Summit!
At 8:45 am RMI Guide Dave Hahn radioed to say, "We are walking into the Crater Rim." The mountain has a cloud cap with some high winds and also some sunny skies. The teams will spend some time on top before starting their descent.
Congratulations to today's summit climbers!
Hi everybody. This is Casey Grom checking from the Kilimanjaro trip. Just wanted to let you know that all is going well here in Tanzania. We made about an hour and a half drive to the base of Kilimanjaro. Once we arrived at the gate, it took a little while to get all our gear sorted and weighed and allotted to the porters that we're going to have helping us on this climb. It took about an hour waiting there and getting registered and taking care of all our permits and stuff. We then were able to hit the trail. We left at about 11 a.m. and we walked literally right from the park gates right into the thick forest that surrounds the base of Kilimanjaro. We spent the entire day thankfully protected from the sun, in the trees and nice cool weather. We made it to camp with just a few sprinkles of rain falling on us. Now that we're here up at about 10,000 feet, the sky is clear and it's a beautiful evening and the team is doing great. Our plan is to get a good night's sleep here, and then hopefully get up early in the morning and punch out just above the tree line and up onto Shira Plateau. All is well; the team is doing great and we're off to bed. We'll check in and hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to get my cellphone to connect and get a few photos out to you guys. Alright, that's it for now. Thanks for following.
RMI Guide Casey Grom
Update at 7:00 a.m. - RMI Guide Leon Davis and his team are on the Mt. Rainier summit! The weather is sunny skies and winds about 20 mph with a cloud deck just below 10,000'. The team is currently on top and will check in with us when they begin their descent.
Congratulations to today's summit climb team!
Monday, March 27th, 10:00 pm PST
Hey, everybody this is Casey Grom checking in from Everest Base Camp. Just wanted to let you know that the Base Camp Trek team finally made it into camp yesterday afternoon. We had a nice climb or hike of Kala Patar, which is the high point of our trip, a little over 18,000 feet and then dropped back down and made a three-hour hike into Base Camp behind a long line of about 150 yaks bringing in all the gear and food and things necessary for the expeditions over here this season. Last night the phone was really cold so it didn't hold a charge. I had to get it fired up this morning so we could reach out to you guys and let you know we're doing great. A beautiful sunny day, a little bit windy here today as you can probably hear. The team's doing great, and we just wrapped up a big breakfast of pancakes, bacon, and plenty of coffee. Thankfully our base camp crew just got the nice hot shower operational, and so we're going to take our take our time and let everybody get washed up, cleaned up. If we can we're going to do a short little walk here around camp, and then if all goes well our plan is to have dinner here tonight, spend one more night, and then head back down hill tomorrow.
RMI Guide Casey Grom
RMI Guide Casey Grom calls in from Everest Base Camp.
Congrats, Linda! Sounds like an amazing trip. We just watched a video on YouTube of a full basecamp trek to get an idea of the experience. Have a safe trip back. -Ben and Jamie.
Posted by: Ben Beckley on 3/29/2017 at 3:14 am
Congratulations to the group on getting to Base Camp. Sounds like a great adventure. Can’t wait to hear all the details and see the photos. Safe travels back down.
Posted by: Neal White Bernie Mahan on 3/28/2017 at 8:19 pm
Sunday July 12th 7:41 pm PT
The team woke at midnight to cloud and light snow at 11,000 ft. We got up and rallied anyway, packing and eating a hot breakfast. We set off into the murk at around 2:30 AM and snowshoed for several hours by Braille in the whiteout. Finally we got a little visibility down at 8000 ft, the base of Ski Hill. The glacier surface didn't freeze up last night and so we had some nervous moments crossing soft and saggy crevasse bridges. One of our team went neck-deep in a complicated hole just below Mt. Francis - one of the very last crevasses we had to deal with, actually. We plucked him from the ice, but not without a fair bit of grunting and cursing and straining at the ropes. Then it was a simple but strenuous uphill climb to the old site of basecamp (there is nothing there now -which is normal in late season). Quite literally, we'd just put our packs down, at around 11:40 AM, when two beautiful K2 Aviation ski otters landed and took us to Talkeetna. The afternoon was a busy one, drying and sorting everything around the K2 hangar and connecting to the world again. We'll have a victory dinner tonight at the West Rib, perhaps with a toast or two thrown in. And then we look forward to a comfortable night's sleep at the Talkeetna Motel. Tomorrow we'll leave each other and be out on our own for the first time in three weeks.
