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The
Four Day Summit Climb teams led by RMI Guides Elías de Andrés Martos and Solveig Waterfall topped out on Mt. Rainier early this morning with winds around 50-60 mph. As of 7:18AM, they were at 13,600’ on their descent. It was a very cold, windy climb for them.
Congratulations to today's team!
RMI Guides Jake Beren and Christina Dale led their teams to the summit of
Mt. Rainier this morning. Both teams reported clear skies and warm temperatures with great climbing conditions. The teams began their descent from the crater rim around 7:45 am PT. They will return to Camp Muir and then continue down to Paradise later today.
Congratulations to today's Summit Climbers!
We have settled in to high camp at
Lenz Rocks after a beautiful day of climbing. Warm sun, and a cloudless sky at breakfast let us dally a bit longer than had been our want, and then we set to packing up camp, paring down our gear to the essentials, and getting ready to climb to 15,000'. The climbing is very smooth, mostly walking straight up a broad shoulder of the glacier, and everyone performed well. The scale here is pretty large, and difficult to get a grasp on, and it was quickly apparent that it was better to focus on one's steps than looking up, as things took much longer to approach than it seemed like they should.
With camp built, we're headed to bed early in anticipation of an earlyish start for the summit tomorrow. With any luck, we'll be calling in from the summit tomorrow!
Dobrye din,
RMI Guides
Pete Van Deventer,
JM Gorum, and team
On The Map
The May 15 - 20
Expedition Skills Seminar - Muir teams finished up their training at Camp Muir this morning. With a successful summit climb on Wednesday the teams spent yesterday working on crevasse rescue training. Today they packed up and left Camp Muir shortly before 11 am headed for Paradise.
We look forward to seeing them later today.
Congratulations to the Seminar Teams!
We spent the day cruising for wildlife in a caldera.
Ngorongoro Crater didn't disappoint. There was fairly heavy cloud glued to the crater rim in the morning when we were working around the circumference, but as we dropped into the interior, we got under the weather and enjoyed fine visibility. We saw vast quantities of wildlife including herds of wildebeest, cape buffalo and zebra. There were hippos galore and a solitary black rhino. The big cats stole the show though. At one point a female lion walked out into the road and lay down against the hubcap of one of our vehicles. This was despite a bunch of us leaning out to take pictures and a small traffic jam of land cruisers forming to capture the event. She couldn't have cared less about car occupants. All she knew was that she was hot and that the hubcap was offering a little shade.
Bryson, our driver, had to maneuver very carefully to get the vehicle moving without running over the big cat tail.
On the way out of Ngorongoro, we visited a Maasai "boma", or village, and learned a little about the famous tribesmen clinging to their traditional lifestyle.
Tomorrow, we'll move over to Tarangire National Park.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
It was a little easier getting up and getting going today since we didn't have to crawl out of tents on a mountainside. The gang was on the road, leaving the Dik Dik Hotel by 8:15 AM. It took several hours to wind through Arusha's traffic and to get over to
Lake Manyara National Park. But the drive was very much worth the trouble. We rolled back the roofs on the two Toyota Landcruisers and went looking for wildlife. Within minutes, we saw elephants and baboons and monkeys. We ticked species after species, had a great picnic lunch and then saw the main attraction: lions lounging in an acacia tree. It was hard to leave the pair of big cats, but eventually we moved on to see hippos and pelicans, zebras and wildebeests. As the sun got low, we left the park and headed for the Plantation Lodge, our accommodation for the night. All were surprised and pleased to find themselves in the lap of luxury in a beautiful garden setting. We've come quite a way from sleeping on a tilt on cold dirt.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
The Four Day Climb led by RMI Guide Casey Grom and Tom Skoog reached the summit of Mt. Rainier early this morning. It was another beautiful day on the summit with warm, fair weather, and views for miles.
Congratulations team for reaching the top!
We woke up this morning at 19,600 feet in the cold, windy environment of high camp. It’s pretty hard to get moving when you have already accomplished your goal, but we rolled out of our cozy sleeping bags and packed up our tents. The warmth and WiFi of basecamp were calling our names. We made great time heading down hill, and arrived at
Plaza Argentina around 3 pm. We sat down at our table and waited patiently for four hours until dinner time.
Once the food came out, everyone stopped talking. Once the food stopped coming, we did some quick organizing for our walk out tomorrow. Now we’re all huddled up in a dome tent having a team slumber party. The Russians next door are serenading us with all genres of music. You might think that would hinder our sleep, but we are 6,000 feet lower than we were last night, so I’m betting everybody will sleep just fine.
RMI Guide JM Gorum
The
Mt. Rainier Summit Climb, led by
RMI Guide Pete Van Deventer, turned at the top of the Nisqually Cleaver. The team encountered some gusty winds and were turned at 13,400 feet.
It was the night before Christmas, and all through the tent not a creature was stirring...except for RMI's first
Aconcagua ascent. Our cache was placed at Camp Two with care, in hopes we will soon be moving there. 18,000 feet is so high, we may have seen reindeer fly by. We boot skied down to camp with glee, making the best of
Aconcagua's scree. We filled our bellies with tasty bites, before we lost the warm sunlight. We crawled into our tents snacking on treats, before dreaming of tomorrow's Christmas Day eats. Oatmeal and quesadillas they are the best, we can't wait to have a Christmas Day rest.
Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight.
RMI Guides JM Gorum, Avery Parrinello, and Hannah Smith
Congrats to Mike G. and the rest of the team on the climb!
Posted by: Jack on 6/4/2017 at 4:34 pm
Congrats guys great achievement looking forward to y’all getting back home.
Dad
Posted by: Jay Murray on 6/4/2017 at 12:31 pm
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