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Good evening from Huaraz! We're ready to launch our adventure into the mountains tomorrow. We're all packed up and ready after a nice day of acclimatizing and resting around here. We hiked to Churup lake, at 14,200ft in the morning, to then come down for a good late lunch as a team. We caught up on our sleep with a well earned nap in between packing, that help with recovering from international traveling and driving across Perú the last couple days. Our next check in will be from the mountains! Stay tuned. RMI Guide Elías de Andres Martos

Summit! With bluebird skies and lights winds, the summit climb teams reached the top of Mt. Rainier. The teams, led by Eric Frank and Paul Rachele, began their descent from the Crater Rim just after 7AM. We look forward to congratulating them here at Rainier Basecamp this afternoon.

June 15, 2016 - 7:20 P.M. PDT Late last night winds picked up on the upper mountain and persisted into this morning. We woke up early, packed and had breakfast and then watched the wind up high. By 10:30AM we could tell that the trend was diminishing winds, this matched our forecast, so we started up towards the West Rib. The winds had filled in our tracks from the other day so we had to re-break trail back up to our cache. After retrieving our cache we pressed on to gain the ridge and then we picked our way though the first rock band and on up to the balcony camp at 17k. The weather was perfect and with spectacular views of the Alaska Range. The team did a fantastic job today and everyone is feeling good and excited to be climbing. Weather permitting we will go for the summit tomorrow. RMI Guide Geoff Schellens and the UWR Team

I don't mean to brag, and I don't mean to boast. I do like Russian peanut butter and jam on my breakfast toast! But what else I do like is 100%! Every single climber on the summit of Europe's highest mountain, Mount Elbrus. Hey everyone, this is JJ Justman. We are doing the final little stretch here to get to the tippy top of Mount Elbrus. Team, what do you say? [Team hollers!] These guys are doing great, strong as can be. We just had a beautiful day coming up to the summit. We just have a few more steps to go but it's a done deal. We are going to hang out on top and take some photos. We will touch base with you when we get back down. Am I excited? Heck yeah I'm excited! These guys are really strong and they did a great job today. We'll touch base when we get down. This is JJ and the entire summit team on the summit of Mount Elbrus! Bye bye. RMI Guide JJ Justman

On The Map

SUMMIT DAY!!! And how sweet it was! Let’s start from the beginning of the day. 12:00a.m. Lucia has been snoring for a few hours. I’m wide-awake listening to the wind blow the tent around and stressing about summiting. I guess that’s the difference between someone on their first climb here and someone on their 11th. 4:00 a.m. The wind still blows, I still stress... Lucia snores. 5:00 a.m. Still windy. I resign myself to the fate of not climbing Denali. I’m OK with it, it was fun, I learned a ton, and everyone had a good time. Sometimes the mountain just won’t let you climb. It’s OK. Lucia is still sound asleep. 6:45 a.m. I hear rustling coming from Lucia’s side of the tent. I’m wondering what he’s up to, as the night before when I had suggested that we start the stoves at seven he said, “it’s too cold then, we’ll start them at 8.” Then I notice the wind, actually the lack of wind is what I notice. Lucia pokes his head out the vestibule and pulls it back in quickly. “Dude, it’s really nice outside. Let’s go!” So we get up and put our boots on. Lucia starts the stoves. We fill our water bottles and have instant grits and hot drinks for breakfast. After packing our last minute things we’re off. It’s just after nine o’clock. It takes us two about 2 hours to climb to Denali Pass. There are a few other groups out today. The nice weather has brought everyone out. We take a break with two of them just below Zebra Rocks. We then ascend the ridge to the ‘football field’. The weather is still holding, but it’s noticeably colder here above 19,000 feet. There are a few clouds wisping over the summit and we anticipate high winds on the summit ridge. We climb Pig Hill to the summit ridge and are rewarded with a spectacular view down to the Kahiltna. We then proceed along the steep ridge to the summit. It’s 5:30 in the evening and we’re standing on the roof of North America on a calm, clear day. After a few rounds of congratulating and picture taking (Andy brought three different banners to get photos with) we enjoy the last few moments of ‘top time’ and descend to the football field. Then, we descended to Denali Pass in very warm conditions. As the sun dropped low in the sky we climbed down back to camp. At camp we were greeted by the second RMI trip of the season led by Mike Walter and Tyler Jones. It was doubly great to see those guys as they had 3 pots of water waiting for us. All in all it was an eleven-hour summit day. We were very happy to crawl into our tents and get some well-deserved shut-eye.

