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Hola from
Ecuador!
After some very long flights and a little bit of sleep the team is doing well. We started our day with a team meeting where we did our usual round of introductions and discussed the game plan for our upcoming adventure.
After the meeting we headed out on the town to explore this beautiful historical city with our tour guide Angel. He first took us to the older part of town where we visited several old cathedrals, then to the colonial town square where we met a kind older Canadian who seemed to have lost his group and decided to tag along with us. Next we headed up to a small hill called La Panacia that overlooks this beautiful city before heading north to visit the Equator from which
Ecuador gets its name.
We finished the day with a small break and then a quick gear check to make sure everyone has all the gear needed for our climbs. Then it was off to dinner at a nice Ecuadorian restaurant where we enjoyed getting to know each other better.
RMI Guide Casey Grom, crew, and our new friend Lee
The Four Day Summit Climb Teams for September 19 - 22 led by
RMI Guides Casey Grom and
Geoff Schellens reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning just before 7 am PT. Casey reported a change in the weather with increasing winds as the teams approached the crater rim. Both teams will return to Camp Muir for a short break before continuing down to Paradise later today.
Congratulations to today's
Summit Climb teams!
The day started with our local staff serenading the team with the "Jambo" song after breakfast. It was nice to see the strong and good men who've helped us so much this week all in one place, singing, dancing and able to receive our thanks for their great efforts. We then made an effort to get out of their way by leaving Mweka Camp and descending 4000 vertical feet to the
Mweka gate to end our climb of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The low clouds didn't hold back for long before dropping light but steady rains on us and the already slippery track. The trail took us through a lush and seemingly impenetrable forest... I'm sure there was much to see, but mostly we concentrated on making careful steps and avoiding falls for a few hours. We were relieved to reach easier terrain for the home stretch. Since it was still raining at the Mweka Gate to the National Park, we didn't hang around long before loading onto our expedition bus/truck and hitting the road for Moshi. Halfway back to Arusha, in better weather, we stopped for a great picnic lunch. Then it was on to our comfortable home at the Dik Dik hotel where we all got a lot cleaner and a little more pleasant as we caught up on sleep and internet. We're heading for a celebration dinner now, which will double as a farewell to Brian and Brad who are abandoning us and heading home tomorrow as we set out for our much-anticipated game-viewing safari.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Our
Cotopaxi Express team enjoyed a tour of colonial Quito today, visiting various churches, museums, parks, and plazas, and learning about the history of Quito and of
Ecuador. We then traveled to the equator, just north of Quito. There we visited an ethnographic museum, and straddled the equator with a foot in each hemisphere!
It was a good, relaxing day in
Ecuador as everyone is adjusting to the new altitude (9,000') and recovering from a long day of travel yesterday. Tomorrow we'll head out on our first acclimatization hike, climbing Rucu Pichincha, a volcano outside of Quito.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
On The Map
Hi everybody back home... We just finished our first official day on our
Cotopaxi and Cayambe program. The team met up this morning for a quick breakfast at our hotel in the Mariscal district of Quito before setting out on a tour of the city. At over 9,000', Quito is the second highest capital city in the world behind only La Paz in Bolivia. Makes for great acclimatizing while still hanging out in town! We visited a bunch colonial churches, homes, and cathedrals in the colonial district of Quito known as the Old Town. Actually a UNESCO world heritage site, Quito's Old Town has many buildings dating back to the early 1500's. In the afternoon we lunched at a typical fritada restaurant and then headed out towards the geographical equator. At the "Mitad del Mundo" there's a small museum where a local guide showed us experiments with Coriolis forces on and near the actual equator in addition to some taxidermy of exotic species from the Amazon. Almost a tiny natural history museum meets Ripley's Believe It or Not, there were preserved specimens of terrifying spiders, boa constrictors, anacondas, barbed fish that will swim up your urethra (crazy), and a legit human shrunken head! After our city tour and a brief team meeting we capped off the day with the first of many team dinners to come.
Now we're back at the hotel watching Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on late night TV. Awesome.
All for now,
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
Tuesday, June 25, 2024 - 9:33 pm PT
A little bit of a tough one for us. We geared up and started climbing the "autobahn" toward Denali Pass. The team was handling the terrain well but a cold wind got going and our sense was that it was strengthening. We turned at 17,800ft and the wind died before we'd reached camp. It likely would have worked for climbing after all. We turned the day into a rest/acclimatization day and we'll give the summit another try tomorrow.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
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Denali Expedition June 11, 2024
Yesterday our team made a strong summit attempt of Sahale Mountain in poor conditions. We reached 8,100' on the
Quien Sabe Glacier following a morning of low visibility as well as increasing rain and wind. With a deteriorating weather forecast we decided not to cross a tricky bergschrund, which would have put us in a difficult place considering the soggy snow conditions. We returned to camp wet, but in high spirits knowing we gave it our best go. The entire team did an excellent job and are looking forward to sunny summits in the future!
RMI Guide
Dustin Wittmier
Ready to launch!
We're all set to tackle our first objective tomorrow,
Ishinca. We spent the day today training on the glacier, in the 16,300 ft vicinity. Everybody had a blast, performed well, and is excited to begin what soon will be (with permission of the mountain gods) the opening summit. Hoping to check tomorrow from "la cumbre", that's it for now.
RMI Guide Elías and team
June 16, 2015 6:05 pm PT
We arose to wind and a bit of ominous clouds at 17,000'. The team efficiently packed our camp to start the long decent back to our families and friends. After 6,000' of decent with a stop to gather our kit stashed at 14,000' and a wonderful quesadilla snack from Jake's team we have landed for some chill time.
This is the life! We're at the beach of 11,000' camp soaking our battered feet in the sun soften snow. While puffing our sleeping bags over our tent flies which is conveniently shading us in our cabanas as we get some well deserved rest for the final push to
Base Camp early tomorrow morning. Fingers crossed we will fly off to civilization tomorrow! Not that there are no other people to socialize with up here on Denali. Our team has done one heck of an awesome job and we have all created some great friendships!
If all keeps going our way our next post will be the last from little Talkeetna, AK with a great evening of celebration!
RMI Guide Tyler Jones
On The Map
June 13, 2014 - 8:22 pm PT
With an early start, we headed out from Basecamp to
Camp 1 at 7,700ft. We left camp at six this morning and traveled down the southeast fork of the Kahiltna Glacier. The beginning portion is called Heartbreak Hill since it is downhill from Basecamp. This same hill is a heartbreaking uphill climb upon return to Basecamp after the climb. We made very good time as we joined the main Kahiltna Glacier and headed towards camp. Although it is not a big elevation gain day, it is a steady rise from the base of Heartbreak to Camp 1.
We arrived in camp around 10:30 this morning and got ourselves dug in since the weather has been pretty touchy this season. Our plan, if the weather allows, is to carry some of our gear up towards Kahiltna Pass around 10,000 ft. We carried our entire load today (100lb+ per person). Now it is time to start caching gear up higher to make our travels more efficient and to help us with our acclimatization process. Good night!
RMI Guide Billy Nugent and Team "The Ocho"
On The Map
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Brad and Brian:
Hope you have fun. Be safe. Looks like fun so far!
Posted by: Bobbi on 2/6/2015 at 10:33 am
To my boys…Brian and Brad - have a great time! I’ll be lifting one up for y’all.
Posted by: Johnny on 2/5/2015 at 8:03 am
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