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Thursday, June 3, 2021 - 10:27 am PT

We've waited through wind and snow for weeks and we finally got our shot. We woke up yesterday to clear skies and relatively (for 17k feet) warm temps in camp. We had stoves firing early, before sun hit camp, and got everyone up to start prepping. With breakfast done and packs loaded we stepped out of our sunny camp into the shadow of the Autobahn. It was a chilly couple hours crossing to Denali Pass and we were all psyched to get back into the sun. A slight, but cold 10mph breeze in our face kept it chilly all day, but we kept moving past Zebra Rocks, around Archdeacons Tower, onto the Football Field, up Pig Hill, and along the summit ridge to the summit! We were standing on top just after 6pm yesterday. With photos taken, we started working our way back down, well aware of the distance still to get back to the comfort of our sleeping bags. The long hours of sun help alot and we rolled back into camp around 11pm, just as the sun left camp. Tired, chilly, sore, but excited that we managed to reach our goal!

We'll start working our way down the mountain today, back to warmer temps, more oxygen, and a flight back to Talkeetna. They tend to be long days, so dispatches might be short, but we are headed home.

RMI Guides Pete Van Deventer, Mike Walter, Avery Parrinello, Matias Francis, Chase Halbert, Luke Wilhelm, and RMI Teams 1 and 2

The Four Day Summit Climbs led by RMI Guides Garrett Stevens and Win Whittaker reached the summit of Mt. Rainier early this morning. The teams reported cool temperatures, winds 20 mph and clear skies. They began their descent from the summit at 7 am en route to Camp Muir. They will take a short break there before continuing down to Paradise. The Expedition Skills Seminar - Emmons led by RMI Guide Geoff Schellens also made their summit push today. Geoff and team were also beginning their descent from the crater rim around 7 am. They will return to Camp Schurman for their final night on the mountain. Congratulations to today's climbers!

Hello Everyone

We awoke early today and left behind the comforts of our beautiful lodge and have headed to the mountain towards the start of the climb. We hit the road shortly before 8am we drove along the rural country side for two hours to reach the park entrance. Most of the area surrounding Kilimanjaro has been cultivated and primarily used for coffee production and for a variety of other agriculture needs, but there are still some areas that have been untouched and resemble more of a savannah that Tanzania is known for.

The base of Kilimanjaro is forested and resembles a jungle or cloud forest. Traditionally it supports a large part of the banana production for this area. Lucky for us it was cloudy, which made for wonderful hiking conditions.

Once at the gate we had all of our gear weighed and divided into 20kg loads for our porters to carry before hitting the trail. Once everything was in order we started our climb slowly making our way up the winding trail. It was slightly busier than last week, but the team made good time.

The team just finished an amazing hot meal and are looking forward to a good night of sleep at a little bit of exercise.

RMI Guide Casey Grom and the Kili crew.

