Thursday, June 28, 2018 - 10:32 PM PT
Our first night at 14,000' Camp was quiet and calm. The tent fabric didn’t stir even once with breeze. We were up at around 8AM even though things are still a little shadowy and cold here then. After breakfast, Avery Parrinello led the day’s carry, or more accurately the back carry, since we were going back down to 13,500 ft to bring home the cache we walked past yesterday. It only took about 20 minutes to walk down, but perhaps 90 minutes to come back up with heavy packs. As usual, it clouded up and began snowing on us before we’d gone too far, but that wasn’t much of a problem. The snow continued through the afternoon, but by then we were lounging in our tents. Just before dinner we did a little training session to discuss techniques we’ll employ to climb the “fixed ropes” that lead to the crest of the West Buttress. Throughout the day we touched base with the only other RMI group on the hill, Mike Haugen’s team who were going for the top. It all made our preparations a bit more meaningful to know we’ll be up there knocking on the door soon ourselves.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Thinking of you guys often from sunny/hot Wisconsin. While we soak up the lake views we imagine the mountain scapes before you. (We also think about getting some fresh turns in that powder.)
Enjoy the challenge and the sounds of nature. Wish you the best.
The Merkleins
Posted by: Merklein family on 6/30/2018 at 5:59 am
Hey Tom! Awesome job so far! I’m torked up to hear about the fixed lines when you get to the next camp. I wish I was on your team brother!
The Four Day Summit Climb June 30 - 3 July reached the summit of Mt. Rainier under clear skies and nice temperatures led by RMI Guide Zeb Blais. The team was beginning their decent from the crater rim at 7 am. They will return to Camp Muir and then continue to Paradise. We look forward to seeing them at Rainier BaseCamp this afternoon.
Congratulations to today's climbers!
January 22nd, 4:29 pm PST
So don't sing at 22,000 feet, that is my recommendation. We are all back down here at high camp. The team is all back in their tents, fed and watered. What a heck of a day- about 14 hours. The team did great. Hopefully tomorrow I'll be singing again, and I guess I better write instead of talk. Thanks for following you guys. Take care.
RMI Guide Mark TuckerJanuary 22nd, 10:29 am PST
Hello, everyone. This is RMI Guide, Pepper Dee, from the top of Aconcagua! Mark Tucker has lost his voice, but he has not lost any of his team. He started with ten climbers and ten climbers are on top of South America right now. We had a great day getting up here. Pretty clear with some intermittent snow showers, but we're all just so thrilled to be up here. When the clouds break, we can see views down the valley where we came. [lost transmission]
RMI Guide Pepper Dee
RMI Guide Pepper Dee calls from the Aconcagua summit!
RMI Guide Mark Tucker calls after safe return back to Aconcagua High Camp.
Hello everybody back home. This is Casey Grom calling in from the Roof of Africa. We had a beautiful day today. In fact, every climber made the summit today, so we had a 100% success. Everyone's doing great. We are a little chilly up here right now because there is a strong, cold breeze, but everyone's in good spirits. We're doing well and just finished taking a bunch of photos. We're gonna be heading down here real soon, so we'll check in again later this evening when we get down. It'll be sometime late this afternoon, probably in about ten hours or so. We'll, hopefully get a picture out to you guys as well. Bye.
RMI Guide Casey Grom
RMI Guide Casey Grom calls from the Kilimanjaro summit!
Today we woke up to two feet of fresh snow on Denali! Our plan was to move all of our gear up glacier, then cache most of it and continue on to the camp at 11,200 feet. But since we now had to break trail we decided to carry some of our gear up to the camp and come back for the night. The trail breaking was tough, but half way up we met a group coming down. Thank goodness they were there because we were able to follow their broken trail all of the way to the 11,200 ft. camp. After caching our gear we made the return trip to our camp at the top of ski hill for dinner and a well deserved nights rest.
