With sadness we bid adieu to six of our teammates from the climb as they embarked on their short day safari before flying off tonight. But with much excitement we started our own four day safari with some new folks. The Cognetto's added a couple of family members (wife/mom, son/bro), plus Nick's girlfriend. But first we had to celebrate another birthday, George's, at breakfast. In typical Tanzanian fashion the staff came out to sing the national feel good song Jambo Bwana, plus Happy Birthday. Of course, candles and cake were on hand too.
Our visit to Lake Manyara didn't disappoint as we got into elephants and baboons within five minutes of entering the gates of this cool national park. But, quite frankly, the giraffes, hippo, Buffalo, eagles and other animals, while great, were somewhat eclipsed by the actions of a couple of our team. A marriage proposal was made, knee bent and ring offered, in the middle of this amazing part of Africa, and was accepted! This, to the enthusiastic approval of dozens of on lookers at our lunch spot. Yeah, I must admit to becoming an emotional marshmallow seeing this proposal unfold as I joined in the clapping of support for these two wonderful people. And again, that incredible Tanzanian spirit of celebration and happiness came out as the group of safari guides that happened to be at the lunch site with their clients, broke into the Mambo Bwana song to recognize this special occasion.
Congratulations Jess and Nick! Cheers to a long and happy life together!
The excitement continues. Congratulations Jess and Nick!
All of this the happy reward celebration of a climb accomplished.
Can’t wait to hear all about it all Glen and Thomas.
XOXO Mom/ aka Moma
According to the TV Show Lost - all good looking people sit on the right side of an airplane. Well, that's clearly what our team did because we have a great looking crew! After meeting up at the Anchorage airport we hopped in the shuttle and headed towards Talkeetna! There was no awkward silence as everyone quickly started chatting and getting to know one another. A quick grocery stop and 2 hours later we were in Talkeetna with amazing views of the Alaska Range! Our travel weary team rallied the last of their energy for a group dinner and then we wandered back to the bunkhouse for some well-deserved rest.
Love you Michael!!! So proud of you… keep pushing, we are all rooting for you. Best of luck and love to you and everyone with you!
Posted by: Desiree on 6/5/2022 at 8:12 pm
The amazing Capt Coffey ( also known as the “Everest Gaston”),
Go get that summit! Wishing you and your team amazing weather and safe climbing. Look forward to celebrating 2022 successes, with margs, soon! See ya when I’m lookin’ at ya!
Be sure to put sunscreen up your nose,
Meghan
Posted by: Meghan Buchanan on 6/3/2022 at 11:53 pm
Everything is going great, in fact, things couldn't really be better. The last two days have been incredibly sunny and warm, which was oh so needed. The whole team got showers yesterday, we did laundry, basked in the sun, and dried everything out. It was a nice finish to our rest days.
This morning we got up and had beautifully clear skies and a leisurely breakfast about 10 a.m. We then hiked about four hours to reach Camp 1 where we currently are. It sits about 21,000' and we have a great view of the upper mountain conditions and climbers. There is a bit of wind blowing off the summit and it's scouring some of the snow that has been deposited over the last ten days of snow we have gotten.
Everyone is doing great and feeling good. We are getting settled into our tents for the night. Firing up the stoves to make ourselves some dinner, then into our sleeping bags before the sun goes down. As soon as it does it gets chilly up here. We will be making ourselves as comfortable as can be. Things are going well. Tomorrow we are hoping to push all the way up to Camp 2 and spend the night there at around 23,000'.
We'll check in tomorrow if we can get ourselves up to Camp 2. All right everybody, hope everyone's doing well back home. We miss you.
Five days ago we tried getting up through the Khumbu Icefall but instead dropped down to Basecamp again to wait a day. We weren't firing on all cylinders and it was clear that the jet stream was. The wind made a cardboard tearing sound as it scraped across the high peaks.
Four days ago we got up without a great deal of difficulty, reaching Camp I in about five hours from basecamp. The climbers we talked to told stories of big winds at Camps I and II doing all sorts of tent damage and rubbing a bunch of nerves raw. We hoped we'd missed the big wind event as we crawled into our tents for afternoon naps... but we could still hear it howling above and as the hours went by it got a little noisier right down in our own neighborhood. Spirits were high though as the four of us piled into one tent for dinner and climbing stories. That first night was not a good one for relaxing, as it turned out. We guessed that the tents were getting rocked by gusts in the 50 to 70 mph range throughout the night. Linden and I instinctively put our feet up against the tent walls to brace for the bigger blasts and we hoped that the extra careful anchoring job we'd done was working for Bill and Sara in their tent two feet away. The wind quit on us at four AM precisely and the alarm clock rang at five.
