Thursday, May 23, 2019, 6:17 PM PT
We went to sleep last night surrounded by some of the biggest, most beautiful mountains on earth. When we woke up this morning, all we could see was white. Our blue skies had been replaced by clouds and light snow. Luckily, the change in weather did nothing to slow our progress. We rolled out of our tents, packed up what seemed like a totally unreasonable amount of food and gear, and then headed uphill. We hauled our packs and sleds up to 10,000', dug a hole in the snow, and buried all of our things. In a few days time we will be back to retrieve them, and move them farther up hill. After squirreling away our gear, we boogied back down to camp. The team made excellent work of the downhill, which is always a good sing. We are all dried out and are eating burritos now. Not much else to report from the day. The view were minimal. The work was hard. The plan is to go to bed early and move our camp to 11,000' tomorrow if the weather cooperates. Either way, we are having a great time here on the Kahiltna!
RMI Guide JM Gorum
Wednesday, May 22, 2019, 11:30 PM PT
Well, we are on the Kahiltna Glacier. We have begun the climb! We flew on early this morning with perfect weather, a smooth ride, and amazing views of the Alaska range. After landing, we consolidated and re-organized our gear, picked up fuel from base camp, rigged our sleds, and started walking. After about five hours of travel time, we arrived at 7800 feet, our first camp on the Kahiltna. After setting up tents and building a kitchen we moved into an early dinner. We’re going to try to wake up a little on the early side tomorrow. Our plan is to carry a load up to 10,000 feet. Hopefully, with an early start, we can be back down in camp hiding from the sun during the hottest part of the day. Everyone did really well today despite the warm temps and heavy loads. We’ll check back in tomorrow afternoon.
RMI Guides JM Gorum, JT Schmitt and Dustin Wittmier
The Four Day Summit Climb Teams May 9 - 12, 2019 reached the summit of Mt. Rainier this morning. RMI Guide Brent Okita reported a windy and cold morning but with sunshine and clear skies. The teams began their descent from the crater rim around 7 AM. They will return to Camp Muir for a short break and to repack, then continue down to Paradise. We look forward to seeing them at Rainier BaseCamp later today.
Congratulations to today's Summit Climb teams!
Posted by: Lapuyade Reid Joan on 5/20/2019 at 8:50 am
Congratulations to the entire team and especially to our son, Danny.
A wonderful accomplishment that will stay with you for the rest of your lives. Proud of our son and all the young people like those in the team. I applaud you!
RMI Guide JM Gorum and the May 3 - 5, 2019 Mt. Baker Summit and Ski Descent checked in from camp this afternoon. The team enjoyed a beautiful day on the mountain with 100% of the team reaching the summit. They enjoyed the views from the summit before pointing their skis downhill and enjoyed some awesome skiing. They reached camp in under an hour. The group will pack up camp and continue to the trail head later this afternoon.
Congratulations to the Mt. Baker team!
Today was about steak. Glorious, salty, fatty steak. We spent most of our day walking back through the Vacas Valley. We got snowed on. We saw some lightning. We heard some thunder (go on the YouTube and look up “Jim Cantore thunder snow.” That was basically us). All of those things were great, but do not capture the true essence of the day. All of that walking, over all of those rocks, across all of those rivers was done to accomplish one goal: to get to Pampa de Leñas, so we could eat our weight in carne asado.
We sit at a picnic table, we’re covered in dirt, and we eat with our hands. We eat next to climbers who are walking in to Aconcagua Base Camp. They are still clean, and not yet hungry. They watch in amazement as we devour our food as fast as it is brought to the table. We watch in amazement as they politely pass their bread around. We laugh at them because they don’t know what we know.
This is our last night in the mountains, our last night to eat with our hands, and to sleep on the ground. Tomorrow at dinner we will wear collared shirts, and say please and thank you. One might start to wipe food from his face with the back of his hand, remember where he is, and reach for a napkin instead. The conveniences of society will be welcomed, but we’re all a little wilder now, and what we’ve learned in the mountains won’t be forgotten.
RMI Guide JM Gorum
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
Congratulations Team!!! Such an accomplishment for all of you. Glad all is well and heading back.
