The first Easton Glacier expedition of the 2025 season, led by RMI Guide Sam Marjerison, reached the summit of Mt. Baker yesterday evening. After leaving the summit and spending the night back at high camp, the team will head down the mountain this morning to celebrate their success with friends, family, and a nice warm meal.
We wanted some sunlight on the Easton glacier so route finding would be a little easier after several days of rain and no summits of Mt. Baker. By sunrise we had tried three different tracks through the broken up glacier, which all ended in absent snow bridges. Two of the guides went out to sniff out a 4th option that we could see from our break below 8,000’. The Team kept uphill for another 700’ before encountering warm snow and a snow bridge that didn’t look like it would last much longer let alone allow nine people to cross it. Being late in the morning and deteriorating visibility above us, we made the difficult decision to turn around and come back to camp. We enjoyed some great climbing and views of the surrounding peaks as we descended. At camp now after a good nap we are learning some skills and going to eat dinner. Tomorrow morning the team will pack up and descend to the trailhead.
RMI Guide Mike King
RMI Guide Andy Bond and the Expedition Skills Seminar - Kautz team reached to summit of Mt. Rainier today. After two days of Technical Training, the team ascended the Kautz Route learning technical skills they moved up to their high camp on the mountain. Today the team put the skills to work and successfully climbed the challenging Kautz Ice Chute en route to the Summit. The team has started their descent and will spend another night on the mountain before returning to Rainier Basecamp.
Congratulations 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
The Four Day Summit Climb led by RMI Guides Brent Okita and Solveig Waterfall reached the summit of Mt. Rainier and are now on the descent. Brent reported clear and beautiful skies with winds of about 25 mph.
Congratulations today's team!
As I wrapped up this trip, I couldn't help but remember the last time I visited Ixta. I was guiding a man in his 70's up. He was making the trip on his own. The extraordinary thing: he was on a lot of medication, he had a stint placed in his heart and a piece of his lung removed. His effort was impressive. We made four different expeditions, increasing the number of O2 bottles used during the ascent.
When I’m on climbs like the one I just finished, I’m also reminded of my mission to be an ambassador for the sport (and to keep people smiling even when they are hurting). I want people who join me, especially when it’s their first time climbing, to be challenged, but not to be destroyed because it’s too tough. The trip I just finished was with a great group—novices, but an enthusiastic crowd for sure. Everyone checked their egos at the airport when we landed and fully embraced the journey. We also developed a shared responsibility that bonds us on the climb and I think long after it’s over.
In the end, these climbs can change people’s perspective on life and things back home especially when the conditions are extreme. What happens on the mountain, combined with that disconnect from the daily grind, is essentially a recharging through depletion, fed by the beauty and simplicity of nature along the way, as well as the experiencing of different cultures. The once-in-a-lifetime climb is more than just the trip itself. It’s the memories, and the gratitude we develop for being healthy enough to experience something so amazing, yet take on something totally out of our comfort zone. It’s also stepping back when we are home taking nothing for granted.
I remind everyone I work with to remember it’s not about the summit, it’s the entire experience that matters—that’s what will fill their tanks months after they’ve unpacked and settled back into life. This group—they fully embraced that notion. They didn’t grab for just a slice on the mountain—they went for the entire pie. I love introducing newcomers with that kind of get-it-done attitude to this sport. These guys accepted the challenges that came with it and had a laugh doing so.
I’m fortunate to have great clients and work for a great company like RMI. Both remind me, and I hope by reading this reminds you (and my latest team!), to get out there and do something big every day. Mount Rainier is the perfect intro for climbing novices. It allows curious people to stop wondering and get out there and try something—and to share something really cool with family and friends. And remember that guy in his 70's? He didn’t tackle Mount Everest, but his conquest was equally butt-kicking. Ixta was his Everest. Any mountain, or challenge for that matter, can be an Everest-sized achievement.
Great job team!
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
This is one of the most beautiful pieces I have ever read about the philosophy of alpinism. Thank you Mark!
