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Friday, May 24, 2019, 7:58 PM PT Hello from the Great Ruth Gorge! The magnitude of this place soon relieved the delay of not being able to fly yesterday. Cruising over a 35-mile long glacier to then land and camp under the massive 5,000ft East Face of Mount Dickey is indescribable. After a couple of hours crafting a classy camp, kitchen included, we treated ourselves to a nice diner of halibut burger with a side of fresh asparagus; definitely not your standard meal on the mountains. Heading to bed now as we're trying our first climbing objective early tomorrow. Regards, Lucy, Corell and RMI Guide Elías de Andres Martos

What a few days it's been. After a productive and fun day at our climbing school on Saturday we were excited about the perfect day we had yesterday for our hike up to Camp Muir. At times it was almost too hot as the sun's radiation backed. But we all persevered and made it to Camp Muir doing well. Unfortunately, today we received some bad news when the guides kicking in the route discovered a crevasse preventing forward progress up to the higher reaches of the mountain. That, coupled with some not insignificant avalanche hazard from a couple of unexpected evening snow storms has forced us to temper our ambitions for the summit this go around. While disappointed, the team was understanding and in full agreement that getting down safe and sound was our priority. While a handful of folks opted to descend to the comforts of life at sea level, the rest of us explored the upper mountain as much as we could and had a great day enjoying the glaciers and crevasses of Mt Rainier. Later, as the now normal afternoon snow storm continues to dump snow at Muir here, we're passing the afternoon and evening talking about mountains, climbing and the tall tales that take root in such firmament. We're planning on an early departure tomorrow morning when we hope the skies will have cleared and the sun will shine on our descent. See you soon. RMI Guides Brent Okita, Dustin Wittmier, James Bealer and the team

The Four Day Summit Climb teams August 23 - 26 led by RMI Guides JJ Justman and Mike King were approaching the crater rim just before 7 am. All of the climbers on Mike King's team were able to reach the summit!. Nice work team! JJ reported 10 mph winds and cold temps with climbers wearing their parkas. It's a beautiful day and a great climb. The teams will return to Camp Muir and then continue their descent to Paradise. Congratulations to today's Summit Climb teams!

Dave Hahn calling in from Pheriche on our Everest climb. Hey, We're still in black out zone. A temporary black out for all internet and cell phones, so I'm calling from the satellite phone. It's our last night in Pheriche tonight. We had a great easy day here in Pheriche, the team went hiking this morning about 1500 feet above Pheriche about 15,500' or so. It was a nice hike and nice views of Makalu the 5th highest mountain, we had views of Lhotse, Cho Oyu the 6th highest mountain, great views all around. And everybody is feeling really well. We attended a high altitude medicine lecture that was given by the Himalayan Rescue Association next door in the afternoon. We then had a pretty easy afternoon of resting, playing games, reading and nice dinner. A nice treat for us, Casey Grom's Base Camp and Island Peak Trekking Group fresh from Base Camp shared the the dining room with us for the evening, It was nice to visit with some friends. We're looking forward to moving up to Lobuche. It is currently nice, but we will see what we get this evening. A things being equal we be in Lobuche tomorrow. We will keep you informed. RMI Guide Dave Hahn and Team

June 9, 2014 - 10:15 pm After two days of climbing, we took a rest day today at 14,200' Camp on Mt. McKinley. We enjoyed a leisurely morning of coffee drinking and a breakfast of cream cheese and lox bagels as we relaxed and enjoyed some sun in Genet Basin. In the afternoon we took to the snow saws and built walls around our camp that would make Troy look like a toy castle. More relaxing followed as snow began to fall. We are hoping to make a carry up to the West Rib, around 16,200', tomorrow but we'll see what the weather allows. That's all for now. Thanks for following RMI Guides Eric Frank & Geoff Schellens

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Hello again everyone, After all the hard work to prepare for this trip we have finally arrived at the time to reward ourselves.Today we set off on our 3 and half days of safari and started off with a stop at Lake Manyara known for its plentiful flamingos and tree climbing lions. Although we didn't see the tree climbing lions, we did manage to see plenty of wildebeest, zebras, flamingos, giraffe, baboons, and got up close to several elephants. We even had a rare sighting of a green mamba. We have arrived and are fully enjoying the hospitality of the amazing plantation lodge. See for yourself [url=http://www.plantation-lodge.com]http://www.plantation-lodge.com[/url]. Living the good life! RMI Guide Casey and Crew

The Four Day Summit Climb reached the summit this morning at 7 a.m. RMI Guides Brent Okita and Tyler Reid radioed from Columbia Crest reporting light winds and clear skies. They began their descent at 8:15 a.m. and will check in from Camp Muir before starting the last leg of their journey back to Paradise. Congratulations!

