It was an eventful day, by our standards. Conditions still were not flyable when we crawled out of the tents at 9:15 (not too much use getting up before that time in this camp as it is pretty cold). But ALE, our logistical partner, offered one of their guides for the day so that we could accomplish a carry of food and gear to "Low Camp". We were excited for the chance to get on the move and for the opportunity to work with Lakpa Gelu. Lakpa has climbed Mount Everest 15 times and holds the speed record there. We were honored to rope up on Vinson with him. We left camp at 2:30 PM hauling a few sleds and carrying full packs. Snow conditions were perfect, we weren't sinking in much and the sleds dragged without much resistance. Despite the persistent cloud parked on the landing strip, a few hundred feet higher up we were walking in bright sunshine with blue skies and big views. We made great time, gaining two thousand feet of vertical and covering 5.6 miles (one way) in 4.5 hours. It felt great to pull into Low Camp, cache the load, and turn for base with light packs. The scenery for the day was spectacular, with views of the third and fourth highest mountains in Antarctica as well as a very close up view of a very big wall on Antarctica's highest mountain. The day was made perfect when, just as we crested the final hill and could see basecamp again, a Twin Otter aircraft, found a way through the clouds. JJ Justman made it into Vinson. We enjoyed our first dinner together on the mountain.
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Hi Greg, How are you and the team doing? As well as expected without the Tochers right? Bruce is recovering well and even went to the Texans game today and guess what??? They won, hallelujah!! We are still in shorts and t-shirts here in Houston makes you sick doesn’t it?? But I am missing the snow and cold December weather. Anyway take care y’all and stay safe!! Love from me and Bruce xxx
Posted by: Joyce Tocher on 11/30/2014 at 3:42 pm
Hi Greg hope you were one of the lucky ones that got to go on the first climb as we know you can’t sit still for long. bet you enjoyed meeting up with friends from previous climbs again. It’s -10; clear blue skies here. Good that JJ is with you and all you need now is for the weather to cooperate then you can start to climb. Stay safe. Mom & Dad
Hey everyone, this is Team Mexico calling in from high camp on Ixta. We are at 15,000 plus feet, about 15,400', so we have oh about a couple more thousand to go. The team here is doing really, really well. We're kinda finishing putting up the tents and guiding out the guidelines. And we're gonna start in on some hot drinks and some dinner for this evening. The weather was beautiful this morning as we climbed up here to high camp with heavy packs. Right now we're in a little bit of a cloud but there's light winds and just a little bit of precipitation. We are thinking it's gonna be one heck of a day. I don't wanna jinx us so my fingers are crossed and hopefully your fingers are crossed too for us. Because if all goes well we'll be waking up early in the morning and heading on out to the summit of Ixta at 17,300 plus feet. Again, everyone's doing really, really well and having a lot of fun. Hopefully we'll some great news, one way or another will have some great news for you, but hopefully will be giving you a call on the summit of Ixta tomorrow. Thanks for following along and look forward to another call from us tomorrow.
RMI Guide JJ Justman
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 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"
June 16, 2014 - 8:03 pm PT
We arrived at our 11,000' camp in the late afternoon today. Our plan was to leave early this morning to head up here, but the weather was pretty terrible. White out conditions and strong winds kept us in the tent all morning. Just after noon, the weather started to get a bit better and we got word that the conditions were better higher up. We heard a couple of planes that take people on scenic tours overhead, so our suspicions of clear skies above were confirmed. We packed up our camp in record time and headed uphill. The conditions grew steadily better the higher we went and the traveling was actually pleasant.
We arrived in camp way earlier than we predicted as our team has been very steady and strong as we travel up the mountain. We built a storm fortified camp and are just finishing up a well earned meal.
Our plan for tomorrow is to do a back carry. This means that we will go back down to dig up our 10,000' cache and bring those supplies up to our new camp. We will hopefully have the weather to complete this task early so that we can rest up for our days at higher altitudes.
