May 19, 2016 - 8:25 a.m. PDT
We are awaiting breakfast before heading to the airport to see if we can fly out today. The drizzle falling this morning hasn't gotten anyone's spirits down. We're all excited to get going!
Update - 10:14 a.m. PDT
The sun has been peeking out shyly this morning, which is a marked improvement from our earlier rain. The 'rampers' have just finished loading our gear into the two Otters that will fly the team onto the southeast fork of the Kahiltna Glacier from where we'll start our climb.
Boots are at the ready for when we get the word that the weather's good enough to fly. For now we're in the good hands of K2 Aviation to make the right decision to fly. They're the experts, and share the same attitude towards safety that we do: it's our top priority.
As I write sitting in the hangar, I'm watching a couple more sun breaks and hearing a plane warm up, droning out the classical music NPR is belting out on the radio. Both good signs, but not good enough yet to slip on the expedition climbing boots I'll have on for the next two - three weeks.
With luck you'll soon be getting a short, curt dispatch from me announcing a move. If not, our next dispatch may be coming from from the dinner table between sips of an Ice Axe Ale. Such is the waiting game here in Talkeetna.
RMI Guide Brent Okita and Team
Here we are! Today Team Russia left town for the ski village of Azau where we jumped on a couple of trams and rode them up to Garabashi Hut at 12,000 feet.
Masha is our Sous Chef at Garabashi Hut and she made a great lunch for us before we strapped on our mountaineering boots and went uphill for a little stroll RMI style! Nice and easy! The team is doing great! We made it to 13,200 feet but we didn't enjoy the sights. It was a rather cloudy and windy day on ol'Elbrus but our spirits are high back at camp.
Stay tuned for more exciting action!
RMI Guide JJ Justman
All of the the team happily and successfully stood on the “Roof of Africa” today.
Thankfully the weather cooperated and it was pretty calm most of the day. However, the recent rain/storm deposited a boat load of snow for us to enjoy. You might say the Snows of Kilimanjaro are back, but it’s probably only temporary.
We hiked up almost entirely on snow, which was a first for me. The team did an incredible job of taking care of themselves and fought hard when it was needed.
We have safely descend to our high camp where we will take a short break to eat and recharge before descending further down the mountain to our last camp on the mountain.
The team all met yesterday in Mexico City where we took walks during the day and were impressed with the city. We met for a fun dinner with lots of tacos and laughs. We all are looking forward to traveling around Mexico, climbing the high mountains, and tasting the best smoked chipotle sauces.
RMI Guide Christina Dale
Hello again everyone
The team had a really nice day here on Kilimanjaro today, waking to beautifully clear skies and hiking in sunshine all day. We started the day waking at 6:30 to start packing up before moving into our dinning tent for a nice breakfast with porridge, fried eggs, toast, avocado and even some fresh fruit, and most importantly plenty of hot coffee.
We hit the trail shortly after 8am and slowly made our way up the rocky trail with good views of Kili above. The trail climbs up a ridge and eventually out of the trees and allows for some truly spectacular views of the valley below. The team hiked for about four hours before reaching out next camp that sits on Shira plateau, which is an ancient lava flow.
Everyone is doing very well and we are currently relaxing in our tents.
RMI Guide Casey Grom
Thursday, August 2 - 5:36 PM PT
We had a great day of training on the lower slopes of the Easton Glacier today. Some clouds moved over at times, shading us from the sun, which was a blessing. We used our type travel segment to move up the glacier and get a view of the whole route. Things look great and we are set for our summit push tonight!
RMI Guide Pete Van Deventer
Tuesday, May 22, 2018 - 7:45 PM PT
Another day of beautiful weather let us descend back down to ~10,200' to dig up our cache of supplies and haul it back up to our 11,000' camp. The rest of the day was spent hydrating, resting, and preparing for the next step of this climb: establishing a cache at ~13,700', just past Windy Corner. If the weather holds, that will be our plan for tomorrow.
We're making good progress now, and we are all excited to exchange snowshoes for crampons and trekking poles for ice axes. Stay tuned as our progress continues.
