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With rain in the lower elevations, we were ecstatic to hear that our Mt. Rainier summit climb team was above the weather system. RMI Guide JM Gorum is the leader of this crew. He radioed in that the rope teams were currently cresting the crater rim. Congratulations to today's summit team!

Casey Grom and team checked in from Everest Base Camp. They arrived there yesterday under stormy skies and cloudy conditions. Today, the sun was shining and the team spent some time hiking around Base Camp and posing for photos in down suits. Everyone got to experience life at 17,575' complete with a shower at Base Camp. Tomorrow the team will start their descent heading back down the Khumbu Valley. RMI Guide Casey Grom

Our Kautz Expedition Skills Seminar team arrived back to RMI Basecamp in Ashford, Washington, yesterday evening. We enjoyed excellent weather during the six day program, and we took advantage of it to spend lots of time climbing and training in the mountains. We trained on a variety of skills, including various knots and hitches, anchors, crevasse rescue, and ice climbing. On our climb, we moved camps up the mountain and went for our summit push. The Kautz Route was in a very challenging condition, and our climbers did a great job of managing the terrain. The Kautz Ice Chute was at least eight pitches (150’ rope lengths) long, with some additional steep climbing above it. The ice presented challenging climbing at high altitude, and pushed our limits. Due to the challenging nature of the ascent and a technical descent ahead of us, we opted to turn our climb around at ~13,000’, at the top of the Wapowety Cleaver. It had taken us ten hours to get to this point and only a couple of hours of glacier travel stood between us and the summit of Mount Rainier. But, we knew we had our work cut out for us to safely descend the Ice Chute and return back to camp. Everything went smoothly and it still took us ten hours to descend. A huge 20-hour day in the mountains is very challenging, and I’m proud of our climbers for staying strong throughout the entire journey. I hope everyone has enjoyed a shower, cold beer, and flip flops… RMI Guide Mike Walter

We got up early this morning to make use of the night hardened snow to review cramponing. We then rolled into breakfast and just relaxed until lunch. After lunch we reviewed a few more basic climbing skills and began preparing for tonight's departure. Everyone and everything is looking good so far. If all goes well we hope to be climbing just after 2am. The climb usually takes between 6 to 8 hrs to reach the summit and just about half the time to descend. We will have dinner early tonight and get to bed by 7pm, and hopefully the team will get a little rest before we head out to summit Elbrus. We'll check in as soon as we are safely back down. Wish us luck!

We had a nice relaxed day off in Puebla yesterday. The team struck out in some smaller groups to walk around Puebla. Seems like good  food, drink and site seeing was had. Today we head to Tlachichuca for a quick stop at Servimont’s historic soap factory turned climbers hostel to repack for our last summit attempt, Pico de Orizaba 18,491’. The remainder of the day will be spent taking trucks up a long and windy road to the Piedra Grande hut. Once there we will go for a short hike uphill to see the rocky and circuitous trail we will begin our climb on. We’ll check in hopefully from the summit tomorrow morning with a more detailed report once back down to the hostel. Thanks for following along. 

RMI Guide Mike King

Today, we visited the famous Ngorongoro Crater, considered by some to be the 8th wonder of the world. The crater is roughly 100 square miles and is home for more than 25’000 animals that have taken up residence. We hit the road early with hopes of catching a few more animals before the heat of the day sent them in search of shade.

There were many sightings today of hyenas, jackals, ostrich, and countless other birds. We manage to see a ton of Lions including one large female up close.

The team also managed to see quite a few Black Rhinos, although not as close as we would have hoped for.

We have just finished another wonderful meal here at the plantation lodge and the team is off to bed after a long, but very rewarding day on safari.

Casey and the safari crew

Thursday, June 15, 2023 - 7:38 am PT

Talkeetna was cloudy and sometimes rainy but our team used the day to get all set for a Denali expedition.  We started with a team breakfast meeting and then moved out to the hangar on the Talkeetna airstrip for getting organized.  Guides and climbers set to work organizing both group gear and personal equipment.  Finishing touches were made to the 22 day food supply.  We stood outside for a briefing from National Park Service rangers on safety and environmental procedures. 

We were happy to watch our fellow climbers in Dominic Cifelli’s RMI team load up and take off for Kahiltna Base as the weather improved.  Our day finished with a weigh-in and final division of the supplies into two piles for two airplanes.  We met for dinner in town to relax and talk once more on strategy for the climb. 

Best Regards

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Thursday, June 13, 2019 - 5:18 PM PT Today we got a casual but cold start to begin our carry to 16,200’ at the top of the fixed lines. The route heads out of camp and ascends moderate glaciated slope that terminates at the bergshrund. From there we clip our ascenders on a fixed rope to climb the 35-40 degree slope and gain the West Buttress of Denali. There was a lot of traffic on the Buttress from teams descending and ascending. We opted to cache our food and fuel at the top of the lines rather then play a game of red light/green light above 16,000'. The Team did well, we will make a few refinements for our second lap on the lines for our move day to 17,200’ Camp. We are all back safely at 14,000' Camp and looking forward to a rest day tomorrow. From there we will have to see what the weather does. Everyone is acclimating well and appetites have remained strong. Currently there are lots of laughs and conversations happening in our kitchen tent. We high fived Robby Young’s RMI Team on the fixed lines after their successful summit yesterday. Thanks for following along, the amazing views and beauty of the Alaska Range continue to astound. RMI Guide Mike King

On The Map

First and foremost, please tell me Argentina won. Please. This morning our team awoke to beautiful clear skies. The twin summits of Europe's highest peak were shining and in the faint distance several climbers could be seen on the upper slopes. Lower down we prepared our packs and after a hearty breakfast we laced up our boots and pulled up our knickers for a good day of acclimatization. The entire team did fabulous as we made it above Pastukhova Rocks with an end altitude of 15,500 feet. I swear some of the team wanted to just keep climbing to the top! Now, we are back at camp recovering from a great day in the Russian mountains. RMI Guide JJ Justman

On The Map

RMI Guide Mark Tucker checking in from Camp 3 Barranco camp on Kilimanjaro. Yet another beautiful day of hiking and climbing for the group, lucky, lucky, us. We are at about 12,800 feet now. We did get up to almost 15,000 feet today and broke a lot of people's altitude records. Everyone did just fine. We are staring up at the Barranco Wall which we will tackle in the morning. It's actually a very fun part of the climb, a little bit of scrambling. For tactical beat we are going to drag our feet a little bit in the morning. There are a few other teams up here so we will let them get a head start and hopefully have the wall pretty much to ourselves which will be great photos and just a bit more fun. It will be a little bit of a shorter day tomorrow getting to our next camp. Some of the folks on a six day climb will push all the way to high camp tomorrow. But we'll go ahead and split that into two days. It really helps out for the success ahead. So, its a beautiful night outside. I am staring up at the glaciers, what's left of them - they have been dwindling, but who knows that could change. I can't ask for a better group of folks, we are having a fun time and everyone is just doing really well. So fingers crossed, couple of more days of this and we will be heading for the summit. Can't wait.

On The Map