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Posted by: Ben Liken, Adam Knoff
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Ecuador
Hola From Otavalo, Ecuador,
This morning our team of intrepid climbers met our one man team and intrepid driver, Orgel, and headed into the not so subtle Quito morning rush hour. Climbers heading off to a big mountain are always ready to leave the grips of the city in search for greater adventures but today Quito had a way of making sure we didn't rush off and lose sight of where we were. Wall to wall cars made the first five miles take as long as the final 50 but rain was falling so we didn't feel rushed either way.
Our destination today was a volcano called Fuya Fuya, which rises to 14,700 feet, higher than Mt. Rainier, but in Ecuador is relatively low in comparison to others. We come here in January because it is supposed to be the "dry" season, but today this high, tropical landscaped proved otherwise. Light rain fell in the morning leaving Quito, but north of the city and higher up the clouds thickened and the rain turned real. In Seattle there are over a hundred ways to describe rain. I'm pretty sure today we only needed one. Let's just call it, solid. With a "solid" rain falling, we solved riddles in the trailhead shelter, ran quick sprints along the lake shore before sprinting back and did pull ups on the beams to pretend we were getting our heart rate up. All-in-all the acclimating process was short lived and we were headed down having never walked a foot uphill.
The rain continued to pour as we ate lunch in town and killed time before arriving at the hacienda for the evening. La Casa Sol sits high on a steep hill overlooking town and it was here that we had the day's most exciting event. With a we cobble stone street, our driver gunned it up the hill trying to get momentum before spinning out on the wet surface. It took two more goes to pull the van into the tiny parking spot and unload the bags. Ben and I had to put rocks behind the van's tires at one point to keep him from sliding backwards into the ditch.
As we say before a day of ice climbing in Bozeman, the adventure starts the second you get in the car. Tomorrow's road promises to be even more thrilling! The road to the mountain....
Wish us luck on our way to Cayambe.
Saludos,
RMI Guides Adam Knoff, Ben Liken and Team
Let's get the exaggerations out of the way at the start... Winds today at Low Camp were between 70 and 80 mph. Except those figures are probably right, judging by how many times the gusts demolished the snow walls protecting our tents. Those walls were made of blocks we could barely lift. The storm is well and truly upon us... And upon everyone else too for that matter. There wasn't any moving from camp to camp today -or carrying of loads. It was hunker down and hang on day. The storm didn't let much sun through to warm us either, so life was grim. Conversation in the tents was tough to accomplish with the tent walls snapping like machine guns in your ear. Walking outside the tents was bound to include getting knocked to the ice a few times. But we are still hanging in, here at Low Camp, waiting to catch a break. The views we did have today were quite dramatic, with giant wind sculpted clouds diving off the high peaks. We can't quite say yet that we've been through a full on Antarctic storm yet, because it ain't over. Soon though.
Best Regards
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
On The Map
Hey everybody. This is Casey Grom checking in from the Ecuador Volcanoes trip. We have a great day today. We started off with a nice leisurely breakfast at La Casa Sol. We departed there at about 10:30 and made our way, just about 10 minutes down the road, to the big open air market of Otavalo. Otavalo has one of the largest markets in South America. It just so happens that Saturday is the big market there. We spent a little more than an hour doing some shopping, a little bartering and just general sightseeing as we made our way around the the central square in the town of Otavalo. After we had our fill there, we hopped in our van and we go to the town of Cayambe, which sits just at the base of the mountain Cayambe where we had a nice lunch and then we loaded up the vans one more time and had a nice bumpy, but enjoyable, ride up to the hut that is right at the base of the glacier here on Cayambe. We're currently relaxing up here at about 15,000 feet. In fact it is a little after 8:30 for us here, that's east coast time, and the team is outside looking up at a beautiful full moon and a fantastic view of Cayambe. Everyone's doing great. We're going to head to bed here pretty soon and then hopefully head up to the glacier tomorrow to do a little training in preparation for our climb. Other than that everything is going great for us and we'll check in again sometime tomorrow. Alright thank you guys.
RMI Guide Casey Grom
RMI Guide Casey Grom calls in from Cayambe Climber's Hut.
Hi Everyone -
We made it to the top of Shuksan this morning. It was a really nice morning above the clouds!
RMI Guide Leif Bergstrom
Posted by: Hannah Smith, Avery Parrinello
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Aconcagua
Elevation: 13,800'
Rest days are the best days. Days for reading, napping, sport eating and shooting the breeze. We all did plenty of that plus a few chores. Everyone had to visit the base-camp doctor, to which everyone received a green-light to go up the mountain. More shuffling of gear was done to get ready for our carry tomorrow. Tomorrow we will head up to Camp 1 to cache some of our gear. With nice weather in the forecast, it's going to be good day.
After while crocodile,
RMI Guide Hannah Smith and Team
mini-marshmellows? just asking
Posted by: John Murray on 1/25/2019 at 9:27 pm
“sport eating” … such a great description! Glad all have the green light to go on up, time for the real fun to begin!!!
