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Great news! The team has now received all of our bags and we are ready to hit the trail... tomorrow!
We checked in with the
Aconcagua National Park Service to secure our climbing permits before leaving Mendoza. After gathering one more delayed bag, we made the three hour drive to Los Penitentes. We had plenty of time to re-arrange our gear and get it ready for the mule loads. Now after a great dinner, we are ready for our comfortable hotel and really looking forward to that pillow. Jet lag sucks. The team is doing great and we are having a good time.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
Round trip complete! Back in the lodge where we started a week ago and it feels great.
We enjoyed recounting our adventure during a nice dinner out on the patio. We awoke early this morning and were treated to yet another scrumptious breakfast and lots of fresh Tanzanian bold coffee. After that we had a really fun closing ceremony with the Barking Zebra staff. Awesome job from start to finish. These guys took such good care of us and a pleasure to spend time with on
Kilimanjaro. There was a small matter of a three-hour hike to the park gate, but it was enjoyable with no rain in the mystical descent through the cloud forest. The sights and sounds were amazing. Lots of happy campers after a hot shower and looking forward to sleeping in a bed.
Tomorrow we start our safari; it's going to be a blast.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
Buenas tardes from
Artesonraju Base Camp! We enjoyed a good rest day today. We fiddled with our gear, re-fitted crampons and practiced climbing anchor transitions. Good conversations were had at the dining tent too, all while enjoying the tea selection that our cook Emilio has brought, which we sweeten with the super natural honey from the bees of his next door neighbor. Rain has made a short appearance in the afternoon, but we look forward to start hiking up Paria North soon, our acclimatization peak, under sunny skies.
That's it for now!
RMI Guide Elias de Andres Martos and team
Hello once again everyone.
We have arrived back in the digital world after another very enjoyable safari. We spent yesterday touring
Tarangire National Park which is known for its elephants, in fact, it has more per square mile than any place on earth. And I can easily say it didn't disappoint! We saw hundreds if not thousands of elephants and even managed to take a break with a family, while some of them slept. There were plenty of other animals too- giraffe, zebra, hartebeest, bush bucks, Nile monitor, and many others. It was very surreal to be so close to them, and we were simply amazed at the abundance that were near the river, which runs though the park.
We never did see the cheetahs, or leopards, but perhaps that had something to do with all the lions we saw.
It's been a memorable experience for everyone and it's going to be sad to part ways with such a great bunch of folks. But now it's time to head home and share the stories.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and the Kilimanjaro/Safari crew
We woke up earlier than we would have liked this morning and met for breakfast at 6:30 after putting the finishing touches on our packing. At 7:00 the van arrived and we loaded up and hit the road. By 10:30 we arrived at Cashapampa, the town at the trail head of the Santa Cruz Valley, unloaded the van, shuffled gear around and helped corral the donkeys to be loaded. Just after 11:00 we started up the trail, weaving through the narrow canyon for a bit before climbing up to more open, pleasant, terrain further up valley. Our donkeys passed us just before 5:00 PM and in half an hour more we found our camp at
Llama Corral. Our cook, was already hard at work making an outstanding dinner for us. That's all for now, tomorrow we will make our way up to BC.
RMI Guide Geoff Schellens
We survived another stormy night up here on
Elbrus. It definitely is nice staying in a hut rather than tents. Especially when lightning strikes and the whole ground rumbles underneath.
It looks like
Elbrus got that nasty weather out of its system. Later this morning the sky cleared and for the first time the team saw the mountain! We took advantage of the day and went up to 15,000 feet to acclimatize. The team did great and we are now resting back at camp. It is still a little windy so we are waiting and watching for the right opportunity to make a summit push.
RMI Guide JJ Justman
On The Map
Wow! What a night and what a day for
Team Russia. I have been guiding here since 2002 and I haven't seen weather quite like this. The winds are very strong still. However, the thunder and lightening has moved away. Instead of acclimatizing towards 15,000 feet, the team was forced to stay put. So today was a rest day and we did manage to go for a short walk and do some skills training. Tomorrow we will give it another try in climbing up towards 15,000 feet, weather permitting.
RMI Guide
JJ Justman
June 7, 2016 - 12:10 am PT
Yep, patience is an inherent component of alpine climbing. Patience for weather, patience for conditions. Little could we do today with about 1 foot of snow in the last 24 hours. We spent the morning digging camp out, and then made the most of the afternoon with a thorough session of rope skills at camp. A break in the weather motivated a tour of the Pika later, which for about 1 1/2 hours, kept us around its eastern perimeter, below the formations of "The Trolls", which we aspire to climb soon. A hearty dinner of pasta and steak (that's how we roll on the
Alpine Seminar) brought us back to warmth, while the laughter was a constant because of the funny music played out of
Chase's phone (Will promises to do the Michael Jackson's moves of Thriller after our first summit).
Expectant to see what the weather will bring us tomorrow,
RMI Guide Elías de Andres Martos and team
June 6, 2016 - 7:01 pm PT
Today we woke to another gray cold morning! And we're well rested now after another 24 hours at
14 Camp. The forecast has been fickle but we forge on with a few laps around camp for the guys. There was a lot of packing, drying, and fidgeting with our equipment. We're preparing for a summit push . The team is excited and well prepared. With some weather on our side we will try to move to high camp at 17,200'! Now we eat, drink and sleep. Will be in touch tomorrow.
RMI Guide Tyler Jones
On The Map
Hi everyone,
This is Mike and Caleb from Mendoza. The entire team is in Mendoza safely with all bags accounted for. We enjoyed a nice dinner of Argentinian style grilled meat and pastas.
Tomorrow once our permits are secured we will head to Los Penitentes so we can sort our gear for the trek to
Aconcagua Base Camp. Expeditions are comprised of a series of small goals that hopefully culminate in standing on the summit. Having everyone arrive healthy and with all their gear in tow, was the first goal. We are looking forward to starting the approach to Aconcagua in a few days. Thanks for checking in and stay tuned for more updates.
RMI Guide Mike King
Hope you get some good weather, looks like an awesome time.
Posted by: Chris Jano on 7/2/2017 at 4:03 am
Keep killing it up there old man, love you!
Posted by: Nate Milbourn on 7/1/2017 at 11:43 am
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