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Four Day Summit Climb Teams led by RMI Guides Casey Grom and Kel Rossiter Reached the Summit of Mt. Rainier early this morning. The team reported moderate winds of 20 – 30 MPH and a bit of light Snow. The team was able to spend a brief amount of time on the Crater Rim before starting their descent. The team is en route to Camp Muir and will be back at Ashford Basecamp this afternoon.
Today also marks the 200th Summit of Mt. Rainier for our lead Guide
Casey Grom. Casey has been a guide with RMI Expeditions for over ten years, and has successfully reached the top of many peaks all over the world including Mt. Everest. Congratulations to Casey on a very successful climbing career, we look forward to sharing many more summits with you!
Hello from 16,400 feet on blustery Aconcagua.
After a successful carry to Camp 2 yesterday we all took a well deserved rest day today. We slept in, which proved difficult to do because of the winds trying to huff and puff and blow down our houses. Then after hot drinks we took a small walk to a beautiful spot overlooking the valley. There we got the blood flowing by doing some high altitude yoga. Now we're back to the tents for an afternoon nap to prepare for a big move day tomorrow. Everyone says hi and is doing well.
RMI Guides Christina von Mertens and JJ Justman
On The Map
We awoke yesterday from our odd "hut" at the base of
Ixtaccihuatl (a hut for sure, but surrounded by a peculiar number of antennae) to clear skies and a perfect view of our lady and her fuming lover, Popo. These two volcanoes picked up a dusting of new snow with the weather of the last few days and could not look more beautiful in their fresh duds.
With a possible closing of this weather window the team launched towards high camp on Ixta, accompanied by grumbles from Popo as huge plumes of ash and steam spewed from the angry mountain. Ixta remained calm and welcoming to her respectful visitors. We made our camp and turned in for our first night up high on our host and awoke to perfect climbing conditions.
As we climbed this anthropomorphic mountain, up and down the anatomy of a passionate princess of the past, we eventually found ourselves on the unsupported summit at sunrise. We can only assume that Popo admired our approach as he belched approval on our descent.
It was quite a day and as we returned to the land of mortals in beautiful Puebla, a fresh blanket of clouds covered our hostess. We are grateful for the hospitality and look forward to resting in the lowlands of Puebla for a day. Perhaps Pico de Orizaba will shun the blanket for us mountain lovers from the North in a few days time. Put in a word for us will you?
RMI Guide Jake Beren
Hey, this is Seth. We are all headed to the airport to catch our flights home. We've had a great trip and today was no exception. In the morning, as we returned through
Tarangire National Park, we got very lucky and saw
two leopards . It was a great cap on what had already been a wonderful trip. Everyone is excited to go home but we all wish we could be on safari forever!
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall
Hello from
Kikoti Camp. We have just finished a wonderful evening around the fire pit complete with Maasai dancing and a BBQ dinner. Kikoti is am amazing place to finish our trip. Today we toured Tarangire National Park and it didn't disappoint. We were extremely close to elephants and giraffes and we got lucky and spotted a pride of lions lounging in the shade if a tree. The best thing about Tarangire though us the sheer number of animals. It was pretty much non stop the whole time. The talk at dinner was about how much fun the trip has been and that's because this group has really made it non stop laughs the whole time.
RMI Guide
Seth Waterfall & Team
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!
Not much to write about today. We had a breakfast burrito brunch after a few rounds of coffee. The weather has continued to be warmer then expected with light winds tugging at the tents. We are all in the tents with sleeping bags clipped to the outside to lower the temperatures. While anxious to move to
Camp 2, everyone needs this time to continue acclimating. Tomorrow we move camp to 18,000’ and will be in a better position for the next summit window. Currently there is a large lenticular cloud sitting on the summit, several teams moved to high camp yesterday for a summit attempt today, hopefully they are on their descent.
RMI Guide Mike King
Hello everyone,
Today we headed to
Tarangire National Park know for its abundant elephants, and it didn’t disappoint. There were plenty of elephants around, and we parked on an overlook to watch a large group of them play in the river.
There were lots of giraffes, impalas, monkeys, ostriches, and many others. One of the highlights was seeing three cheetah not too far off just relaxing under a tree.
We are spending our last night here in Africa at Tarangire Balloon Camp, which has beautiful tented rooms with screened windows to allow the sounds of the wild African night in.
Everyone is doing great and we are hoping to see a few more big cats on our way out tomorrow. Then it will be back to our main lodge near Arusha for a brief stop before catching our evening flights home.
Thanks for following,
RMI Casey Grom and the Safari crew
Yesterday the team started the day with a leisurely breakfast at La Casa Sol followed by a trip to the Otavalo Market to do a little shopping. The market was full of color and everyone was able to find a few souvenirs to bring home. In the afternoon it was time to head to the climber’s hut on
Cayambe. The heavy rains down low brought a significant amount of snow to the mountain. So, again we had to rent 4x4 trucks and see how high they could take us. Our packs were loaded heavy, and we were ready for a long hike. One by one our trucks pushed snow out of our path. Thanks to our adventurous drivers, this left is with only abut 20 minutes of hiking to get to the hut. A lot further than most of us thought! By mid-afternoon we were settled into the hut. We spent the rest of our evening relaxing and going over more knots. We had our first restless night’s sleep as we are all getting used to life above 15,000’.
This morning we were treated to an excellent breakfast prepared by our Cayambe Hut staff before starting our training day. In all the times I have visited this hut, I have never seen so much snow! With crampons on we headed out to the toe of the glacier to refresh our mountaineering skills. The new snow made for great glacier travel and setting anchors. Everyone did a great job! We are back at the hut now listening to the thunder, lightning, and light rain. It is an 11pm wake up call for us. The summit awaits!
Wish us luck!
RMI Guide Adam Knoff & Team
It was a short and uneventful move from Karanga Camp to
Barafu Camp,which is our launching point for the summit. The team did great and we arrived in right around three hours. Perfect weather, in fact a bit hot with how intense the sun is here at around 15,000ft. Not much atmosphere above us to filter the sun. We've had our summit talk where we discussed our plan and the team's strategy for tomorrow. Final packing is taking place. Relaxing and of course eating is the job for the rest of the day, then early dinner, off to bed for more rest. Weather permitting, we'll be up at 11pm, have breakfast and hit the trail around midnight. As per usual I'm expecting the ascent to take around eight hours, breaks included, to the
Roof of Africa.
My goal will to give a call from the top of conditions allow.
The team is in great shape and high spirits.
RMI Guide Mark Tucker
On The Map
Congratulations to the team and to the guide for his superior performance on such a grueling mountain. Climbing it one time is a dream of mine.
Posted by: Kevin Stone on 5/16/2016 at 11:44 am
Congrats! Just curious, were ladders required or put in place over crevasses?
Posted by: Amanda on 5/15/2016 at 12:21 pm
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