Jimmy- Can’t wait to hear about it.
All best to the whole team
-Kelly Gaines
Posted by: Kellogg C Gaines on 1/14/2019 at 11:30 am
Update 4:17 pm PT
Everyone is safe and sound back at high camp. It didn’t take long for the team to eat dinner, wrap up in their sleeping bags, and pass out. Tomorrow we’ll move back down to the booming metropolis of basecamp.
Summit Call
Hey this is JM Gorum calling from the top of Aconcagua. We got kind of a late start this morning. We ended up having a beautiful day. We are standing on top right now. We are getting some high clouds and snow a little bit. We are going to start heading down hill. We will check in when we get back to High Camp. Talk to you then.
RMI Guide JM Gorum
RMI Guide JM Gorum checks in from the summit of Aconcagua.
We made it to high camp today under sunny skies and light winds. It was one of the nicest days of our climb so far. As usual with this crew, we set up camp quickly and efficiently. “Chillin by two” could be our team slogan. Lots of sun up here gave us ample time to dry out any items that may have been a bit damp. Not much else to report, we’re just doing all our last minute prep for our summit attempt tomorrow. Hopefully our next check-in will be from the top.
RMI Guides JM Gorum, Hannah Smith, and Avery Parrinello
We’ll call today a weather day. Usually, a team takes a weather day when conditions are too poor to move camp or carry gear higher on the mountain. We took a weather day today solely to take advantage of the first sun and calm winds that we’ve seen in 36 hours. The past few days have been a real test of everyone’s resolve here at Camp Two. Before today, we have basically only left our tents to go to the bathroom, and to do that we had to suit up in boots, parkas, gloves, and goggles.
So much of expedition climbing is mental, and that kind of living wears away at everyone. It has done us a lot of good to stand around outside today, sip tea in the sun, and actually enjoy our unique position high in the Andes. Turns out there are actually some really nice views up here. In addition to healing any mental frayed ends, we dried out all of our gear, re-organized, and dialed in our cold weather systems for our summit day. We went on a walk towards high camp to get some blood flowing, and prepped ourselves for the coming days. We will move to high camp tomorrow, and try for the summit on the 12th. Starting tomorrow the days go by quickly, and after our reboot today everyone is chomping at the bit. We’ll check in tomorrow, hopefully from 19,600 feet.
RMI Guides JM Gorum, Hannah Smith, and Avery Parrinello
Clayton, pull your strength through your team. Help the ones that need it and accept the help from the others.
High camp and then summit push. You have your window and one chance at at.
Good luck to you all and a safe summit and descent.
Posted by: Brent Wolfe on 1/10/2019 at 10:41 pm
George you rock, it looks and sounds pretty intense! Now that you are out of phone range etc you can’t call me for pointers and the “What’s next?” But the hard core training I ran you through on the “Great Griffith Climb” I know you got this!
Stay safe and have fun Bro!
It was another windy night last night. Most people didn’t sleep much, and the winds haven’t calmed any appreciable degree now that the sun is out. This was in the forecast, and we knew we would have to hunker down in order to be in position for our potential summit window. After today, things are supposed to improve, which is good because we’re running out of spare tent guy lines.
Everyone is still mentally stable, although by the end of the day we will all be tired of sitting in our shaking, rattling tents. Not much else to report today. We’re just eating, drinking, reading, and waiting. Our course of action tomorrow depends on the forecast. The plan is to take another day here before moving up to High Camp, but we will see if the weather forces our hand in one direction or another.
RMI Guides JM Hannah and Avery
Good luck to all the hikers! I hope the weather cooperates and all of you are able to reach the summit! Thinking of all of you daily! Go team Cory!!!!!
Posted by: Karen Prykull on 1/10/2019 at 3:45 am
Hope you get calm weather so you can reach the summit! Good luck team!
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So excited for your good weather and great progress! We are all pulling for great weather going forward and successful climbing
Posted by: Ellen Smith Eaton on 5/25/2019 at 7:28 pm
Thanks for the updates! Love you Dad! Rooting for you and hoping for good weather!
Posted by: Katie Knudsen on 5/24/2019 at 8:11 pm
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