Most Popular Entries
Today was our first day of safari and we headed west to visit the beautiful
Lake Manyara, which is a brief stopping ground for the many migratory animals and full of beautiful birds. Everyone enjoyed the day cruising around in our safari vehicles with cold beverages in hand while seeing the animals.
We managed to see a few wildebeest, zebras, Cape buffalo, giraffe, baboons, impalas and many hippos, plus one huge male elephant very close. It was a pretty nice introduction to the incredible wildlife that Africa has and the team is looking forward to seeing more tomorrow.
We wrapped up the evening relaxing at our new accommodations,
The Plantation Lodge.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and the Safari crew
A van ride, an airplane ride, another van ride, and we're in Cheget. Super smooth sailing through our travels today, ski bags and all. Yuri is the local Russian guide who will be joining us on
Mt. Elbrus, and he greeted us with a warm reception at the airport in Mineralyne Vody. We're excited to finally be in the mountains.
RMI Guide Tyler Reid
May 28, 2017 1:32 am PST
Hi from
Denali!
The team got a break in the weather around noon today! Big day indeed for flying! We unloaded our gear from the planes, repacked our duffel bags, loaded our sleds and heavy packs and got on the move to our first camp at 7,800ft. The trip to the mountains is finally underway. We made great time in the light cloud cover keeping the air cool in the often blistering heat of the lower Kahiltna glacier. We set up camp had a quick dinner and are now resting our bones!
RMI Guide Tyler Jones & Team
An early rise gave way to a groggy ride to the airport this morning that was fortunately on the quicker side because the majority of Moscow had yet to wake. After navigating Aeroflot's slightly confusing baggage system our team was relieved to settle into an airport restaurant and enjoy a decent breakfast and more importantly a decent cup (or two) of coffee. A slight delay, a quick flight to
Mineralnye Vody, and a longer bus ride to Cheget completed our traveling for the day. On our drive we watched the rolling hills of farmland become more pronounced, eventually turning into mountains, and finally turning quite impressive with huge relief as we drove up a craggy canyon. Cheget is a little outpost of sorts but our hotel is pretty cool, complete with beautiful views of glaciers above from the forest below and even a medieval motif to the dining room. A bit weary from travel, we're all excited to get out and stretch our legs on our first acclimatization hike tomorrow.
We'll let you know how it goes.
Over and out,
RMI Guide Billy Nugent
On The Map
Monday, July 4, 2016 - 10:31 p.m. PDT
Seeing as how we got about 24 inches of snow in yesterday's 24 hours, chances were small that we'd get to
move higher today. Sure enough, even though we had some calm and cloud-free skies overhead this morning, the decision was made to let the avalanche slopes settle for a day. We contented ourselves with a trail breaking journey over to the "Edge of the World." Clouds came in while we were out at the normally breathtaking vantage point, which lessened the thrill somewhat, but we all still enjoyed the chance to stretch our legs and mug for the cameras at the point where our plateau drops about a vertical mile down to the NE Fork of the Kahiltna Glacier.
The rest of the day was spent lounging in camp under cloud and light snow at 14,000', reminiscing about all the Fourth of Julys when we hadn't been lucky enough to be halfway up America's greatest mountain.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide
Dave Hahn and Team
Our last couple of Safari days were chock full of wildlife, natural beauty and exploring.
Tarangire National Park certainly delivered. We saw hundreds of elephants dotting the landscape in family groups of fifteen to twenty. We saw thousands and thousands of zebra and wildebeest. Beautiful and exotic birds were everywhere. We saw several great sleeping lions and we looked in every acacia tree for more big cats. Despite the best efforts of our two dueling sharp-eyed naturalists; Driver Joseph and Climber Chris, we never did see the leopards and cheetahs although we were pretty sure they were watching us. Something left for next safari. None of us will soon forget this one though, and the peaceful night we spent out in Kikoti Camp overlooking Tarangire. We watched a troupe of baboons climb a sheer rock face that final evening for no other reason than to watch the sunset from the top of the rock. We'll keep their example in mind -it is often worth going out of one's way to see the wonders of this planet.