On The Map

Tuesday, October 29, 2024 - 6:20 am PT

We had a lovely acclimatization trip to the summit of Rucu Pichincha yesterday. We caught a bit of light rain, not enough to stabilize the electrical grid, but enough to keep us cool for our nice day hike. On the way down, the clouds opened up a little and were treated to views of surrounding valleys, which includes the city of Quito.

Today, we are heading for the Illiniza refuge and hopefully a summit of Illiniza Norte tomorrow morning! While this is labeled as an "acclimatization" hike, it's definitely fun in it's own right. The route from the hut goes up a steep ridgeline that occasionally requires some class 3 scrambling. The views from the summit are astounding and the movement enjoyable.

We will check back in tomorrow with an update as we head towards Cotopaxi!

RMI Guide Dustin Wittmier

The Expedition Skills Seminar - Muir May 26 - 31 team members gathered at Rainier BaseCamp on Sunday, May 26th for their first day of the program. After some technical training and a thorough equipment check the team started for Camp Muir on Monday morning. The last few days have been spent near Camp Muir while RMI Guides Dave Hahn and Mike King led the team through glacier travel training and crevasse rescue. This morning the team left Camp Muir en route to the summit. Dave reported calms winds and mostly clear skies as the team reached the crater rim of Mt. Rainier around 6:30 AM. The team enjoyed over an hour on the summit before starting their descent. Congratulations to today's climbers!

We’ll call today a weather day. Usually, a team takes a weather day when conditions are too poor to move camp or carry gear higher on the mountain. We took a weather day today solely to take advantage of the first sun and calm winds that we’ve seen in 36 hours. The past few days have been a real test of everyone’s resolve here at Camp Two. Before today, we have basically only left our tents to go to the bathroom, and to do that we had to suit up in boots, parkas, gloves, and goggles. So much of expedition climbing is mental, and that kind of living wears away at everyone. It has done us a lot of good to stand around outside today, sip tea in the sun, and actually enjoy our unique position high in the Andes. Turns out there are actually some really nice views up here. In addition to healing any mental frayed ends, we dried out all of our gear, re-organized, and dialed in our cold weather systems for our summit day. We went on a walk towards high camp to get some blood flowing, and prepped ourselves for the coming days. We will move to high camp tomorrow, and try for the summit on the 12th. Starting tomorrow the days go by quickly, and after our reboot today everyone is chomping at the bit. We’ll check in tomorrow, hopefully from 19,600 feet. RMI Guides JM Gorum, Hannah Smith, and Avery Parrinello

Today we woke to what might be the clearest morning of the Mexican countryside one might ever see. With the massive populations of Mexico City and Puebla the view is usually obscured with smoke, volcanic fog, smog. This morning we could make out high rise buildings and had a crystal clear view of Orizaba. The Team took four hours to ascend to High Camp, located at 15,500’. We had warm weather and heavy packs. Everyone is relaxing in their tents as afternoon clouds roll through. We will have some dinner and prepare for our summit bid tomorrow morning. Should be a nice day if the recent weather holds. RMI Guide Mike King

On The Map

Today was our first day climbing this huge mountain, up till now it's been a luxurious trek. We carried up a cache of food, fuel and a few personal items to our Camp One at 16,400'. The terrain is scree for as far as the eyes can see along an ancient glacial moraine, monotonous at times but beautiful in it's own right. The Team had been picking the brains of groups in camp about what to expect and once we were back all agreed that it was a tough day, then again the first day with heavy packs above 14,000' is always tough. We are all back in camp and will enjoy a good dinner followed by a rest day tomorrow. We'll keep our fingers crossed for clear skies and decreasing winds. RMI Guide Mike King

On The Map