RMI Guide Alex Van Steen recently presented at Sustainable Summits: The International Mountain Conference on Environmental Practices, hosted by the American Alpine Club in Golden, CO. Alex was invited to discuss RMI’s partner-building efforts on our Carstensz Pyramid Expedition. Carstensz Pyramid, a steep limestone peak located on the island of New Guinea and one of the world’s Seven Summits, is one of the least accessible peaks of the Seven Summits and presents a mix of environmental, cultural, and outfitting challenges. On major expeditions the success and overall experience of the adventure depends largely on the close ties of the team, including with local partners. RMI is very active in creating close-knit relationships with our local partners. To that end, Carstensz also best exemplifies RMI’s efforts in creating long-term and sustainable partnerships in leading our adventures and in our dedication to Responsible Climbing. At the Sustainable Summits Conference, Alex introduced the concept of “Giving Relationship” in developing partnerships to the gathering of land managers, climbers, planners and scientists representing the world’s mountainous regions. “The model that we propose is the model that RMI uses all over the world. The difference here is that Papua is so challenging on so many fronts and the culture is so significantly different than anything we’ve experienced anywhere else in the world. Our model is a social ethic, a little bit like “Leave no trace,” the environmental ethic, or “Do no harm,” the medical ethic, but focused in a positive manner: “Giving Relationship” is our social ethic,” explained Alex. To best explain the concept of “Giving Relationship,” Alex shared several stories from his time in Papua: “The essential question when I was speaking with [local Papuans] was, “If you want a partnership, what does partnership look like for you? What do you want?” “Moses Sondagau works with the local regency government. He and I walked together from one village, Sugapa, to another, Hitadipa, which was about four hours, and we had a significant time to chat. What I learned was that Moses had worked with tour operators for the past decade or so as a porter, and the abuses that he saw toward the porters spurred him to work for the government on behalf of his people. “Moses now ensures that commercial operators treat their porters well and pay their porters as promised. What he told me was only 75% of the porters had been paid as promised. His task is not an easy one because he is effectively policing both foreign operators as well as the Indonesian operators. That said, he was shocked because I spent so much time chit-chatting with him on the way to Hitadipa. I asked him about his family, I showed him pictures of my own family, and I engaged in what I consider just standard kindnesses that you would show to anybody who you were walking a few hours with, but he told me that no foreigner had ever expressed so much interest in him as a person as I did that day. This really rather shocked me. I told him, “Moses, you are an ‘usua me,’ you are a good man, you’re working on behalf of your people and you’re doing a hard job.” He sincerely appreciated that. “In this arena of going into schools and sports clinics and churches, I was invited and took the opportunity to speak at two church services, I assisted with an inter-faith Muslim/Christian soccer camp, and I spoke in two high school classrooms at an international school. One of my most intense experiences came in this arena. “We’d been hiking through the jungle all day and the rain was just incessantly pouring on us. We were coming into a village called Gamagae and all of a sudden I hear all these men yelling. As I am walking into town I see all these people running toward me and one of them was highly agitated, really waving his arms and yelling loudly. This is how I was introduced to Atan Topani. “I know a bit about Moni culture - I know that they speak loudly; I know that their language is clipped; I know that they don’t smile the same way that we smile, at least not right off the bat – so I was aware of that – but I also didn’t see any or didn’t hear any of the standard language that let me know that they were welcoming me. They were yelling but I wasn’t hearing ‘amakanea,’ ‘amakanenga,’ some of the welcoming phrases that I normally hear. “Atan was really upset because the last tourist group to come through had come into his church and made a mess. They cooked in his church and left garbage in his church and then left the village. Understandably, he was upset. He wants tourists. He really wants tourists. But he needs tourists to behave considerately. Atan and I spent about two hours doing what’s called “muna muna” - “men’s talk.” Together we developed the “Sugapa Route Visitor Protocols” for travelers: what to do or what not to do when you visit these villages. “Here again, the essential question was, ‘Atan, if you want a partnership, what does a partnership look like?’ And Atan says, ‘I want visitors, and they are welcome to use our church as shelter, but I want them to be considerate of my community.’ When I came home, I translated this document into Bahasa Indonesian, Dutch, German, Spanish, Japanese and Russian, and now they are ready to be posted in different villages along the Sugapa route.” Part of a “Giving Relationship” entails sitting down on equal terms and discussing the desires and needs of both parties. A simple concept, yet not always followed in many outfitting practices. “In my most recent trip, I spent just under a month and visited about ten communities, going village-to-village and connecting with random individuals. “One of the other cultural differences that really was striking to me was that even if you enjoy conversation or you consider yourself a patient person, you have nothing on the Moni. The Moni absolutely love to converse and converse. I found that I had to sit for hours and hours and converse, which was really challenging for me. When I would converse with the people, when I would sit in their huts and at their tables and tell them that I was traveling through the land - rather than helicoptering - to meet the people whose lands I wanted to travel with my customers, they were all incredibly receptive. As a matter of fact, one gentleman – said, ‘This is good talk. This is good talk.’ I won’t ever forget that because it means so much for the Moni to say that.” A "Giving Relationship" goes beyond being empathetic and actively listening. It also means contributing the skills and experiences we have to our partners in order to prepare them for future collaborations. During his recent visit to Papua, Alex led a training seminar for local porters to teach the practices and progressions of a climbing expedition. “I had arranged with our Moni partner for various Moni villages to come together – or the men in those villages to come together – in one place and participate in a seminar where we could teach them how to work with tourists. The training seminar was a raging success. We discussed what was working well in other areas where we operate, like our Peru and our Nepal treks, what wasn’t working well, such as porters being mistreated, which we hear a lot about, and what we might need to change, for example, there is no plan at all for human waste in Papua. We discussed how to keep the porters healthy and safe along the trek and in the mountains, we practiced setting up tents, and we concluded by awarding certificates of accomplishment to the porters who participated in the training so that they could show evidence of learning to whatever tour operator might want to hire them; not just our guides, not just us. “It is difficult to know if this is accurate or not, to be quite honest, but I was told that this was the very first time that a foreigner ever hosted a seminar for indigenous Papuan people; this is the very first time that an indigenous Papuan man was the tour operator rather than an Indonesian or a foreigner. Thirty-five men from varying villages, some were Moni, some were of the Dani tribe, received certificates.” “Giving Relationship” is far more than a simple catch phrase, it’s a long and complicated process but one that we feel is the only legitimate way to pursue a sustainable partnership. “As a biased-toward-action American, I wanted to do more. We all do; we want to do it all. But the truth is that relationship building is an incredibly slow and incredibly lengthy process…I don’t immediately even expect others to replicate the couple of years and all the trips of relationship building that I’ve done there, especially not if you’re only going there for a one or two week adventure and maybe once in your life. But in visiting anywhere even once, we can know so much more about this place than simply, ‘I need rubber boots because there’s a lot of mud!’ We can know a lot more than that. “We believe that this social ethic of “Giving Relationship” does equal access in Papua, not just for the sake of access, but also for the sake of the people and the land there,” explains Alex. In simple terms, this type of relationship building and long term approach to our partnerships and our climbing objectives is the right thing to do. See the full presentation here… _____ Alex Van Steen is a Supervisor at RMI with over 240 ascents of Mt. Rainier by way of more than 20 routes. Since 2012, Alex has led RMI’s effort to create a sustainable tourism industry and developed RMI’s position as the only western commercial guide service to partner with an indigenous Papuan outfitter. He has taken his training and education to Papua and spent time with local community leaders building relationships as well as training and educating porters to work with expeditions. Additionally, Alex has spent more than a decade involving himself in community outreach and education. Locally, he works extensively with at-risk youth as a mentor, pastor, and guardian.