Today we are flying back around this gigantic planet toward home. Thanks for following along on our climb and safari.
Best Regards
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Wednesday, October 2, 2024
The day worked out spectacularly. We had to get up pretty early, of course -we left the hotel at 4:30 AM- but the upside to that was there wasn’t much traffic. We were out to the airport in no time, and then it was a little crowded and busy pushing bags through x ray machines and working our way through various lines. We had just a little bit of waiting and wondering whether the flight would go -it isn’t uncommon for travel to Lukla to be snarled and delayed by weather- but then we got the call and headed out to our plane. We filed into the Twin Otter and strapped in for liftoff at 7:45. Before long the plane was up above the clouds and giant Himalayan peaks were marching past the port side windows. We could pick out Mt Everest looming on the horizon. By 8:15 the pilots had us safely touching down on the tilted runway at Lukla. It turned out that all of our baggage had made the flight as well (which doesn’t always happen). We were in business. And we had earned some good coffee and breakfast. We took a little time to eat and get organized and at 10:30 we set out walking. Downhill at first, we’d landed at 9200 ft, but eventually we did a little climbing as well. We were passing through small farms and villages and dodging porters and pack animals. In just over three hours and about five miles, we pulled into Phakding and our comfortable Tea House on the Bhote Khosi river.
This left us plenty of time to relax through the afternoon and evening. Turns out that tomorrow is another big and important day in a beautiful place.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
PC: Dave Hahn
×
New Post Alerts:
Gokyo Trek September 28, 2024
We are perched on the side of La Malinche this evening settling into our nice but chilly cabin. We took a walk this afternoon to see how our bodies feel after being rudely moved to 10 thousand feet and it felt great. Tomorrow we'll head up 4,400 feet to the summit and hopefully get nice views over to
Pico de Orizaba, our next objective. Quick shout out to Norm from the mountains of Mexico!
RMI Guide Christina Dale
Something had changed overnight. We woke to brilliant blue skies and sunshine. Of course we could still see the wind beating up the ridge atop
Vinson’s Western escarpment and there were still fog layers lying thick just to our west, but everything looked different and we liked that. The forecast was still calling for another day of wind, but we figured it was time to get on up to Low Camp. We busted out of basecamp at 2:20 in excellent walking conditions. The track in the snow had firmed up a little since all the other teams had gone up in the days previously, stomping their feet and dragging their sleds. We made it in a respectable four hours and thirty minutes. For the last hour we could see and hear the wind on the ridge two thousand meters up over our heads. It was gratifying to reach camp and find it calm and sunny. We rejoined all the other folks on the mountain in a tight little cluster of tents. We threw ours up to one side and worked to dig a kitchen and dining area in the firm glacier surface. That took a little doing, but by 10 PM (still in strong sunshine) we were sitting down to dinner in our new and higher home. Most of the gang was in bed by midnight. I warned them that the sun would continue blazing until at least three AM but that it would then go behind the mountain and plunge us into shadow and bitter cold for the following eight hours. Life at 9,000 feet in Antarctica.
Happiest of birthdays to my Dad.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
On The Map
Sunday, January 21, 2018 - 7:03 pm PT
Hello from day two on the slopes of our first volcano,
La Malinche! Today we made our way to the Malintzi resort at a little over 10,000ft. We wasted no time and immediately headed uphill and hiked up to the ridge heading to the top, at about 13,700ft - not bad for our first day. We were rewarded with a panoramic view of our upcoming objectives, Ixta and Pico de Orizaba, poking up through a layer of clouds. We all returned dusty and ready to shower and eat.
RMI Guides Jessie Poquerusse, Walter Hailes & the team
On The Map
Previous Page
Next Page
.jpg)
What an exciting first day on safari portion of Kilimanjaro expedition. Great pictures of you 6, even with giant bull elephant so close. Without my first hand knowledge I wouldn’t guess you’d just gotten down from climbing highest point in Africa.
Posted by: Daniel Thompson on 1/31/2018 at 7:27 am
View All Comments