That first full day in the Western Cwm was meant to be mostly a rest day with an easy morning hike partway up the valley. That didn't seem restful at five, but Linden and I lit the stoves anyway and started melting ice, figuring a little coffee couldn't hurt the mood. We took our time and ate and drank for hours while gearing up and waiting for the sun to get a little closer to the valley floor. The sun has to work pretty hard at that in the Cwm as the walls rise to 25,000 ft ( not counting Everest and Lhotse) but by eight AM when we started walking in down coats, there was a hint of warmth in all the brightness. We strolled in our crampons up under the ridiculously steep Nuptse Wall and then crossed a series of easy crevasse bridges. We came to a crazy and crooked collection of six or seven ladders tied together, spanning a deep crevasse. There was a perfectly good detour trail which would avoid the high wire acrobatics at the cost of about twenty minutes and we happily went detouring. A bit farther up the valley and we came to the last crevasse... Our goal for the day. We took a short rest at this halfway point to Camp II and then reversed course, heading back for much-needed naps at Camp I.
That second night was blissfully quiet and calm and so when the alarm rang at five, once again, we were a bit more ready for action. We set out walking in the shadows at seven AM bound for Advanced Base Camp. Eventually, when we'd passed all the crevasses again, it got hot as the sun got bouncing off a billion tons of ice and snow, but we took a few rest breaks and kept on trudging to CII. When we reached the rocky moraine the angle steepened and things got tough, but my team was tough too. We strolled into the construction site where Lam Babu and Uberaz (our ABC cook) were working hard at the beginnings of a fine camp. It seemed a good occasion for myself, Linden and Sara to sing happy birthday to Bill and to shake his hand. We sat drinking tea for a few minutes and gazing up at the Lhotse Face. It was icy and intimidating, but the good news was that we could see great progress being made by the "fixing team" assigned to string rope and fashion anchors on the face. This was a team made up of strong Sherpas from a number of expeditions. Our team's contribution toward the effort, apart from money, had been Cherring, Kaji and Dawa carrying a few big loads of rope up from base to ABC.
At midday we began walking down valley again, keeping an eye out for a ladder-crossing black dog whose tracks we'd seen all day long. Early in the day, I'd spied him trotting through Camp I wagging his tail after completing the Icefall, but we didn't see anything but tracks up at ABC. We did meet plenty of friends out on the trail as we headed down for our Camp I with our mission for Rotation I largely accomplished. Our final night in the Cwm was quiet and a little snowy. It still was snowing lightly as we packed up in the morning and got set for a careful trip down through the Icefall. Down to comfy chairs and showers and the basecamp good life.
Mark Tucker was elated to see us again... In fact we all felt a little guilty leaving him alone with the kitchen staff for four days... But he seemed to have muddled through.
Best,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Matias and the Kautz seminar team will spend their last night on the mountain tonight and plan for an early departure off the mountain followed by more training at Basecamp in Ashford.
The guide team have the following to say in reflection of the last week of training:
We have spent the past 4 days and 3 nights experiencing the mountain and the heat that accompanied it this week. Our high point may have only been 9,400’ but an abundant of learning and training was accomplished.
After a scorching first day moving across the Nisqually Glacier, we decided to move to a night schedule, only climbing when the snow hadn’t been tarnished by the blistering sun. Very Denali-esque of us. We hit on rock climbing, mixed climbing, ice climbing, crevasse rescue and many other skills. Hot weather and beating sun created unstable snow conditions and difficult trail breaking. But as one participant said, “It’s not all about the summit on trips like this”, and we feel like we were able to accomplish all our training and learning goals. The wisping clouds float below us like pillows awaiting to catch us on our decent.
Hello! Mark Tucker checking in from Everest Base Camp. We had a wonderful ceremony today. The puja altar was just as beautiful as it gets. A wonderful day. Just a real, pretty ceremony. Everybody in attendance and we all had a good time. So we packed up a lot a loads. We have our whole Sherpa staff heading up the hill to carry all the necessary provisions to get a great Camp 1 established. And our three super guides, Dave, Billy and JJ, are going to go get their feet wet and check on the route and check on the camp and get things looking up-to-snuff for the rest of the western team. We will do some maintenance down here- a little bit of hiking, maybe a shower day. We have plenty to do to prep ourselves for the near future. We are going to be up real early and get these boys off to work on their commute to Camp 1 tomorrow. So all is well and like I said, we had a really nice day. We'll check in tomorrow.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
RMI Guide Mark Tucker calls in after the puja ceremony.