Thanks very much for keeping track of our climb.
Until Next Time,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Gary/Team Hahn: Congratulations on a safe and exciting trip. Finish strong. Enjoy the moments of satisfaction that mother nature has provided and allowed.
We’ll look forward to hearing all about it.
Now get eastward bound to St Louis. No hitchhiking, no motorcycles, and no sleeping in the wooods. All the best,
Chip
Posted by: Chip Sniffin on 7/13/2015 at 6:11 am
Thanks Dave Hahn and your co-guides for excellent job!!! I am so happy your expedition is safe now and saying goodbye&luck; to each other :-)
Wednesday June 10th 5:30 pm PT
Today brings more snow to Mt. McKinley at 14,000ft. After coffee, bagels and bacon everyone spent a few hours lounging in their tents before starting the afternoon projects. The camp project consisted of building an enclosed toilet. A true architectural feat, I might add. The secondary project was a remodel of the posh tent, which consisted of lowering the floor to give us a bit more headroom.
Our camp looks great and hopefully we will get some good weather coming our way this weekend.
RMI Guide Tyler Jones
DG, Tyler,
Sounds like the Taj Ma Staul is the evnv of camp 14 again now to stand guard to keep everyone else from using it. Hope the weather gets better for you guys so wish I was there. Have a safe and fun climb.
Resting at 17,000. Not much to report on today other than the wind. It continues to blow and blow. We all slept in after a tough climb yesterday. That sure was nice. After breakfast (we’ve all begun to really love instant oatmeal) we reinforced our camp walls. Unfortunately it had not gotten any easier to cut blocks out of the snow. Oh well, a little elbow grease and the walls were looking good.
No one tried to go to the summit today. The wind is just too high. A few more groups have arrived in camp and the folks that have been here longer than us are starting to get a little nervous about having to go down without taking a shot at the summit. We’re still sitting pretty good, but a few more days of this and we’ll have to go down too.
Hello again from 17,000' Camp. The views up here have been rewarding. Our camp is settled above the clouds and other Alaska range peaks. We went to bed early last night with high hopes of getting up for our final summit push. Unfortunately we awoke to less than ideal winds at camp and windy spindrifts on Denali Pass. We started the day with breakfast and hot drinks in our tents to stay out of the elements and have been hunkered down to avoid the cold winds. We’re patient, we’re staying warm and we’re very motivated for another attempt tomorrow!
Greetings everyone,
Our team spent the contingency weather day hanging out in Cheget. We spent the day walking around town, enjoying the new coffee shop in town and of course horseback riding Russian style! Right now we're all relaxing before heading out to a celebratory dinner with the team. Hopefully we'll survive the vodka associated with tonight's traditional Russian celebration, hosted by our gracious local tour operator. Everyone is in good spirits and looking forward to heading to beautiful St. Petersburg early tomorrow.
Casey and Comrades
How often do you get to lounge in the warm sun on a boat as you zip across the Straights of Magellan? We went out to see the penguins and sea lions today and couldn't stop taking pictures. Not a cloud in sight on this hot summer day so we mirrored the sea lions and laid out in the sun. The penguins make everyone smile as they waddle around awkwardly on land and smoothly dart through the water.
This afternoon we made it to Puerto Natales where we tasted the Calafate beer which has a sweet almost blueberry flavor. Legend has it if you eat some Calafate berries you will return, and if you eat a lot then you will just stay in Patagonia. I think right now, we are all happy to eat some. We just completed a group gear check and pack and are off to explore this funky town for the evening. Tomorrow we hit the trail!
RMI Guide Christina Dale
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Congratulations, Francesca and Nick! So excited for you! Unbelievably beautiful!
Posted by: Marianne Weaver on 6/5/2018 at 9:47 am
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