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Today was hot... Our team woke up after a last night under a roof and in a real bed and loaded up on coffee and scrambled eggs before heading back over to Grajales' packing facility. We put the finishing touches on our packing job for the mules and caught a transfer from Penitentes over to Punta de Vacas where our journey truly began. We took off from the trailhead a little after 10 am and it was already blazing. Strong sun and high temperatures made for a hard day but our team showed a lot of strength by dispensing the first stretch of the trek to basecamp in good time and with strong form. Occasional breezes and some late afternoon wind made the heat bearable. We got moved in to our first camp at
Pampa de Leñas after the mule drivers unloaded our gear and waited for a rendezvous with
Jake's descending RMI team. Our minestrone soup was supplemented by delicious beef from the asado that the muleteers had prepared for Jake's crew. It turns out that our friends at Grajales knew that Gabi, Jake, and myself would all be in Leñas tonight and sent up extra meat for a celebration. Now, I'm laying under the stars with a full belly thankful for great friends and excited for tomorrow's continued adventure with a great crew!
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
Everything is well, we all made it onto the glacier on the southeast fork of the Kahiltna. We’re finally all back together. Everyone is super excited to reunite after 30 hours of being separated with some of us still in Talkeetna and others on the Kahiltna glacier and trying to figure out what was going to happen next. But things are going well here, we had some dinner, we’re hanging out in our camp, and are getting ready to take off. Our plan, if the weather allows, will be to leave from camp late in the evening tonight/ early morning and walk up to our first camp at 7,800’ on the main Kahiltna. Hope all is well there, everything is great here.
Everyone is super excited to be here. It looks like we have a forecast in the future to be really nice for us. Talk to you guys soon.
Cheers!
RMI Guide Tyler Jones
On The Map
We awoke at Camp 4 to clouds and light wind, but winds are still strong up high on the ridge to the 17,200' camp. So we're still here at 14,000', waiting for good weather. Fortunately it's pretty pleasant down here in camp. We have plenty of food and fuel, so we'll just wait until the winds subside in order to move up higher. We're all eager to climb, but also patient for good weather to arrive. We all know this is part of expedition climbing...waiting for a good weather window, resting, and acclimating.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
Yesterday we flew in to Kahiltna Base Camp to start our climb. The weather was beautiful, and everyone enjoyed the spectacular flight from Talkeetna; flying over the tundra and then into the Alaska Range; seeing the extensive span of mountains, with the dominating presence of Hunter, Foraker, and our objective, Denali; passing the Pika and the Ruth Glaciers then over the Kahiltna and landing on the glacier. We arrived at Base Camp early, and took advantage of the good weather to pack our equipment and move to Camp 1 at the base of Ski Hill.
Today we moved up to Camp 2 pulling our sleds loaded down with equipment, food and fuel for the next couple of weeks. The conditions have been great for traveling and the weather cooperative. Some clouds moved in this afternoon and very light snow started as we got to camp. The forecast looks good, with some light snow tonight and tomorrow; we should be able to get to Camp 3 (11,200') tomorrow.
Everyone is doing well. We'll be in touch again soon.
Cheers,
RMI Guide Mike Walter
Good morning from little Swiss,
We came to an end, but not without reward...Yesterday we had, after a patient wait for blue skies, the most amazing of the climbing days we could hope for.
the Middle Troll, reigning over the Pika, towered for hours above us, as its splitter granite cracks discerned a feasible access to its airy summit. The team climbed seamlessly, and all the training of the last week payed for an incredibly well oiled "uphilling" engine. We climbed into the evening, as the morning and early afternoon were still foggy; climbing into the evening light of Alaska's summer was very special.
We're now cooking our breakfast and soon we'll fly back to civilization... wait to see our pictures!
RMI Guide Elias deAndres Martos & Team
May 20, 2015 - 12:07 am PT
We wanted to get up to 13,500' to cache today, but the weather had other plans. Clouds and snow were moving quickly over the Polo Field and
West Buttress above us, and gave us all the clues we needed to guess what would be going on at Windy Corner. After watching the trend for a couple of hours and not seeing any improvement, we decided to sit tight and take a tent day. Sure enough, around noon the wind direction shifted and brought strong, gusty winds to camp, along with a fair bit of snow. The team did the tent time triathlon, competing in three events: napping (best napping and longest), spades, and sport eating lunch food. By dinner, the clouds above us started to break and the sun peaked through. We've got 6 inches of nice new fluffy snow, and the view as we crawled into our sleeping bags was sparkly and beautiful. We'll add some more sleep hours, and hope that we wake up to conducive conditions for getting our cache in tomorrow!
RMI Guides Pete, Josh, Robby, and team
On The Map
Another great day here on Killimanjaro. We had about 12 hours in the tents last night. The team used them well, for a strong group of climbers met the challenge to our new camp at 13,000 ft Baranco camp. We did have to climb up to a high point at 14,700', an altitude record for a lot of the group, to get here. No rain today which was very nice and everybody is resting and enjoying peanuts and popcorn in the dining tent.
The groups performance is all I could hope for. If we keep this up, with a little luck, we will soon be standing on the roof of Africa.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
We're at 11,200 feet! The camp is quite the scene as there are at least 6 nationalities represented. The weather today was stellar and we moved smoothly into camp. We're all set up for a few days here, and tomorrow we plan to take a well deserved rest day.
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
Tuesday, June 11, 2019 - 9:47 PM PT
Greetings from 17,000' Camp!
We made great time during a beautiful sunny day moving from 14,200’ to our
High Camp here at 17,200’. The team did exceptionally well, and made quick work of building camp in the old confines of JM’s Denali Team. Some afternoon rest was had and some dehydrated high mountain food was tolerated. We’ve got a decent forecast for tomorrow...but we know that this mountain will have the final say tomorrow when we wake up. We’re hopeful for some calm winds and hopeful to make an honest go at the summit tomorrow. The team has put a ton of work into this expedition thus far, and we’re all ecstatic to be in the position we are here at 17 Camp. We’ll let you know how it goes!
RMI Guides Robby, Nick, Joe, and Team Prepped’n Ready
On The Map
RMI Guide Dave Hahn led his team to the top of
Mt. Rainier this morning. He reported beautiful skies and no wind. They began their descent at 7:02 a.m.
Congratulations to the team!
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Hi Mer, this is so great to be able to follow you. Sounds wonderful! Love Mom and Dad
Posted by: Delese and Steve on 1/8/2014 at 5:00 pm
Good Luck, Patrick and all you climbers. We’ll be following you every day!
Love, Mom and Dad
Posted by: sheila on 1/7/2014 at 5:50 pm
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