Sara and I left for this adventure on March 23rd, which seems a long time ago. Since that time we have had many treks and climbs, but it seems that "the next climb" - whatever that is - is the "most important" climb, and the one that will be the hardest and the biggest test. Our climb tomorrow is no different - it is our "most important climb" so far.
Tomorrow we will be climbing from Everest Base Camp (at about 17,500 feet) up to Camp 1 (at nearly 20,000 feet) through the Khumbu Ice fall. The climb through the ice fall would be difficult at sea level, but the altitude makes it much more challenging. Dave Hahn and Linden Mallory (our guides) have spent weeks preparing Sara and me for the climb tomorrow. We have been "coached" on most everything - from what to eat before and during the climb, how to wear all our equipment, how to go across crevasses on ladders, how to use our crampons on vertical ice - I know that there is not a situation we will face that they have not prepared us for.
But I still worry. I hope that my months and months of preparation are enough. And I hope that we have good luck. But if we are strong (and fortunate) enough we should be arriving at the top of the ice fall for 3 nights by mid-day. Then, once we make camp we will spend one of the days climbing up towards Camp 2.
One of the reasons that I climb is that I get to spend time with Sara. And every time I climb with her I come away more and more impressed. She is such a confident young woman - so easy to share her thoughts and feelings, and so easy to laugh. It is great to hear her talk about her friends, her classes, and the sports teams she plays on. I like to hear about all the details about the social situations, but I really love to hear how she thinks about things. The only way I get to hear about these things is to spend time with her - she is like a ship passing in the night at home. I wouldn't even know to ask questions about the things we talk about on these trips. I will treasure the time I have spent with her forever, for I know in two years she is off to college. But I will always have in my memory the months we have spent climbing together.
Thank you for following our blog.
Bill M.
Is your guide any relation to George Mallory? Good luck in your adventure. Hope to see you back on the softball field soon.
Posted by: John Hubbard on 4/22/2011 at 7:50 am
i am reading this the day of your climb. my thoughts and prayers are with you today and always. what a great adventure to share….a true bond. love, aunt mary
Hello from the Carstensz Pyramid team,
What a way to start an expedition. Mountain climbers surf Bali!
Fresh red snapper for lunch and solid 3 foot swell for dessert.
I love my job!
We head to the airport at midnight tonight for a 2 am flight to the town of Timika on the Island of New Guinea.
The whole team and all bags are here and ready.
Everyone is looking forward to the rest of this adventure.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
After an excellent climb with perfect conditions our team descended to Tlachichuca. It was hard to believe that all in the same day we could have climbed again by moonlight, this time looking at Popo and Ixta hit by the morning sun. It was a warm day and our team did a fantastic job handling the high altitude and moving securely in the rarified air. Again, our timing was ideal, just as we pulled into the hut to pack, the clouds rolled in and obscured the mountain. These were some of the best climbing conditions I have seen down here and the entire team appreciated the chance to stand on top in warm, windless weather.
Now we bid our farewells and look forward to the next time we all get to try our hand at climbing these sleeping giants. Though this trip will be tough to top, til then!
RMI Guide Jake Beren
Monday, July 8, 2019 - 7:36 PM PT
We woke up yesterday to a fabulous day to fly back to Talkeetna. Our monumental effort to get back to basecamp and the airstrip paid off as we barely had time to make coffee in the morning before the Otter ski planes came to pick us up.
We returned to shocking 90 degree temperatures. Having been on an icy mountain for the better part of the month, our sweat glands definitely got a workout.
The crew exploded their packs and duffel bags, dried out and sorted gear, and then repacked for our travels home.
After a dinner to celebrate our amazing adventure together, everyone needed the sleep we were deprived of for the last few days.
Thank you RMI Siete for the great adventure and the amazing efforts and attitude that lead to a very successful expedition.
RMI Guide Mike Haugen
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The excitement continues. Congratulations Jess and Nick!
All of this the happy reward celebration of a climb accomplished.
Can’t wait to hear all about it all Glen and Thomas.
XOXO Mom/ aka Moma
Posted by: Ginee Philippy on 7/27/2022 at 9:03 am
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