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Friday, October 11, 2024
After our rainy summit of Volcan La Malinche, our team was pretty excited to see sun pop up in the forecast. We headed toward Volcan Iztaccihuatl (Ixta) excited for our next summit.
At our regular food and water pit stop in Amecameca (my favorite word) our local guide Allan had some bad news. The rains from Hurricane Milton had caused the park service to close the road, and we would have a 9 kilometer hike to our normal parking/basecamp area. This was sad to hear, as it made a summit of Ixta a hard proposition. But we quickly brainstormed and decided we would trek to basecamp, then get as far up Ixta as possible. This would give us great altitude training for our biggest goal, Orizaba at 18,500’.
The next day we hiked through pleasant tall grass meadows and pine trees and camped at our normal basecamp at 13,000’. In the morning we woke to a ‘practice’ alpine start at 3:00am, and were finally greeted by stars and the moon.
On our climb to 15,500’ we watched a colorful sunrise and Volcan Popocatepetl puffing away across the valley. All in all a spectacular altitude training day.
Trekking back through the pine tree meadows, everyone was excited to get to Puebla for pizza, a nice night in a hotel, then to our final volcano, Pico de Orizaba!
RMI Guide Joe Hoch
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Mexicos Volcanoes October 5, 2024
The Five Day Climb June 15 - 19 ascend to Camp Muir on Day 3 after a day and a half training and preparing. They spent Day 4 of their program practicing cramponing up Muir peak and fixed line travel, and went over knots and hitches. RMI Guide Casey Grom and two other guides went up high doing some route work and shoveling the new snow from Disappointment Cleaver. Today the team went to Ingraham Flats and watched the sunrise over Muir peak and western Washington. Unfortunately unstable snow conditions from Monday's storm prevented from safely climbing any higher. The team will descend to Paradise later this morning and conclude their program later this afternoon at Rainier BaseCamp.
PC: Tatum Whatford
The Four Day Summit Climb September 6 - 9 reached the summit of Mt. Rainier today. RMI Guide Steve Gately and team were 100% to the summit. Steve reported clouds and winds to the top of Disappointment Cleaver with winds 10-20 mph. The climbers left the crater rim just before 8 AM en route to Camp Muir. Once back at camp they will repack and continue down to Paradise. We look forward to seeing them at Rainier BaseCamp later this afternoon.
Congratulations to today's climbers!
Almost as if to make up for rain and sloppy conditions yesterday evening, today we were granted a perfect morning. We made good use of it. It was great to wake to birds singing... a reminder that we’d come all the way from the alpine zone to the forest and the land of living things. Despite the long, hard day yesterday, everybody showed up smiling at breakfast. After refueling, we stood out in the bright sunshine for a goodbye ceremony with our mountain staff. We tipped them, which is merely normal practice when forty men have worked their tails off to help you accomplish your dreams, and they sang to entertain us... and themselves. We knew -and they knew- that we’d done a lot more than just work together for a week, we’d become friends -which was worth commemorating. The singing and dancing with
Kilimanjaro as an enormous and majestic backdrop won’t be forgotten. We then shouldered packs and dropped down the four thousand vertical feet separating us from the Mweka Gate. The trail was in surprisingly good condition -suggesting that yesterday’s rains had only fallen on our heads and weren’t widespread. We got into safari mode on the hike out by spotting a few black and white Colobus Monkeys in the trees. At trail’s end around noon, we signed out with the National Park, had a fine lunch and got rolling down the highway. We drove out of the cultivation zone, full of bananas and coffee, and then cruised through the outskirts of Moshi. It took a couple of hours in the bus to reach our garden sanctuary at the Arumeru River Lodge. Showers and cold beverages were very much in order. We each took a stab at reconnecting with the virtual world before meeting for a great dinner and lots of laughs and recollections about the real world of Kilimanjaro.
Tomorrow our adventure will continue... time for a safari!
