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The Expeditions Skills Seminar - Kautz June 6 - 11 reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning via the Kautz Glacier route. After several days of training the team put their skills to the test ascending the Kautz Ice chute and Wapowety Cleaver.  They reached Point Success at 8:50 am and crossed to Columbia Crest, the true summit of Mt. Rainier 14,410' arriving at 9:12 am.  The team enjoyed a bit of time in the crater and then began their descent.  They will return to camp for a well deserved rest and spend a final night on the mountain. Tomorrow they will continue their descent to Paradise, returning to Rainier BaseCamp to conclude their program.

Way to go team!

PC: Felipe Guarderas & Layne Peters

Day 11 on the mountain.

We woke up at the 14 camp once again chilly but not quite as cold as the previous night. Everyone prepares for the day and makes their way to the mess tent. Hot water is ready! Coffee is essential, and then Cinnamon Toast Crunch with powdered milk and warm water. It is actually very good!!

Since coming to 14,000’ Camp, we have been admiring the headwall which directly faces the camp ascending about 2,000’ above. Today is our day to ascend and cache supplies. The headwall is like motorcycle hill on steroids! We made our way up to the bergschrund near the top and where the fixed ropes begin. The first step over the bergschrund was fun and exciting to ascend for most! And then using our ascenders made our way up to the top on the ropes. The incline is probably 60 degrees, and the practice yesterday was very useful, for most of us, it was the first time using these ropes and gear.

We all made it and cached our stuff. Descending was equally perilous but a bit more fun and of course, a lot faster! Wrapping the rope around our arm we just leaned forward and walked down. (I personally really enjoyed that!). We made it back to camp a little tired but excited to have ascended.

This place is incredibly beautiful but also can be merciless. This place has some of the most amazing views I have ever seen and dangerous corners and crevasses. It’s a place where you can simultaneously get sunburn and frostbite. We are constantly taking layers on and off. It can be so cold to have to wear a parka and then in a few hours just a T-shirt. Having the right gear and guidance is so important. We are blessed to have three outstanding guides. Dom, Seth, and Nicole. They are very capable, knowledgeable, and kind of superhuman! So, rest assured to all our loved ones at home, we are in very good hands.

We are also far enough along in this trip to start missing home and in particular our friends and families. For me, I miss my family, my kids Max, Emma, and Sophie mostly. Cannot miss this opportunity to tell you how proud I am of all three of you!!

Tomorrow is rest day, and then hopefully we scale the headwall again up to 17,000’ camp.

RMI Climber Cary Idler

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"

On The Map

Hello everyone. We had a wonderful day again here in Nepal. We started with our usual breakfast and coffee at 8:00 and hit the trail around 9:00. Since it's been rather cold here this spring, we haven't wanted to start hiking too early. The team was very fortunate to spot a rare Musk Deer and even saw a few mountain Tarr, which is a type of Himalayan mountain goat. We made our way to Pangboche where we visited the highest ranking Lama in the Khumbu and received a blessing for safe passage. We continued along the trail passing by the iconic Ama Dablam and slowly came into Pheriche. The team is doing great and enjoying the amazing scenery every step of the way. RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew

On The Map

Buenos Dias from Plaza Argentina! Today the team is enjoying a well earned rest day after long stretches of travel and three big days of walking. After breakfast we took a leisurely stroll to get the blood flowing and had a soup for lunch. Now mid siesta, we will spend the afternoon packing for our carry to Camp One tomorrow and going through our cursory check with the Base Camp doctors. It's definitely another hot one and we may be in for an early carry tomorrow to try and beat some of the heat. Hope everyone is doing well back home! RMI Guide Jake Beren

On The Map

This is Adam checking in from Mt McKinley. Yesterday our team made an exploratory reconnaissance up the NE Fork of the Kahiltna. This is the approach glacier that leads to the bottom of our climbing route, the West Rib. It was an instructive day. Without going into detail, suffice it to say for reasons based on mountaineering experience we have decided to forego climbing the lower portion of the West Rib. Rather, our revised plan will be to follow the West Buttress route to 14,000’ and from there intersect the ridgeline and climb the upper West Rib to the summit. We are aiming to make camp today at 9,500’. The weather is gorgeous, the team is strong, and everyone is excited about our new strategy. RMI Guide Adam Knoff

We're still at Camp 4 waiting for the winds to subside up high. The weather is pleasant here at camp. The forecast looks promising for us: summit winds decreasing to 30 mph by tomorrow. Hopefully we can move up to high camp tomorrow and be in place to make a summit bid the next day, or soon thereafter. Everybody is doing well and we're all eager for the opportunity to climb. RMI Guide Mike Walter