We are enjoying the beautiful and interesting indigenous market in Otovalo this morning. Our senses are overwhelmed here-- with all of the colors of the woven textiles, the smells of various types of local dishes, and the hustle and bustle of Saturday's market. After lunch we will head up to the climbers' hut on Cayambe, and get in position for our summit attempt tomorrow morning. I will be in touch tomorrow.

We dragged out an oxygen bottle to practice with, just after breakfast. It does take a little practice, by the way, to get good with the systems we rely on up high. Today we were just familiarizing ourselves with how the regulators attach to the bottles, how the hoses attach to the regulators, and how the masks attach to the face. I like doing this sort of run-through down in the thick air on a rest day in the sunshine so that when we have to get up in the middle of the night at a bajillion feet above sea level with cold hands and dim brains, we can maybe muddle through and get our hook-ups and flow-rates right. It all seemed reasonably simple this morning, and each of my little team put the gas bottle carefully in their pack, the mask on their face and some goggles or glasses on their eyeballs, and then took the rig for a test drive around camp. Over the radio, we could hear the gang with Peter Whittaker up above as they were taking another stroll on the Lhotse Face. It all sounded like it was going well as they checked in with one another and pointed out interesting features along the route. We heard that Jake Norton was coming down to BC to deal with a chest cold and, like most news, we immediately sorted it into its good and bad components. The bad news: Jake would need to slow down long enough to get well. The good news: Jake is a smart, strong guy who knows how to shake a typical, run-of-the-mill expedition illness out of his system, and we won't mind having him around in BC. Erica Dohring and I went for a glacier walk after lunch. I do want her following the slacker example that Seth and I set for getting quality rest during our BC downtime. She is a voracious reader, which ought to qualify her for a fine life of expeditioning. I'm impressed with the way she orders her time, alternating between books for fun, books for school, and the odd movie on a borrowed iPod Touch. That is good resting, and it is important, but I also wanted to mix in a little exercise clambering around in the glacier today. I'm a big believer in keeping the legs stretched and the reflexes tuned for making awkward steps. We went out for about two hours, finding our way to a medial moraine and then hiking down-glacier with an occasional semi-frozen stream crossing to negotiate. I'm trying to teach Erica to violently knock over every fragile pinnacle of ice and balancing rock that she encounters...for no particular reason...and she is rapidly gaining skill in this department. The late afternoon is gray and overcast with a hint of snow flurries. We've gotten so used to the thunder of avalanches now at BC that it takes a particularly loud and violent one to get us out of the tents for a look. At the moment, though, it is quiet and cold enough that the team is starting to find their way to the dining tent for hot drinks, gossip magazines, and card games. Tomorrow, we'll be a little busy preparing for the mountain again, and my guess is that we will be torn between lazy thoughts of staying indefinitely in BC and antsy thoughts of getting up where the action is again.

June 26, 2014 - 9:40 pm PT We set out Tuesday morning to move up to 17k when circumstances both unfortunate and out of our control forced us back down to 14k camp. We made the wise mountaineering decision to forgo the summit for another time and begin the arduous trek back to Denali's Basecamp. We made it back to Basecamp around ten yesterday morning and were disheartened to hear that although clear here, the planes were not flying because of weather between here and Talkeetna. We set up camp and made the best of being stuck in the Alaska range. Although we thought our adventure was winding down, we woke up last night to over a foot and a half of snow threatening our tent. We shoveled around camp for over two hours helping other teams that had tents collapse. When the snow finally slowed down this morning, we had collected well over three feet! Although it was fun to see that much snow, it also meant we needed to put on our snowshoes to stomp down an entire runway filled with nearly waste deep, wet snow. The weather never really cleared today, but we are hoping that we will not receive as much snow tonight and the weather will be clear for flight activity to resume tomorrow. RMI Guide Mike Haugen and Team "The Ocho"

On The Map