Today was a big day! Skies were clear which meant we would be flying. The team got their last lattes and drip coffees before making their way to the hanger. The pilot told us half the team would fly then he would come back for the rest of us. This gave the team time to get dialed with sled rigging and tent set up before arriving on the glacier and for those on the glacier time to learn too. As always the flight in was amazing. The views are stunning. The peaks of the Alaska Range are rocky and snowy and big. A bumpy landing got the team all safely on the glacier. The pilots are truly amazing at what they do. After some quick work shuffling gear and rigging up we hit the Kahiltna glacier running. Well not running. Slowly waddling in our snowshoes and heavy packs. We crushed the downhill and made smooth work of the uphill. You can tell the team did great training and it sure paid off with the smooth sailing we had getting to camp. It's all a learning curve right now, trying to get in a groove setting up camp. In a couple days we will be smooth as butter at it. Pizza for dinner always makes the heart and stomach happy. Our outdoor seating had amazing views of the surrounding peaks. Tomorrow we will hopefully do a carry to 9,600' give or take. We are hoping the storm stays away or at least gives us the morning/early afternoon. As for now, we are all getting our gear organized and into our sleeping bags for a well deserved rest.
The Expedition Skills Seminar - Emmons August 10 - 15, 2019 led by RMI Guide JT Schmitt made their summit attempt today after several days of training on and off the mountain. Firm and steep conditions on the route today prevented the team from reaching the summit. The climbers enjoyed testing their climbing skills on challenging terrain. They are now back at Camp Schurman and will continue training. Tomorrow they will break camp and return to the trailhead and back to Rainier BaseCamp.
Tuesday, June 18, 2019 - 9:01 PM PT
Today started out much the same as yesterday. We hurried through breakfast and headed to the airstrip to see what the flying conditions were for the morning. We received an optimistic thumbs down due to fog in basecamp. The pilots told us to be on standby because the weather was on an improving trend. After hanging out for a couple of hours we got the word that we could fly.
After an amazing flight over the lush green Alaska terrain and into the stark mountians of the Alaska Range, we were delivered to basecamp safe and sound. We spent the day getting everything organized and ready to move to our next camp tonight. We travel at night in the lower glacier because the crevasse bridges are more firm and the sleds drag much easier when things are frozen. Let's hope the weather keeps improving.
RMI Guide Mike Haugen
Tuesday, May 28, 2019 - 8:50 PM PT
What a day! We woke to great weather, so we saddled up and hit the glacier towards Radio Tower. Felt great to stretch the legs and walk up hill. We zigged and zagged around crevasses, booted up some steeper terrain, and walked a narrow ridge. At the end of it all was great views of the surrounding peaks. Such a fun day to use the skills we have learned and be rewarded by jaw dropping beauty. After walking down in what felt like a microwave of heat, we all took a well-deserved nap before dinner. Nothing like laying down in a warm tent full of down to make you doze off into a dreamy state. Tomorrow we plan on packing up and moving camp up glacier to go explore more of the area. We will see what we get to play on or in in the next coming days.
Talk to you all later,
RMI Guide Hannah Smith and team
Tuesday, May 21, 2019 8:43 pm PT
The winds from the previous day had subsided overnight an we woke up to mostly clear skies. You could see the south winds hammering the pipe West Buttress from camp. By the time we made it through breakfast, the winds dropped and we were in camp. With warmer temps forecasted and only light winds in camp we opted to try for the move. Long story short, it was windy. The kind of wind that your walking straight into for hours. The team did well taking care of hands, feet and faces. We finally found a break from the torrent at 13,600ft. A long hard day brought us to our new home here at 14,000ft. With camp finally set up, we're all looking forward to a hot drink and a big dinner. Tomorrow we'll try and back carry to 13.6k to pick up our cached gear then enjoy the afternoon off to rest and recover. That's all for now, life is good!
RMI Guide Steve Gately
A few years ago I had the pleasure to work with Caleb Ladue, RMI guide on his first trip here on Aconcagua. We spent Christmas with our group at base camp. Caleb had bought a bunch of treats and little bottles of champagne for our team to enjoy, one of which was TANG mimosas. He had somehow grabbed a sock from each climber without them knowing and when the team walked into our dining tent there hung a stocking for each of them. Caleb passed away in a skiing accident not far from where we are now in the Andes last fall. In his memory, we started our holiday morning off with stockings and hot drinks delivered to the Team’s tents. The champagne would have been to heavy to get up this high and not benefited our acclimatization so we opted for coffee.
The Team is doing well and excited for a rest day. The weather is supposed to get windy for the next 3-5 days. Advancing our schedule isn’t in the cards so we will wait to see what the weather gives us and hopefully have a summit bid Sunday-Monday. This will get us back to Mendoza for flights home. Until then we are going to reinforce camp and enjoy the calm air and warm tents.
The office sent in your blog comments, we will read them during breakfast, thanks for supporting the Team from a far, it means a lot to them. Merry Christmas from 18,000’.