It sounds pretty romantic, and lots of people envy my job. And, I must admit, I'm pretty happy with what I do for a living, and count my blessings every day. But working as an expedition photographer is not always a piece of cake. This goes for me shooting stills, as well as Gerry Moffatt, Kent Harvey, and John Griber shooting our video footage. While I cannot speak exactly for them, I can give an idea of what my days on the hill are like. Being a photographer on an expedition does not really put you into a special category. There are no chairlifts or trams waiting for us; we must climb the mountain just like anyone else, acclimating, moving up and down, and capturing images along the way. Along with the standard equipment all of us - Ed, Peter, Melissa, Dave, Seth - carry on the hill, I also have my photo equipment. I've always been a Nikon shooter, and this is my 6th Everest expedition using Nikon gear. So in my pack is a Nikon D300 camera, chosen for its superior image quality complemented by reasonable size and weight. In addition to the D300 body, I have a handful of lenses: a Nikon 18-200mm, Nikon 50mm, Sigma 10-20mm, and a Nikon 80-200. This selection gives me a fantastic range while keeping the weight reasonable. I also bring along my Nikon SB-800 flash unit and an SC-28 remote cord for filling in faces and dark areas in this contrasty environment. Oh, and of course, extra batteries, cleaning supplies, a variety of filters, and a tripod. My personal M.O. on all expeditions has always been to disrupt the flow of climbing as little as possible while shooting. Certainly there are times when the environment and risk enable me to set up shots and choreograph the scene. But, more often than not, my style is to catch what I can by moving ahead of the climbers and capturing them in real time, in real situations. (You can imagine trying to ask climbers in the Khumbu Icefall to stop for a few minutes under tons of tilting seracs while I compose a shot - not even nice to contemplate!) This style, while my preference, creates some challenges, as I am in a constant game of leapfrog, setting up a shot, shooting, repacking my gear, and shuffling ahead as fast as possible to get ahead of the climbers and find the next spot for a good image. Not easy, but it is an added challenge I strangely relish. The other challenge with expedition photography is the need to be constantly thinking, looking around at the terrain with a creative angle, trying to find a new perspective on the environment at hand. While this terrain is so spectacular that pointing and shooting often works, the nut for me to crack is how to find a new perspective, how to tell a different story in a single frame and show what perhaps has not been shown before. This requires constant attention to the task at hand, for moments missed may never come again. But, again, this is a cerebral game which adds depth and enjoyment to the climbing at hand. When looking at the end of the day, I must admit I long a bit for the days of film. Way back then, in the late 1990s, we'd shoot film during the day, pack it away after sunset, and the day was done- but, no longer. Digital, despite its great benefits, has caused quite a bit more work for us photographers. When the day is done, I now take my compact flash cards into our production tent, fire up my solid-state Asus laptop, download my images onto a hard drive, make a backup copy on another drive, and then edit the day's work. Select images are spotted for dust and blemishes, captioned, resized, saved to a thumb drive, and handed over to our field producer, Cherie Silvera, for transfer via satellite phone with the day's text and video dispatch. It all makes for a long day, to say the least, but, I wouldn't change a thing about it. I love the honor of capturing the amazing people on our team and the stunning environment, and the chance to share those images and moments with a greater audience. It was, many years ago, images by Ansel Adams, Galen Rowell, Barry Bishop, and other greats of mountain photography that first inspired me to tread in the mountain realm. Their images shared with me a place I could scarcely imagine, bringing a new world to my doorstep in Topsfield, Massachusetts. It was through their lenses that a passion was discovered and ignited within me, and my one hope as I photograph our team and our climb is that I may share that same sense of wonder and enjoyment that hit me long ago. Enjoy the images, and climb on, wherever your trail may lead...

Hello Reader,

We are writing you from lower elevation. Today we packed up our camp at 17k and made the walk down to 14k camp. Packs were feeling heavy, Legs were feeling heavy, bodies were feeling heavy. It's been a big 36hrs for the team and we are all feeling it. But with each step down we feel that much better. We are already thinking of showers and food and all the comforts we gave up to come out here. It's been a crazy ride, but we still have 2 more days Of walking strong and smart to get out safely. Fingers crossed, the weather is good enough to walk in and good enough to fly in on Saturday morning.

For now We are all looking forward to a good night’s sleep not at 17k camp.

RMI Guide Hannah Smith and Team

Greetings from Kathmandu! We have officially finished our trip. We flew out of the Himalaya this morning, right on time as the skies above Lukla allowed airplanes to do their thing. Everyone is resting in the hotel now, getting ready for our trips back home. A trip where everyone one finishes together at the start point, with tired muscles but a backpack full of memories, is a successful trip. Now we'll tell the individual stories back home. Thanks for following our progress through this beautiful valley at the foothills of the roof of the earth! Pheri bhetaula! (Until next time, in Nepali) RMI Guide Elías de Andres Martos