Most Popular Entries

Our Aconcagua team is safe and sound back in high camp. It was a 13-hour day and I am so proud of the entire team! I'd like to go on and on but we have some tired little cookies in desperate need of a good meal and some hot drinks. We will send a great last dispatch from base camp tomorrow! RMI Guide JJ Justman

On The Map

Despite our being very much ready to break camp and head higher, the upper mountain wasn't ready for us. When the sun finally hit at 11 AM, it was coming through streamers of wind blown snow driven from the ridge crest that -coincidentally- was to be our goal for the day. We ate breakfast and eyeballed the clouds and winds, neither of which got better as we watched. The forecast had called for light winds and light cloud cover. We had to admit, that in every other location visible to us, that prediction seemed accurate... Except the one place we wanted to go. We watched as gust after gust drove snow straight down the length of the fixed ropes. In other parts of the world, we might have attempted to fight such a wind, but in this ultra cold environment, it wouldn't have been a fair fight. By mid-afternoon there was no letup and so a rest day was declared. Five teams camped around us did exactly the same thing. Two small teams already at high camp hunkered down and reported steady 25 knot winds with higher gusts. For being a bad-weather day, it was sunny and calm where we sat, slept, read, played cards, ate and drank. Tomorrow. Best Regards RMI Guide Dave Hahn

On The Map

Remember yesterday when the weather was nice for us...not so much today! We woke up to howling winds and snow. Instead of carrying a load to 17,000', we spent most of the day reinforcing our camp by making our snow block walls higher. It was a good team building exercise. We decided that the team had not really gotten the full "Degnarly" experience before today since our weather and travel has been pretty easy (relatively speaking). We are all safe and sound, hunkered down in our warm sleeping bags, and waiting to see what tomorrow's weather brings. We couldn't possibly have two days of bad weather on Denali right!? RMI Guide Mike Haugen

If you follow mountaineering much, you already know that climbers often don't do what they said they were going to do. And I assure you that there are good reasons for such contradictory and inconsistent behavior. For instance, yesterday I said that I would lead my sub-team of Erica, Seth, Kent and Ang Kaji in an effort to get up early and go on up the hill to ABC. I lied. We did get up early...at 3AM...and we did give it a try, but then we came back down to BC. It was a beautiful night and each of us got up and out of the tents professing to have slept well. There was a massively full moon lighting things as we swallowed coffee and rice porridge. There weren't any headlights already in the Icefall, and in fact we were the first to venture onto the route this morning. This didn't surprise me as many potential summit climbers are well down valley in the tea houses right now, taking a rest before their final bids on the mountain. Their Sherpa teams have, for the most part, already carried all the equipment that is needed for those final bids. So things are quiet on the climbing route at the moment and we seem to be the only folks still thinking of going up for practice and acclimatization. Being slightly out-of-synch with the general mob is exactly to my liking though. As we strapped on our spikes, I was pleased to contemplate cruising through the Icefall route without any traffic considerations. I led the way and began to experience a strange fringe benefit of being first. The glacier kept popping and snapping with my passage...sometimes playfully, sometimes with a rifle-crack that made one want to duck and cover. Lots of daytime melt water runs on the surface of a big glacier in Spring and it freezes solid in cracks and seams at night...whoever puts weight on it first breaks the new bonds. Knowing this intellectually and being surprised out of your socks by a loud CRACK on a quiet night are two different things. We'd been walking for just a half hour when the International Space Station whizzed through the dark sky over Lhotse's summit. Out to the West, the full moon was crashing dramatically to earth over Cholatse's summit. It was yet another very beautiful morning. But we all knew something was wrong, just the same. We weren't coming close to our intended pace for the day. Our initial hope was that Erica was just having a slow start, but after a couple of hours, it was clear that she was having more of an "off" day that we needed to pay attention to. Her knee was aching from an old twist and every awkward step up in the ice was a little slower as a result. These things happen to all of us...even when we've got big plans for the day. We'd already passed through the big avalanche scar on the route and were in the "popcorn" section when I did the math and figured it just didn't make sense for us to try getting to ABC as planned. We'd all be too tired, overworked and dehydrated from so much extra time spent out on the trail with packs on our backs. Better to get on back to BC, have Erica's knee checked by the HRA docs and with a green light, go for it again tomorrow...hoping for an "on" day. It was a little strange to be back in basecamp in time for the regularly scheduled breakfast with the gang, but I don't see it as too big a setback. Certainly not as big a setback as a grindingly slow day through the Icefall would have been. The rest of our team is still in a holding pattern, trying to get over minor ailments and trying to get enough exercise in so as to stay sane in this weather-waiting period. Luckily for their sanity, things clouded over and got cold, mean and nasty for the afternoon at BC. It is easier waiting for good weather when one feels like one is actually in bad weather, but of course the weather perceived from basecamp is not always the actual -and more significant- weather at 8000 meters. It doesn't take too much imagination and extrapolation today though to believe that things are rough and grim at 8000 meters, but rumor has it that climbers are camped at the South Col and gunning for the summit tonight. Good luck to them...if they happen to do what they said they were going to do, that is.