Posted by: Wolf Riehle on 8/20/2015 at 4:51 am
Mark did an unbelievable job getting us as far up Orizaba as we got, and then letting us make the call on whether we wanted to push for the summit late in the day. We opted not to for safety (and a few other reasons,) but Mark made sure to put the whole thing in context for us, and did so brilliantly. It’s never about the result, but about the climb.
June 22, 2015 - 6:34 pm PT
Greetings from day two up here at 11 Camp where our team is resting after a pretty mellow back-carry down to 9,600'. We retrieved the cache of food and fuel we left behind yesterday on our move up and have been enjoying partly cloudy skies and pretty civilized temperatures thus far. The team has been taking advantage of the good weather by staying on the move. Tomorrow we're hoping to put a cache in up around Windy Corner at around 13,900' that will hopefully set us up well for a move up to Camp 4 at just over 14,000' in the next few days. Everyone is moving well and excited to keep on pushing up the mountain bit by bit. Not much else to report other than that the mountain feels quite empty. Not that we're lonely or anything, just enjoying some relatively uncommon solitude up here. All's well thus far!
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
May 16th 2:06 am PT
Good morning from Little Switzerland. We had an awesome day yesterday!!! We woke up to marginal weather and spent the morning mastering lead climbing techniques and tricks at the belay. As things stabilized, we broke again into groups and climbers took the lead and responsibility to guide us to Big Arapiles, both up and down; It was an incredible outing and Vanessa, Tyler, Kyle, John and Paul made us proud.
Our plan today may change, as we are receiving a ton of snow. We'll check back in later and let you know.
Standing by from the Pika Glacier,
RMI Guides Elias de Andres Martos, Sean Collon, Andy Hildebrand, and team
First off a big thanks to everybody and their good weather vibes for us down in Mexico. We were able to sneak one in on Orizaba today as the only climbers to stand on top. Beautiful day we were climbing in a very volatile weather situation, but we were able to move around and get to where we needed to be at just the right time, and were able to go stand on top. It was a wonderful day with a great crew. Thanks so much for sharing everybody with us and we look forward to seeing you all in the next day or two when we get home. Thanks so much.
RMI Guide Jake Beren
RMI Guide Jake Beren calls in after the team's successful Orizaba summit.
Congrats everyone!! Excelsior John. So happy for each of you. You were all in my thoughts all weekend. Jake, Christina, Alfredo sounds like you where champs finding a way through the weather.
Hello everyone and welcome to RMI's July 25th Mt. Elbrus trip!
After some very long flights the team safely arrived yesterday, we briefly touched base about today's plan before folks retired to catch up on some much needed sleep.
Today we had our official team meeting over breakfast at our hotel. It was hard to concentrate while enjoying plenty of fresh bread, cheeses, meats, juice and other delightful things. Once our bellies were full we stumbled out the door to explore the Kremlin and Red Square which is only a short distance away. A few folks visited Lenin's tomb and a few of us wandered around the area enjoying the site.
We met our tour guide around 10:30 am and spent much of the day with her visiting St. Basil's Cathedral, the Kremlin, and the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. Our tour guide even took us on a brief tour of the amazing Moscow subway - it has a 194 different stops and most are elaborately decorated and incredibly clean! We did visit the famous Red Square but for unknown reasons it was closed and blocked off today.
Afterwards we took a short break where most of us took cat naps to help adjust to the almost 12 hour time change and then headed back out for a quick dinner before calling it a night.
Everyone is doing great!
RMI Guide Casey Grom and Team
This is one of the most beautiful pieces I have ever read about the philosophy of alpinism. Thank you Mark!
Posted by: Wolf Riehle on 8/20/2015 at 4:51 am
Mark did an unbelievable job getting us as far up Orizaba as we got, and then letting us make the call on whether we wanted to push for the summit late in the day. We opted not to for safety (and a few other reasons,) but Mark made sure to put the whole thing in context for us, and did so brilliantly. It’s never about the result, but about the climb.
You are EL HOMBRE, Mark.
Spencer Hall
SB Nation
Posted by: Spencer Hall on 8/19/2015 at 5:19 pm
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