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Sunday, June 14, 2015 - 6:37 pm PT
At last, our patience has paid off. After eight nights at 14 Camp, we finally got the weather today to move our camp up the West Buttress to our high camp at 17,200 feet. The team did great work, traveling up the fixed lines, along the Buttress proper, past
Washburn's Thumb, and into camp.
Upon our arrival the team was greeted by blustery winds so we immediately put all of our wall building practice to good use and hammered out a camp in short time. Now we're tucked out of the weather and cooking an early dinner to get ready for a big day tomorrow. If the weather looks good in the morning, we plan on making our summit push!
The team is looking strong and everyone is excited to see the last 18 days of hard work pay off. Time for an early evening, and hopefully the next time you hear from us will be from the top of North America!
RMI Guide
Tyler Jones and Team
On The Map
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!
June 25, 2014 - 11:35pm PT
A rainy and grey morning in Talkeetna didn't stop our team from a seven o'clock breakfast meeting at Talkeetna's great Roadhouse. We were primed and ready for our important orientation at the
Talkeetna Ranger Station at 8:30. Our climbers were honored to have Roger Robinson himself give the presentation. Roger has been climbing Denali and rescuing Denali climbers for close to four decades now. Then it was out to the K2 Aviation hangar where we spread out our gear and got down to the nuts and bolts of figuring out exactly what to bring on the climb and what to leave behind. It took much of the afternoon to sort gear and to get it all weighed, inventoried and ready for flying. So it became an "indoors" day, which was just fine. Rain kept falling and there was precious little flying going on out at the normally bustling Talkeetna Airport. The team got together finally for what we hope will be our last dinner in town for some time. It was a fine feast, but we'd just as soon be on climbing rations when supper time rolls around tomorrow.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide
Dave Hahn
We had a nice dinner, cool temps in the rooms for sleeping, a pleasant night for all. A leisurely breakfast led into a nice hike with grand views as you can imagine. The team pushed up well over
14,000 feet to get the heart and lungs moving. We then returned to our tea house for lunch, and then off to the altitude lecture at the near by clinic. Great insight from doctors offering good info. The team pooled a nice donation for the cause and even came away with a few more souvenirs. It all ended with a little down time relaxing. As they say a pictures says a thousand words!
We are all doing well and plan to move up to Loboche tomorrow, if all seems right.
RMI Guide
Mark Tucker & Team
The team had a wonderful day here in
Moscow. After a night of much needed sleep, the team set out and explored the city on foot. Not far from our hotel is the famous Red Square, Kremlin and GUM (sort of a super mall for the elite). Most team members did a little adventuring on their own in the morning, then met up later for a guided tour of the Kremlin. We spent a little over four hours visiting the beautiful grounds, and many churches that exist within the compound.
It was a really enjoyable day for all even though there was a bit of rain here today. We finished the day off with another great meal at a local cafe where we communicated with lots of finger pointing at the menu and plenty of smiles.
Everyone is doing great and looking forward to heading to the mountains tomorrow.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
Hello from Quito! This is Seth. I arrived late last night along with several members of the team. The airport was packed full of summer travelers but we managed to get through with all of our bags. We were met by our driver Victor and he whisked us off to the Hotel Mercure in downtown Quito. Today I have been busy shopping for our dinner and breakfast food for the hut on Cotopaxi while the team members that are here are stretching their legs around town. Tonight I'll head back to the airport to pick up our remaining teammates.
I'll check in tomorrow after our tour of Colonial Quito.
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
Our first day on the mountain is complete! Everyone is warm in their tents with tired legs. The first couple days climbing are always a shock to the system, but our team handled the first day of the snowshoe-sled shuffle better than any team I have climbed with before. Luckily we had two things to help us along, first was a beautiful sunny day and second was some very tasty banana bread. On behalf of the whole team I would like to thank Kellie for the great bread.
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!
We made it to the summit of Lobuche!
With an alpine start, we headed up the mountain. The first half of the climb we ascended slabby rock, up and up we went. Climbing below a moonless sky with stars forever. Although the forecast had called for high winds, it was still and quiet.
Soon we crossed the ridge to what is normally crampon point near 18,400 feet but it’s been a very dry winter in the Himalayas so we continued on a rocky ridge to nearly 18,800ft where we finally dawned our crampons and got on the steep snow and ice. First light of day was just beginning to show the outline of the mountains around us and it was beautiful. The colors of the sky changed and soon the sun came up! After a lot more steep climbing up the face of Lobuche we reached the summit.
We’ve now descended to Pheriche where we reunited with our other two team members and plan to all walk out together over the next few days.
RMI Guide Jess Wedel and the Lobuche team
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Summit!
RMI Guide Steve Gately and his Mt. Shuksan team reached the summit via the
Fisher Chimneys Route. They will descend to Upper Curtis Camp and then possibly to Lake Ann this afternoon because of rain moving in this evening. Tomorrow the team will then complete their descent back to the trailhead.
Ken your almost there. Keep safe and don’t give up. The view from up there is breath taking, enjoy. Jose
Posted by: Jose Gonzalez on 6/15/2015 at 4:18 pm
18 days of hard work….at D.G.‘s rate you guys are going to be minted!!
Best of luck in the coming days!
Posted by: Will Ivy on 6/15/2015 at 3:24 pm
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