Hello again everyone The weather continues to be beautiful here on Mt. Elbrus for us. We started the day with a nice breakfast prepared by our amazing cook Dasha, then set out on our last acclimatizing hike just after 8 AM to make use of the slightly cooler weather and better snow conditions. The team did a great job hiking as we made our way up to about 15,000ft in three hours, setting a new elevation record for some. We stopped along the way to take a few breaks and enjoy the view as well as chat with the other climbers that are here from all over the world, including some friends who recently reached the summit of both Everest and Denali in the last 2 months! After reaching our high point we made our way back to camp just in time for another enjoyable lunch. We spent the afternoon hitting a volleyball around camp and just relaxing in our little huts after our big day. Everyone is doing well and in good spirits. RMI Guide Casey Grom and comrades

On The Map

We are back at Senior Reyes' historic soap factory turned climbers hostel. The Mexican music and loud fireworks are going off like we had some remote control. The roosters and dogs are going berserk. But all the local acoustic entertainment is just part of climbing and traveling in Mexico. We are wrapping up a great 10 days with a fun group of guys. We climbed and stood on top of three volcanoes, ate amazing food, sampled many of the local libations and enjoyed some of the clearest views of this area anyone in recent past has ever seen. This trip isn’t so much of an expedition as it’s a fun Mexican vacation where we climb high altitude volcanoes instead of sitting on the beach. If you need to test your mind, body and spirit at altitude this is a good choice. We will be getting an early start towards the airport tomorrow. Thanks for following along. RMI Guide Mike King

Hello, everybody. This is Casey Grom checking in from the Kilimanjaro Expedition. It is day four and finally we woke to a little bit of nice weather. There was a little bit of sunshine and some broken clouds. Before the clouds came back in, we finished our little camp luckily without having to wear Gore-tex today. That was super exciting for everybody. Today our first obstacle, which was the technical crux of this whole climb is the Barranco Wall and it was only about 20 minutes outside of camp where we start the ascent up the 1,000-foot rock wall. Luckily for us and everybody else, it is a nice broken pitch system that meanders and weaves it's way up this wall. It's still trekking but in a few places where we got to use our hands and baby steps through the trail. Today is a reasonably short day, only about four hours on the trail before we pulled into camp, which was once again fully set up and waiting on us. So we're being spoiled here by our staff and and taken well care of. Currently the sky has cleared and I am looking up and seeing stars in all directions, so fingers crossed that it will stay this way and we have full sun tomorrow. On another note, we got to celebrate one of our team member's birthdays up here. Happy birthday Scott! Everybody's in good spirits and looking forward to moving up to high camp tomorrow. That's all for tonight, and I will check in again tomorrow when we reach our high camp. Thanks a lot. RMI Guide Casey Grom

On The Map

May 10, 2017 - 9:12 pm PT The forecast threatened an 80% chance of more snow but we woke to clear skies. This morning was busy with packing, digging and more packing for our move to Camp 1. We hauled our sleds out onto the main Kahiltna under a hard sun and played leapfrog with a German team. By 5 pm we were cooking dinner outside in great weather. The team suffered under the hot globe with grace and we are going to do it again tomorrow to Camp 2. RMI Guide Leon Davis

Today we finally left the comforts of Aconcagua Base Camp for good, well at least for a little over a week. We moved to Camp 1 at 16,400' which is the first of three stops on our way to the summit. The team moved more fluidly today because they have had some time to acclimatize since our carry to the same elevation. We are all moved in now and awaiting RMI Guide Pepper Dee's world famous top ramen dinner! Our plan is to carry supplies to 18,000' tomorrow, we hope the weather holds! RMI Guide Ben Liken

On The Map

Hey there. It's Billy. I am checking in from 19,600 feet on Aconcagua. Our crew just rolled in, actually we didn't just roll in, we rolled in a while ago to Plaza Colera, Camp 3, which is going to be our high camp. We're planning on taking a crack at the summit tonight. Everyone moved super well from Camp 2 to Camp 3. We were able to make good work of that leg in under three hours. Right now the team is lounging around, enjoying the calm weather and blue skies, and resting and gearing up for a late or early, depending on how you want to look at it, wake up tonight for our summit attempt. Wish us luck. We'll hopefully check in with you guys again on the top of South America. RMI Guide Billy Nugent

On The Map