RMI Guide Mike Walter
Mike,
I hope the weather Gods are good to you this year. If you have room in your packs going down, rather than throw all that valuable stool down a crevasse, ship some to me for my fecal transplants. Business is booming.
Buenas suerte amigo.
Posted by: Dr Dave on 5/23/2018 at 5:40 pm
Hello Dave Head, Shane Kidd and Team hello from Las Vegas we love you guys so proud and love you stay safe we will continue to pray for your safety and good weather KEEP ROCKING !! you got his.
We got a few more rain showers in the night at Shira, but the dawn was sparkly, cold and clear. Kibo had a dusting of new snow to dress up the ice fields, rock walls and hanging glaciers. Out to the West, Mt Meru could be seen poking through the endless cloud blanket below our camp. At 8 AM we got walking again through the high desert vegetation. Our time in the sun turned out to be short lived as the clouds enveloped us once more. It began to look as though we might get pretty wet at one point close to noon. We put on rain jackets -and endured at least 2.5 minutes of light precipitation before things got better -against all odds. We reached 15,200 ft -our high point for the day, at the Lava Tower. This represented a new altitude record for Olga, Pawel, Lynn, Joe, Dereesa, April, Steve and Colin. Only Kathleen and Patrick had been higher. We rested for a bit and then got moving down toward the Barranco Valley. The trail was delightfully quiet on what can be a very busy climbing route. We seemed to have the place to ourselves. Dropping 2000 vertical feet, we came into chirping birds and exotic plants -the magical setting for Barranco Camp. We had some hints of the great rock walls of Kibo above, but the clouds never let up enough to reveal the big views. The team was surprised and enchanted by a rollicking singing and dancing performance by our entire fifty man staff as we came into camp. This was our longest day so far, nearly seven hours on the trail, but by dinner the gang seemed to have recovered nicely and spirits were high for taking on the Great Barranco Wall in the morning.
Best Regards
RMI Guides Dave Hahn
Hello again everyone.
It was a beautiful day here in Russia. We had a nice relaxing start to the day with a traditional Russian breakfast of porridge, eggs and bread. Then made our way to the local ski lifts to help give us a jumpstart on our hike. I didn't hear a single complaint about riding up 1,500' before we started our hike to nearly the top of a local peak called Cheget. Normally we got to the top of the peak but being close to the border of Georgia, the Russian military had the upper part closed to climbers for some odd reason. Regardless, we enjoyed stretching our legs.
The hike went well with mostly clear skies and plenty of other hikers enjoying the day, and we even caught a few glimpses of Elbrus too.
After the hike we made our back to town relatively quickly thanks to the ski lifts, where we had a hot lunch waiting for us. After lunch we dropped off our gear and made a quick stop to pick up a few extra items and even managed to try on a few local hats.
We wrapped up the evening with another nice home cooked meal here provided by our ever so gracious local outfitter.
Things are good here.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
Hello, this is RMI Guide Eric Frank calling in from high camp on Ixta. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to send out dispatches the last few days. We've had some technical difficulties with our satellite modem, so for at least the next few days, will be checking in with voice dispatches like this. All-in-all, the team is doing really well. We had a great day climbing up to our high camp here at 15,100' on Ixta. The weather is partly cloudy but this morning we had blue skies and am anticipating the same tomorrow for our climb. We're all settled into our tents and going to nap for the afternoon. We will have an early dinner and then get tucked into bed so we can get up in the middle of the night and climb tomorrow. Wish us luck. Thanks for following along.
RMI Guide Eric Frank
RMI Guide Eric Frank calls in from Ixtaccihuatl High Camp.
CONGRATULATIONS!!! Way to go, Drew and RJR! So happy to hear you all made it to the top (and back down safely). What a huge accomplishment!
Posted by: Kendra on 2/1/2025 at 5:00 am
Congratulations!! It’s been fun to “”go with you!” Thanks for the blog! Congratulations to Dan from your fellow Trivia team members!!
Posted by: Susan Whitford on 1/31/2025 at 3:56 pm
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