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
We had a windy night in Camp that made sleep difficult, the Team rallied to get out of camp and carry gear and food to
Camp 2, 18,000'. We had a cold and clear morning as we walked into Ameghino Col and got some spectacular views of the Central Andes, La Mano and Cerro Mercedario to name a few. We cached our gear, ran into Gabi, a former RMI guide, and beat feet downhill so we could take in the remainder of the day getting caught up on the sleep that eluded us last night. The Team is doing great and are looking forward to resting their legs tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed for light winds tonight.
RMI Guide Mike King
The team has arrived in
Moscow! Everyone has their bags, though some had to work a little harder than others for that luxury.
Today, we started with a tour of the Kremlin. We saw some really big cannons, and some very old cathedrals. Some of those cathedrals contain remains of people who died in the 14th century. That's before Christopher Columbus even sailed the ocean blue, which was in 1492, of course. There is a lot of history here.
The team toured the Red Square, ate some ice cream, and ate some lunch. After our tour, folks split ways for a bit. Some taking naps, some exploring on their own, and some opting to track down their luggage. Success on all fronts.
We just got back from dinner, everyone is packed up and ready to head out early tomorrow for our departure to Mineralnye Vody. You'll hear from us soon.
RMI Guide JM Gorum
Hola -
We are here in Mendoza, Argentina. All of our team and gear arrived with a few delays but that is to be expected.
It is absolutely pouring rain right now but we have no doubt it we be dry in the morning. We think it would be better to get this weather out of the way while we are dry and comfortable in our hotel.
We had a good team orientation meeting and an even better dinner here in the land of steak and Malbec red wine.
We will have an early rise tomorrow to take care of a bit more packing and once we have our
Aconcagua climbing permits in hand we will head off toward the mountain, about a four hour drive.
All is well,
RMI Guides Mark Tucker & Pepper Dee
Good evening from
Artesonraju Base Camp. Today was a well deserved rest day here at Hauripampa after yesterday's summit on Paria. We're eager to start our final move towards our objective.
RMI Guides Elias de Andres Martos and Eric Frank
We had to put up with perfect weather again today. A quick 3 hour hike to the park gate where we said good-bye to our mountain adventure. We all boarded our monster truck that held about 30 of us including all mountain gear on the roof. A stop along the way for a lunch to break up the 3 hr drive and we are back at our lodge. The Dik Dik lodge welcomed us with open arms and has done an outstanding job assisting us with desired creature comforts. They are going to supply us with our safari guides and vehicles for the next phase of our adventure tomorrow. Tonight we just finished up a great celebration dinner. Now we are off to bed, everyone is doing well and we are looking forward to starting our safari tomorrow.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker & Team
So much for a lazy rest day yesterday. Instead, we jammed the day full of activities. We spent the morning enjoying the world famous Plaza de Ponchos market in
Otavalo, where we had a few hours to roam the streets, haggling with vendors for the best price on many handmade craft goods, from alpaca blankets to paintings to jewelry. After regrouping for lunch we ventured out of the normal tourist confines and explored the local market. Here, locals sell fruits, vegetables, sides of beef, whole-cooked pig, you name it…the sounds, sights, and smells were all exotic and a unique cultural experience.
After returning to our hacienda, we made a quick turn around and went on a short hike to the Cascadas de Peguche, a beautiful waterfall near our hacienda. Ok, we managed to get some rest in also.
This morning we are starting with a leisurely breakfast and then we will head for the Cayambe climbers’ hut. In order to reach the hut we will have to transfer to four-wheel drive vehicles and travel far into the Cayambe-Coca Ecological Reserve. The climbers’ hut will be our home for tonight as we get ready for an early alpine start for our summit attempt on Cayambe. At nearly 19,000’, Cayambe will test our endurance, acclimatization, and climbing techniques. We will let you know how it goes. Hopefully we will return with photos of summit high-fives.
RMI Guide
Mike Walter and team
On The Map
Congratulations to all of you. What an accomplishment!
Posted by: Jan Charter on 9/9/2018 at 1:22 pm
WAY TO GO….Tara & group !! I can’t imagine how hard it was but also how majestic. I’m SO PROUD of you Tara & what you accomplished. Mt Ranier has been conquered !!! Can’t wait to hear ALL about it !! Love Mom
Posted by: Cathy Frantz on 9/9/2018 at 9:55 am
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