Hey, this is Eric and Avery calling from the lower bivy and Boston Basin Camp here in the North Cascades. We started a West Ridge of Forbidden climbing program today. Things are going really well. The team did a great job climbing up to the lower bivy. It's beautiful up here. Just the right amount of snow and flowers that are about to bloom. We're hoping to climb Sharkfin Tower tomorrow and then our main objective, Forbidden Peak, the following day. Thanks for following along. I'll give you a call tomorrow let you know how things are going.
RMI Guides Eric Frank and Avery Parrinello
RMI Guide Eric Frank and the Forbidden Peak - West Ridge team check in from Boston Basin in the North Cascades.
We dropped down from our high camp on Mt. Shuksan last night to avoid the wildfire smoke, and made our final walk out easier. An open bivy with breathtaking views of the mountain and Lake Anne were our reward. We enjoyed them in the fading light while eating dinner. A first-light start got us back to the car early enough to hit a local coffee shop for lattes on the way down valley.
This last week of climbing has been phenomenal. The perfect weather and excellent conditions in the mountains came together for an unforgettable experience. Here are some photos of our best moments...
RMI Guide Eric Frank
Good morning. This is Eric and John calling from the summit of Mount Shuksan. It's about 10:45 here. We had a great climb on the Upper Curtis this morning to the Southeast Rib of Mount Shuksan. Right now we are just looking out over a whole sky of smoke unfortunately. We're taking in the scents of the bonfire that's currently in southern British Columbia, which has blown in a bunch of smoke in, which looks a lot like clouds. So right now we just see the tops of the peaks around us but down below there's really heavy coverage from the smoke that has blown in. We're going to descend down through the smoke, potentially move a little lower to try to avoid it and get down where some trees can filter it out for us. Tomorrow continue our descent all the way out to the car and the end of our climb. Thanks for following along. We'll see everyone soon.
RMI Guide Eric Frank
RMI Guide Eric Frank calls in from the Mt. Shuksan summit.
Hey there. It's Eric Frank calling from the North Cascades on our climb. We were able to get up Forbidden Peak two days ago. We walked out of Boston Basin and had a nice rest day in the sun yesterday in Bellingham. Today we are checking in from the north side of Mount Shuksan. We climbed up the Fisher Chimneys Route today, and then depending on what we find in the morning, we may end up climbing the north ridge of Mount Shuksan. Our good weather has gone away for the moment, and we're sitting in a cloud currently. All-in-all things are going really well though. We'll keep you updated tomorrow. Take care.
RMI Guide Eric Frank
RMI Guide Eric Frank calls in from the North Cascades.
Hello, this is Eric Frank calling from the North Cascades. We are at the notch of the West Ridge of Forbidden tonight. We've had a long, but very well traveled day. We were almost 13 hours on the route to climb the Torment Forbidden Traverse. Everything went really well, so we're just nestling into bed up on our high bivy. We looking out over Iceberg and Tuck Lakes, and a pretty stunning sunset behind the El Dorado Peak. Hope everyone's doing well. Talk to you in the next couple days!
Hello, this is RMI Guide Eric Frank calling from the Torment Basin here in the North Cascades. We are on day one of a seven-day custom climbing trip and we have the most beautiful view you can imagine right now. We climbed up out of the wooded valley up into the alpine and tonight we are going to sleep out on the glacier below the beginning of the Torment-Forbidden Traverse. It is beautiful blue skies probably the most stable weather of the summer thus far. So we're actually up here without a tent, just laying out looking at all of the expanses of the North Cascades in front of us. Tomorrow we're hoping to climb the majority of Torment-Forbidden Traverse, and then probably finish up with Forbidden on Saturday. I look forward to updating you a long the way. Take care.
RMI Guide Eric Frank
RMI Guide Eric Frank calls in from the North Cascades.
Summit! With bluebird skies and lights winds, the summit climb teams reached the top of Mt. Rainier. The teams, led by Eric Frank and Paul Rachele, began their descent from the Crater Rim just after 7AM.
We look forward to congratulating them here at Rainier Basecamp this afternoon.
The Mt. Rainier Summit Climb teams, led by Eric Frank and Ty Reid, reached the summit at 8:00 this morning. It is a beautiful but chilly morning. After spending some time on top, the teams began their descent at 9:00 a.m.
Congratulations to today's summit climbers!
Since our last update a lot has happened. As we speak the last of the group is filtering back to our respective starting points or wrapping up they're time in Bolivia with a bit of personal exploration! But before we get ahead of ourselves, there's great news to be shared.
The entire team stuck it out for a 6 and a 1/2 hr ascent of Illimani! We were greeted with cold, clear climbing in perfect conditions up past 20,000 ft. Much of the climbing route faces west, so the morning sun was always tantalizingly close as we neared the glowing summit ridge. Our sunrise came as we finally broke off the west side and crested the ridge into the welcoming sun. With one last hour of breaking trail up the beautiful summit ridge the team could taste our hard work paying off. Before we knew it all three rope teams plopped down on the summit of Illimani to take a much needed food and water break and basque in our success.
The top of Illimani is a breathtaking ridge crest amongst the greater expanse of the Illimani Massif. From that point, the highest in the Cordierra Real, we could see all the way past La Paz and track our entire trip from the glimmering Lake Titicaca to the jagged peaks of the Condoriri and the huge perfect flanks of Huayna Potosi. Our team had a brief moment to relive the wonderful past couple weeks before the tight wind was nipping at our heels as we pushed off to begin our 8,000 ft decent back to Base Camp.
Our team's tired legs mustered one last push into camp and there we were! Happy, tired and feeling accomplished. I couldn't have asked for a better summit day and a better team to do it with!
At last we've got to give a big thanks to everyone who made this trip so successful. Thank you, thank you to everyone who helped us along the way and a special thanks to our amazing climbers who made this trip so special! Until next time over and out!!
RMI Guides Eric Frank & Caleb Ladue
June 1, 2017
Hello, this is Eric and Caleb with the team in Bolivia. We were hanging out up at the Condor's Nest at 18,000 feet, tucking ourselves in for the night. Down below us we can see all of La Paz and El Alto stretched out in the distance and even all the way to Lake Titicaca. Today, we meandered our way up a long ridge from our previous Base Camp. We were about fives hours on the ridge, beautiful views in each direction. The team did great and we are psyched for our summit bid tomorrow. We should check in from the summit in less than 12 hours, no less than 24 hours, yeah we'll call it that. Talk to you soon. Bye.
RMI Guides Eric Frank & Caleb Ladue
The RMI Bolivia Team checks in from 18,000 ft on Illimani.
I am so very, very happy that you are all off the mountain and that you all summited! You are amazing! Thank you to the guides for bringing everyone down safely. Just don’t think about climbing again anytime soon, okay? My hair is grey enough the
way it is! Congrats, Mattie! We can’t wait to hear all about it!
Mama
Posted by: Bird on 6/3/2017 at 4:54 pm
From Maddies crew at work. Good luck and good climbing. The blogs have been wonderful and you all are an inspiration to all of us mopes at sea level.
Just watched some of the videos of climbing Sharkfin on the way to the summit of Forbidden Peak…. GULP!
Looks like a wonderful climb with spectacular views! Good luck for the summit son and to all the climbers!
Posted by: Duncan Mckinnon on 7/16/2017 at 2:19 pm
View All Comments