Posted by: Karen on 1/25/2019 at 6:42 pm
We started our morning with a simple question: coffee or tea? I am a coffee person along with most of the members of the team, so we say coffee, black coffee. Our meanings of black coffee are different. In Nepal it seems all black coffee means sugar water with a hint of coffee...so we take our shot of hot sugar water and prepare for the day (tomorrow morning we will make our own coffee with my MSR windburner stove and Starbucks Via). Today was another day of driving on the windy, one and three quarter lane road. As the bus bumped along the road with horns sounding our presence around the turns, you can't help but zone out. Thoughts of how simple life is here, with minimal distraction from social media and media in general...it seems nice, but then the mind floats to the mountains and what you should climb next. We arrived in the town of Chainpur where we were once again greeted to the town by dance, scarves and flowers. But this greeting was different for this time we got to meet the four Nepali women that will be joining us on our climb. They range from the age of 19 to 25. They have been training for this climb the last four months by trekking into the basecamp and in Kathmandu. They are all very excited and eager to climb and learn some more, just as were are excited to climb, teach and learn ourselves. We took an afternoon stroll to the top of the foothills to stretch our legs before we sat down for a delicious dinner of fried rice. We are definitely eating our weight in rice on this trip. As the evening winds down, we enjoy our last chance on the wifi and get ready for bed. Tomorrow brings our last day of driving and the start of our trekking.
Climb on,
RMI Guide Hannah Smith
Might be a good idea to switch to tea…
Posted by: Mary Ann on 10/20/2018 at 9:11 am
So exciting!
Posted by: Mary Ann on 10/20/2018 at 12:37 am
Posted by: Brent Okita, Mike King
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'
The Expedition Skills Seminar - Muir September 16 - 21 met in Ashford on a very rainy Sunday for their Technical Training day. With a gear check completed and their backpacks full they left Paradise on Monday with clear skies and sunshine. The team has been at Camp Muir practicing mountaineering skills and enjoying this great weather. Today they got an early alpine start and made their summit attempt. RMI Guide Brent Okita reported a beautiful morning with no wind as they reached the crater rim of Mt. Rainier around 8:30 AM PT. The team will enjoy some time soaking in the views from the summit before starting their descent to Camp Muir. On mountain training will continue for the group until Friday when they will descend to Paradise and return to Rainier BaseCamp.
Congratulations to today's climbers!
Posted by: Casey Grom, Jess Matthews
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 14,410'
The Four Day Summit Climb Teams led by RMI Guides Casey Grom and Jess Matthews reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today. Jess reported moderate winds and clear skies on the upper mountain. The teams left the crater rim at 7:36 am and are making their way back to Camp Muir.
Congratulations to today's teams!
Awesome! Congrats to my family making memories of a lifetime!
Posted by: Donna Burkeen on 8/17/2018 at 3:23 am
So proud of you both. What an adventure and an achievement!
Posted by: Carol Kelsey on 8/16/2018 at 12:00 pm
Posted by: Mike King, JT Schmitt, Ben Ammon
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mt. McKinley
Elevation: 11,000'
Monday, June 11, 2018 - 5:35 PM PT
Not much to report from 11,000' Camp. Today we woke to snow, after breakfast we were shoveling snow and about every two hours since there has been more snow to shovel. The one caveat is that the wind is light. The Team has been working on "out chilling the storm" as a long time RMI guide once put it. We are hopeful that the weather begins clearing tomorrow so we can put a cache in striking distance of 14 Camp. Everyone is healthy and warm.
RMI Guide Mike King
On The Map
Alex,
After hunting around the RMI website we are 90% sure this is your expedition. Stay warm and tend to the small details: feet, hydration, etc… Best to the whole team- and Malin says you did this to yourself :)
Posted by: Matt & Malin on 6/12/2018 at 9:50 am
Scott, I’ve got my eye on you - and the summit! Keep your leg warm!
Love, Mom
Posted by: Connie Selgrath on 6/12/2018 at 8:29 am
As planned, we were up and getting ready at 11:30 last night. It was a calm and clear night with just enough moon to see by but not so much that the stars were washed out. We set out at 12:40 AM. There were headlights well up the mountainside already, which was a pretty thing to see, but it also made clear just how far and high we had to go. We took hourly rest breaks, and sure enough, we put more clothing on at almost every pre-dawn break, until we basically had it all on. Those were cold hours, anticipating a 6:30 sunrise. It caught us at about 18,000 ft and instantly made life a whole lot easier. We pulled onto the crater rim at Stella Point after seven hours on the go. Another hour and ten minutes got us over to Uhuru, the true summit. It was magical walking along the crater rim and checking out the glaciers and the lay of the land on the roof of Africa. High fives and handshakes were in order on the top. There may have been a tear or two, and of course a bunch of pictures. We started down after thirty minutes. Our clear day was already going cloudy, but that kept some sun off of us for the descent, which was a good thing. At 12:10 PM we were back to Barafu. A great sit down lunch in our dining tent did wonders to restore our strength, we packed up and started down toward Mweka Camp just after 2 PM. When the rain and hail hit halfway through our 4 hour, 5,000' descent, it wasn’t totally unexpected. We couldn’t very well run down the tricky rock trail to escape the showers. Ultimately it meant that we had to watch every single slippery step on the way to camp at 10,000'. The rains quit as we got in at 6 PM but life was a little soggy and muddy for our final night on the mountain. We’re not complaining though... on the contrary, we’re feeling lucky that we got perfect weather exactly when we needed it for climbing.
Best Regards
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
On The Map
Cheers to all! An awesome accomplishment. Now relax and have even more fun!
Posted by: Your favorite aunt on 2/7/2018 at 11:51 am
You rock! What an experience.
Posted by: Karen Crompton on 2/7/2018 at 2:51 am
Thank you, Casey, for these wonderful updates and for this awesome expedition! I loved my phone call from the top of Cayambe.
We are thinking of all of you, and can’t wait to hear the stories and see the photos!
Group hug!
Laura
Posted by: Laura Bryson on 1/25/2016 at 6:57 am
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