The Five Day Climb June 10 - 14 reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning.  The teams were lead by RMI Guides Walter Hailes and Joe Hoch who reported a gorgeous day of climbing.  The teams reached the crater rim a little before 9 am and were able to spend time crossing the crater to the Columbia Crest.  As this is a Five Day Climb, the teams will return to Camp Muir to rest and relax.  They will spend their second night on the mountain tonight. Tomorrow the teams will descending the remaining 4,500' to Paradise and return to Rainier BaseCamp.

Congratulations to today's climbers!

RMI Guides Casey Grom & Alex Halliday led their Four Day Climb Teams July 10 - 13, 2021 to the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning.  The teams reached the crater rim at 5:10 am.  Skies were clear and winds were calm as the teams enjoyed some time on the summit.   They began their descent from the crater rim at 6:30 am.  Once back at Camp Muir they will repack and continue the remaining 4,500' to Paradise. 

Congratulations to today's climbers!

Friday, December 31, 2021 - 4:39 pm PT

Rest day at Vinson High Camp was restful.  And welcome. Many of the team felt the altitude of our new home after a night of tossing and turning.  But breakfast and another fine day, weather-wise got folks feeling a little better as the day went on.  We drank lots of water and snacked throughout the day in order to recoup from yesterday and prepare for tomorrow.  The forecast is certainly in our favor.  We could see clouds forming far down below us and a few wispy formations on nearby peaks but there wasn’t much evidence of wind anywhere in the range.  We’ll see how the gang fares with this second High Camp night -nobody had explicit plans for partying hard on this New Year’s Eve- but all things being good we’ll set out for the top tomorrow. 

Best Regards

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

Pretty smooth day all around.  Considering that in other years it has taken weeks to get from Punta Arenas, to the Ice and then to Vinson, we are mighty lucky to have done it all in a day.  And for that, it wasn’t even a stressful day.  No angst about whether we were going to go or not… no waffling weather or closing window for flying.  It was just a day of green lights from the get go. 

We left the hotel at 6 AM and there wasn’t too much slack time out at the airport.  There were eighty of us, dressed in quite the variety of colorful cold weather gear and fancy boots.  We mingled and had mini reunions with old and less old acquaintances.  And then we trooped on out the gate to board our plane.   Things are different this year!  We used to ride in cargo and troop transports… this year we walked into a shiny Icelandic Air Boeing 757.  And it was nice and nobody was fighting over the mask mandates.  I have to say though, that a little bit of the cowboy feel to flying to Antarctica is now gone.  It was a lot like going from Seattle to Denver or Dallas.  Time to watch movies or sleep.  The pilot put the wheels down on Union Glacier’s ice runway at 12:45 PM just like he’d been doing it forever.   We bundled up and came down the stairs.  It was a remarkably fine day for November.  Our faces and fingers weren’t in danger of freezing as we milled about on the ice, snapping pictures.  Then we got on board a souped up van with great big wheels and were chauffeured over to Union Glacier Camp.  It was comfortable there and we were immediately warned not to get too comfortable.  The plan was for the three of us to be on the first airplane out to Vinson.  There was time for a tour of camp and a hot and hearty meal in the dining tent and then we loaded into a ski equipped Twin Otter for the hop out to Vinson.  After 45 minutes and another perfect landing - this time on the snow strip of the Branscomb Glacier at 7000 ft of elevation- we were walking around in our new and beautiful home at Vinson Base Camp.  This was around 4:15 PM.  The work began.  Lots of camp building and digging and sorting gear and getting settled.  We didn’t eat dinner until after 9 PM, which didn’t matter too much, the sun was quite strong making our dining tent comfortable.  Not all eighty passengers on the 757 were Vinson climbers, but there are six different guided groups out here as of today to kick off the first climbing season since the pandemic began.  Now it is 12:30 AM, still with good sun, but time for bed. 

Best Regards

RMI Guide Dave Hahn

The Five Day Climb July 20 - 24 led by RMI Guides Dave Hahn and Joe Hoch, reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning.  They reported pleasant conditions with lighter winds than expected. The teams will return to Camp Muir and enjoy the afternoon and their final night on the mountain.  Tomorrow the teams will descend to Paradise and return to Rainier BaseCamp.

Congratulations to today's climbers!

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. 

RMI Guides Avery, Jack, Liam and Team