Hey, this is Mike with the Mexico volcanoes team. We are standing at 18,491 feet on a clear, windless day on the summit of Pico de Orizaba. We had a cold calm morning to start off with lots of new snow on the route made for great climbing. The team is doing well. We will be descending here momentarily. We will send you a message when we're back safe down in Tlachichuca. Thanks for following along. Everyone's doing great.
RMI Guide Mike King
RMI Guide Mike King calls from the summit of Pico de Orizaba.
The Five Day Summit Climb June 15 - 19, 2018 reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning led by RMI Guides Casey Grom and Chris Ebeling. Chris reported good clear weather with no winds. The team will spend return to Camp Muir and then continue their descent to Paradise.
Congratulations to today's climbers!
Wednesday, May 30, 2018 - 10:19 PM PT
We awoke to falling snow and a whiteout this morning. Luckily, the temperatures were cold enough that everything stayed dry, and we were able to pack up camp and move uphill to 11,000' Camp. We walked through the clouds with near zero visibility until we got above the weather, and pulled into camp around 1 PM. We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and snacking. We're enjoying our new home, and the sunshine that has come with it. The team is feeling great. Everyone sends their best.
RMI Guide Walter Hailes
June 2, 2017
As cold as it is at 6:30am here at 14,200', we knew that an early start to our day would be for the best. The crew was up and at 'em even before hots were quite ready. We all knew this was a big day, and it was.
The sun hadn't hit our part of the mountain yet, so we were bundled up. This is my usual plan, and surprisingly, we were the first group out of camp. This always bodes well in terms of being one of the first on the fixed lines - that part of the mountain which is quite steep where passage up it is protected by fixed ropes that we can secure ourselves to while climbing slopes up to 50 degrees in steepness.
The team really crushed it, then climbed well again on the West Buttress itself. This really is the most spectacular and challenging part of the route. A few of us cached our loads at our standard location at 16,600'. But two of our rope teams climbed all the way to high camp at 17,200' and cached there! Great work by everyone.
Later, upon return to camp, we heard that a group that left an hour after us had to wait for two hours due to the congestion in the fixed roped. We were all pretty psyched that we didn't have that issue. Instead, we had one of the most perfect days climbing the Butttress I've seen. Windless and warm.
The weather forecast is, of course, on everybody's minds, with this window of nice weather perhaps coming to an end in a couple of days. Some guides are even accelerating their timelines to head up to 17,200' a day or so earlier. I've toyed with this idea too, to forego our rest day tomorrow and try to get a summit in while we can. But, my gut tells me to practice the patience I always preach, so we'll enjoy our rest day tomorrow and take it one day at a time. I know we'll all be the stronger for it, and after our big day we're all a little tired right now.
So, good night from 14,200'.
RMI Guides Brent, Christina an JT
Greetings from the lovely Plantation Lodge about 75 miles east of the town of Arusha, loocated at the top of the eastern great Rift Valley escarpment. Our morning once again fueled by unlimited quantities of local fruits and anything else your heart desired, gave the team the energy to game view with the pros. That is exactly who we have as our support team. Once again the Dik Dik Lodge has provided us with incredible staff. Our driver Joseph and his side kick Zachery are the best, their ability to see these animals among perfect camouflage is no easy task. So fun to hear the comments of amazement from our team. It's crazy that after about 300 of these game drives I can still enjoy them so much. The terrain in itself is overwhelming let alone the hundreds of animals, it is pretty darn cool. Tomorrow we move into the 1,000s of animals at the 8th wonder of the world, Ngorongoro Crater. Life is very good here in Africa and all is well.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
J and M-
Thinking of you guys often from sunny/hot Wisconsin. While we soak up the lake views we imagine the mountain scapes before you. (We also think about getting some fresh turns in that powder.)
Enjoy the challenge and the sounds of nature. Wish you the best.
The Merkleins
Posted by: Merklein family on 6/30/2018 at 5:59 am
Hey Tom! Awesome job so far! I’m torked up to hear about the fixed lines when you get to the next camp. I wish I was on your team brother!
Posted by: Dave Kestel on 6/29/2018 at 5:34 pm
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