to the bottles, how the hoses attach to the regulators, and how the masks attach to the face. I like doing this sort of run-through down in the thick air on a rest day in the sunshine so that when we have to get up in the middle of the night at a bajillion feet above sea level with cold hands and dim brains, we can maybe muddle through and get our hook-ups and flow-rates right. It all seemed reasonably simple this morning, and each of my little team put the gas bottle carefully in their pack, the mask on their face and some goggles or glasses on their eyeballs, and then took the rig for a test drive around camp.
Over the radio, we could hear the gang with Peter Whittaker up above as they were taking another stroll on the Lhotse Face. It all sounded like it was going well as they checked in with one another and pointed out interesting features along the route. We heard that Jake Norton was coming down to BC to deal with a chest cold and, like most news, we immediately sorted it into its good and bad components. The bad news: Jake would need to slow down long enough to get well. The good news: Jake is a smart, strong guy who knows how to shake a typical, run-of-the-mill expedition illness out of his system, and we won't mind having him around in BC.
Erica Dohring and I went for a glacier walk after lunch. I do want her following the slacker example that Seth and I set for getting quality rest during our BC downtime. She is a voracious reader, which ought to qualify her for a fine life of expeditioning. I'm impressed with the way she orders her time, alternating between books for fun, books for school, and the odd movie on a borrowed iPod Touch. That is good resting, and it is important, but I also wanted to mix in a little exercise clambering around in the glacier today. I'm a big believer in keeping the legs stretched and the reflexes tuned for making awkward steps. We went out for about two hours, finding our way to a medial moraine and then hiking down-glacier with an occasional semi-frozen stream crossing to negotiate. I'm trying to teach Erica to violently knock over every fragile pinnacle of ice and balancing rock that she encounters...for no particular reason...and she is rapidly gaining skill in this department.
The late afternoon is gray and overcast with a hint of snow flurries. We've gotten so used to the thunder of avalanches now at BC that it takes a particularly loud and violent one to get us out of the tents for a look. At the moment, though, it is quiet and cold enough that the team is starting to find their way to the dining tent for hot drinks, gossip magazines, and card games. Tomorrow, we'll be a little busy preparing for the mountain again, and my guess is that we will be torn between lazy thoughts of staying indefinitely in BC and antsy thoughts of getting up where the action is again.
RMI Guide Mike Walter and team climbed both Sahale and Sharkfin Tower yesterday. The team reported great climbing and 100% to the top for the two peaks! Today, the team climbed Forbidden Peak by its iconic and classic West Ridge and were standing on the summit at 10:20 this morning.
Way to go team!
We got a casual start on our day knowing that the storm was raging on Villarica. That summiting was not going to be an option for today was glaringly obvious in the forecast, but the skiers mind is slightly different from the climbers mind: stormy conditions yield a bunch of new snow, and a bunch of new snow equals powder skiing. Powder skiing equals the polar opposite of defeat. So like yesterday, we set off into the storm, the only skiers on this mountain crazy enough to go touring (the ski areas on these Chilean volcanoes are above treeline, thus relying on good visibility and not too much wind to stay open).
Yesterday was Volcano Storm Skiing. Today was just plain storm skiing. We stuck below treeline for most of the day and found some great tree shots. With over a foot of new, dense, fast, springy pow, we put in a skin track, and one lap turned into two laps, then three laps, four laps, five laps... To be skiing in an early succession forest with a cauldron of lava bubbling 5,000' above your head feels exotic.
At the end of the day we toured up into the storm to get a sense of how windy it really was in the alpine (and to line ourselves up for a nice glide back to the parking lot). It was windy. Really windy.
RMI Guide Tyler Reid
Hi Hans and all together,
it´s phantastic to follow you on your trek higher and higher…stay in a good mood with sunny weather and keep you warm…
Lot of love to you, Hans - Ute
Posted by: Ute Novak on 3/30/2015 at 2:04 pm
Uncle Larry,
be careful and congratulations on getting to climb the highest mountain in the world. maybe after this you want to hop to train with me. Lol be safe up there. I agree with mom your beard hopefull keep u worm.
Love
Ana wags
Posted by: Ana wagner on 3/30/2015 at 8:58 am
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