RMI Guide Mike Haugen and RMI Team "The Ocho"
Jambo from the Dik Dik,
We are still one bag down, but otherwise this group is ready to leave early tomorrow morning. We did spend the day going through all the details about our climb and what we might expect along the way as ascend the mountain over the next seven days. Next we focused on gear and equipment, discussing the difference between nice to have and need to have, as well as what to pack in our mountain duffel and what is carried in our day packs. This group did an excellent job in bringing all the right gear so we did not have to spend too much time doing the equipment checks and weighing our mountain duffels.
It was raining most of the day, so rather than go out for an afternoon hike, we stayed indoors, with time well spent recovering from the eleven hour time zone difference, and sending out those last few emails before leaving behind the last of the wi-fi connectivity that we will have for the next week.
We sat down for our four-course dinner, and had a special treat tonight. Two of our climbers are celebrating birthdays. The staff prepared a wonderful cake for this occasion and rolled it in on a cart after dinner with all the candles lit up and everybody singing. Our two climbers were definitely surprised.
We have set our alarms for an early wake up, and hope to be driving towards Kilimanjaro National Park by 7:30 am. Tomorrow, we'll check in from our first camp on the mountain, Machame Camp.
Best regards,
RMI Guide Jeff Martin
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
We had a really great week! Lots of super successful training!
I wish we could have gone to the summit on the first day because it was such a spectacular day to be in the mountains, beautiful, sunny and not a breath of wind! We couldn’t, though, because we hadn’t completed our basic mountaineering training yet, and then the weather just closed the window.
The winds seemed to have hammered the slopes pretty hard prior to our arrival as everything was sporting a windslab. Nothing had released naturally, but we saw several releases propagated by icefall.
We really focused on our training and spent a lot of time outside. Avalanche hazard awareness, beacon searches, and the decision-making process of travel in avy terrain dominated much of the week. We also spent quite a bit of time on camp craft – building bomber snowcaves and setting up expedition-style camps. Of course, rope and anchor work, fixed line travel, crevasse rescue systems and other Denali-prep skills kept us busy as well.
A great week!
Good weather today and perfect route conditions. We carried a load of food, fuel and gear to "low camp" and then returned -as planned- to VBC. Five and a half hours up, about thirty minutes to cache the gear and bask in the high altitude sun and then two and a half hours down. All did well, all are cheerful... More tomorrow.
All team members safely back to high camp after standing on the “Roof of Africa”.
The team did a great job climbing and stayed positive even though it was tough at times. It was slightly chilly and busier than we would have liked, however, our early departure saved us from the more than 100+ climbers all stuffed together. We even had the summit to ourselves for a little while.
We spent about about 30 minutes on the summit celebrating, taking photos and even made a few phone calls to loved ones back home.
We are headed down the mountain to our final camp in the thick warm air at 10’000ft, where we’ll have dinner then head off to bed for some well deserved sleep.
Wow! Congratulations!!!!!! What a wonderful achievement and experience for you all! Good luck with the journey back down.
Posted by: Tania Walls on 9/11/2023 at 6:21 am
Congratulations from the NG CSMR Team! Especially to our truly fearless leader Rebecca Torzone! So exciting! Now for the easy part…? Safe descent to you all!
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Hi Greg, How are you and the team doing? As well as expected without the Tochers right? Bruce is recovering well and even went to the Texans game today and guess what??? They won, hallelujah!! We are still in shorts and t-shirts here in Houston makes you sick doesn’t it?? But I am missing the snow and cold December weather. Anyway take care y’all and stay safe!! Love from me and Bruce xxx
Posted by: Joyce Tocher on 11/30/2014 at 3:42 pm
Hi Greg hope you were one of the lucky ones that got to go on the first climb as we know you can’t sit still for long. bet you enjoyed meeting up with friends from previous climbs again. It’s -10; clear blue skies here. Good that JJ is with you and all you need now is for the weather to cooperate then you can start to climb. Stay safe. Mom & Dad
Posted by: Dawn Gerry on 11/30/2014 at 12:11 pm
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