RMI Guide Mike King
Thinking of you and your journey, Neil!!! Be safe :- )
Posted by: Patricia A Darcangelo on 12/28/2018 at 3:25 am
We are missing you, Neil! Here’s the deal….hope you are having a great time and cannot wait to hear your stories. Steelers on the outside looking in and Penguins stink….you know I had to write that. Stay safe and see you in the new year. Go Badgers!
The Four Day Summit Climb led by RMI Guide JJ Justman reached the crater rim of Mt. Rainier at 6:30 am. The team spent an hour on the summit enjoying clear skies and light winds. They began their descent at 7:30 en route to Camp Muir. They will take a short rest at Camp Muir before continuing down to Paradise.
Congratulations to today's Summit Climb Team!
May 28, 2014 - 11:25 pm PT
We weren't surprised to wake up to more snow and evidence of winds up high today. It's part of the process, and it took the team one glance up to the Buttress to know that we'd be sitting in camp again today. To combat the sitting, we made a checkers/ chess board, with jolly ranches and butterscotch for checkers, and Robby's artistic renditions for chess pieces. The forecast we got tonight looks like it may be another few days before we get our window, but spirits are high, and we're very comfortable here at 14 until that time comes. We're keeping our fingers crossed for the shift in weather we're looking for.
We'll be in touch tomorrow.
RMI Guides Pete, Robby, Josh, and team
The clouds cleared with sunset last night, but enough of them stuck around to make the moonrise spectacular through bright pillows of distant cumulus with lightning bolts adding to the show. It was an easy night at basecamp although it was somewhat curious -so far up a mountain- to be serenaded by latin hip-hop and rap tunes well into the evening as a dance party -presumably held for some returning and victorious summit climbers- went on for hours, long after we'd all climbed into our sleeping bags and clicked off the headlights. This didn't seem to adversly effect anyone's mood in the morning though. All seemed to have gotten the neccessary rest. We were excited for the day's climbing. Heavy loads were shouldered after a great breakfast. We hit the trail in bright sunshine at around 9 AM and made steady progress up on narrow trails of broken rock and volcanic dirt. Without much trouble at all, we crossed the "East Glacier" on piles of rocky rubble and enjoyed some great views of the Polish Glacier above. We'd prepared ourselves for six hours of uphill toil if that was what it would take to get food, fuel and gear to our planned site for Camp One, but in the end, we did it in much less time as all were feeling good and enjoying the exercise. Peter, Ed and Melissa, our veterans of previous Aconcagua climbs, were each happy to see that a good portion of our route today was snow covered. Our photographers and videographers were charmed with the nature of that snow cover since we walked for some time up a steep track through neve-penitente. Intense sunlight on the snow surface, with the addition of a little dirt blown onto that snow from surrounding ridges had formed its surface into a series of eight-foot high pinnacles. Artistically wonderful, such snow formations would be tough to travel through without the established track. Jake Norton could often be spied wedged between pinnacles with his camera pointed through the jagged openings onto the trail. Kent Harvey, Thom Pollard and Gerry Moffat set up ambush after ambush to capture images of our climbers, seemingly climbing the back of a great white porcupine. Rachel broke her altitude record as she came smiling into the site of our intended gear dump at 16,304 ft. Ever gracious, she thanked Chad and Seth for their guidance and hints while Tim, Andrew, Clark and Kelly were doing high fives and fist bumps with the rest of the guide team. We were already caching the gear at 1 PM and enjoying a look at the route ahead. Peter scouted a bit higher to find the perfect place for our tents following tomorrow's move. Melissa pointed out the ever-so-close sites for Camps II and III (those sites are not far distance-wise, but each represents a significant gain in altitude and so we all know that we'll be taking our time to get up to what we can now easily see... acclimatization is a slow but essential process to avoid altitude illness) We eventually left a gear cache and beat feet down the path and penitentes. We passed dozens of slowly trudging heavily laden upward-bound climbers... perhaps they were attendees of last night's dance party and thus on a late schedule for rising and seizing the day. Our work was all done by 3:30 PM as we pulled off boots back in basecamp and enjoyed the afternoon sun.
Tomorrow, if all goes well, we'll report in from Camp One.
After a night of less than stellar sleeping due to gusty winds and adjusting to the altitude we awoke to still skies and lovely sunshine. We ate a quick breakfast and we packed up all the gear we would carry up to cache at Camp 2 (Guanchos 3). The slow trudge uphill was a test and a new highest altitude reached for a majority of the team. Even though the air was thinner by the step we moved smoothly and efficiently.
Once we arrived at Camp 2, we sorted our gear and lounged about for an hour stressing our bodies to ready them to stay at this new altitude of 18,000'. Tomorrow we will move to up to make this camp our home, but today we followed the tried and true acclimatization method of climbing high and sleeping low. After returning to Camp 1, everyone relaxed for the rest of afternoon and enjoyed the now thick seeming air. After a hearty dinner of loaded mac and cheese it was off to bed for what will hopefully be a more restful night of sleep.
Hey Hannah!
I’m sending all the best thoughts and prayers for Perfect weather for you and your team!!!
Farmer Dave
Posted by: Dave Kestel on 6/6/2024 at 3:46 am
Great start to a great adventure! We’re so proud of you Dada! Stay safe and stay warm!
Posted by: Jessica on 6/5/2024 at 10:52 pm
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