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RMI Guide Alex Halliday called from Cmap this afternoon. The team turned at 12,200', at the top of the Ice Chute, due to deteriorating weather. He reported cloudy condition, some snow but an overall nice day of climbing. Alex mentioned that despite the team turning, that everyone was stoked after their ascent of the Ice Chute.

Their plan is to walk back to Paradise tomorrow and retun to Basecamp in the early afternoon.

All is well here on the trek!

Today we left Pheriche and hiked further up valley to Lobuche, we slowly made our way along the winding path that we share with other trekkers, porters heavily laden with loads bound for Base camp, and yaks who aren't as keen to share the trail. We made good time and enjoyed the astounding views before reaching camp for the night.

In the afternoon we were hoping to catch a glimpse of the Khumbu glacier, but sadly the clouds gathered and obscured our views. So we’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

Everyone is currently relaxing in our tea house enjoying the warmth of a yak dung burning stove. There has been plenty of good conversation within our team and other trekkers on the same journey as us.

RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew

Thursday, July 7, 2022 - 11:52 am PT

We are calling ourselves lucky.  Very lucky.  The clouds moved away long enough for the glacier surface to freeze up for our nighttime ramble down the lower Kahiltna.  We started walking down from 11,000 at 12:30 AM.  The midnight sun was beautiful on the peaks around us as we cruised down in the cool shadows.  The first hours, to the base of Ski Hill, were straightforward… then things got complicated.  Lots and lots of crevasse crossings.  But that is where the freeze helped immensely.  It also didn’t hurt that other teams preceded us, breaking into holes and showing us where not to walk.  In the end we made it through without any collapsed bridges.  It took about seven hours to get to the airstrip.  Half the team flew off in a K2 Otter just before 10 AM but before the plane could make it back for the other half, clouds rolled in.  They didn’t roll away until mid afternoon, at which point the Otter swooped in to get the job done.  We were the last team on Denali for the 2022 season… and then we were just a bunch more tourists in Talkeetna with funny tans.  The team had a celebratory dinner at Mile High Pizza Pie, and then a late night Cornhole tournament in the beer garden of the Fairview Inn.  A little live music and a nightcap (or two) put a finish on an excellent expedition.  Thanks for following. 

Best Regards
RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Photos courtesy of Dave Hahn

The Five Day Climb teams July 30 - 3 August led by RMI Guides Jack Delaney and Abby Westling made a sunset climb to the summit yesterday evening.  The teams reached the crater rim around 8 pm and quickly began their descent as fairly strong winds accommpanied them the entire climb. The climb went well and the team was stoked to summit even with the constant winds.  As of 7 am the climbers were sleeping in at Camp Muir with plan to start their descent to Paradise around 10 or 11 am.

Congratulations team!

Saturday, June 25, 2022 - 7:46 pm PT

Good evening all,

It's been quite a day and it's not even over yet. We woke to a chilly morning at 17,000' Camp. It made for a slow break down of camp and packing due to cold fingers and let's face it tired bodies from the day before. But with some effort we left camp and made our way to 14,000' Camp. Like usual it got real hot when we got low. By the time we arrived it was hot and we were tired. We opted to stay at 14,000' for the evening. Another RMI team helped set up our tents and gave us water. True team players. After shuffling gear and eating breakfast burritos for dinner we are all laying down for a few hours before we wake to start walking at midnight for the airstrip. It's going to be a long day but we've got this. Lots of motivation to propel us forward. Hopefully by tomorrow afternoon we will be flying back to civilization.

Time to nap,

RMI Guide Hannah Smith and Team

Thursday, July 30, 2022 10:20 am PDT

I’m going to start with the spoiler-100% of our team made it to the summit! This was very special because of the excellent chemistry we developed on this trip. To get to the summit, we had to travel across the Autobahn-clipping in and out of over 50 pickets, climb past Zebra rocks, take in the views at Denali pass, do the 100 yard dash across the football field, tackle pig hill before finally arriving on the summit ridge all while changing layers of clothing throughout the day. The summit brought tears to many of our eyes.  It took us just under 7 hours to reach the summit from 17,000 camp. At the summit, everyone exchanged hugs and laughter. Some commemorated with flags and special notes for loved ones. We took lots of pictures and celebrated our hard effort before we descended back to camp in 3 hours and were completely exhausted. Our celebration included watching Steve, who carried a hula hoop he found in Talkeetna to the summit, break the world record for completing over 30 seconds of hula hooping at the highest elevation recorded for the activity. We all videoed the event for the record book. 

We were blessed with incredible weather; 1st rate guides-Andy, Grayson and Ben; interesting, accomplished, funny and caring team mates.

I want to also share my own personal story which motivated me to climb Denali- The highest mountain in North America. After hiking the Appalachian trail in 2018, I decided I needed a new challenge which was tackling the highest point in every state. I quickly realized this goal included Denali and Mt Rainier and that i better get working on those two mountains since I wasn’t getting any younger. Having no mountaineering experience, I did some research and decided to climb with RMI since they guided on both mountains and came with high reviews. To get some experience, I decided to take the kahiltna seminar followed by a climb of Rainier. Covid initially delayed my plans by a year but in May 2021, I completed the Kahiltna seminar only to find out a month later that I had stage 1C ovarian cancer. I had surgery in July and started 6 rounds of chemotherapy which ended in December. I wanted to have a goal to focus on during chemo, so I signed up for the June 15th climb of Denali. Knowing this was a daunting task, I went hiking everyday during the four months of chemo no matter how sick I felt. Amazingly, I continued to get stronger and fitter and climbed a 13,000 foot mountain in Colorado in November. I think I had this overwhelming desire to push myself because I didn’t want to let cancer interrupt my goals. Another part of me wanted to do something that was as close to mentally and physically demanding as combating cancer as I could find. I certainly believe climbing Denali fulfilled that objective!  Standing on the summit was thrilling but at the same time I realized the yearlong journey was the meaningful part not the single destination.

Mary-Beth and Team

On The Map

We met yet another stray dog friend today- oh wait, that’s not what this blog about! We are incredibly happy and proud to say that every single team member stood on top of North America’s 3rd highest peak, Pico de Orizaba, today! What a day it was too! We awoke for our alpine start to find that the sky was clear, the wind light, and the temperatures still warm from the previous day. The route takes us up an old aqueduct, then up a rocky slope for a couple of hours until you reach a feature called the labyrinth, aptly named. That is when the weather started to turn from warm and windless to bitter and howling. Up we went, navigating the labyrinth with all its ice, mud, and rock and to the base of the of the Jamapa Glacier. A team member described the glacier as “walking up a descending escalator”, never ending and relentless. On we pushed, with perseverance stretched to its limit we crested the caldera ridge and on to the true summit where we met back up with our 2 other rope teams and embraced.

We are back down now, safe and sound, about to jump in our showers and wash up before dinner, our last one as a team. Seems surreal for it to be over so soon, but we look forward to seeing everyone in the mountains again. This is the Mexico climbing team signing off.

Except there is the picture of our dog friend walking us down to Base.

RMI Guides Dominic Cifelli, Abby Westling and Team

On The Map