Most Popular Entries

The Four Day Climb August 29 - 1 September was unable to reach the summit today due to route conditions.  RMI Guides Pete Van Deventer and Dominic Cifelli lead their teams to Ingraham Flats at 11, 200', they enjoyed the views as the sun came up.  The team is now back at Camp Muir and will begin their descent to Paradise later this morning.

Hello all,

Today we woke to perfect weather to hit the trail. A mellow walk past yak corrals took us to our first uphill. A little more breathing and some sweat brought us to a downhill trend to the river crossing. Before we crossed, the team enjoyed an ice cold foot soak. Shortly after the river it was tea time. The saying out here might go Dal Bhat power 24 hour but I think for us its hot tea power 24 hour. After filling our energy tanks with tea we madr our way up the last hill of the day. The top of the hill brings us to a special place, the climbers memorial. A sadness fills this place but also brings to reality the risks taken to climb mountains. After acknowledging those who have fallen we continued our journey to Lobuche. Not far from the town we pass by the Lobuche peak Basecamp. We gaze at our objective but first we must go to Everest Basecamp. A little training in the evening brought us to dinner. A birthday cake surprise wrapped up our day with smiles and chocolate covered mouths. Another good day in the books and more to follow. 

Goodnight all,

RMI Guides Adam, Hannah, and team

RMI Guides Adam Knoff and Ben Ammon led their Four Day Climb teams to the summit of Mt. Rainier today.  The weather is clear and cold and the climb took approximately 6 hours from Camp Muir to the crater rim.  After enjoying some time in the crater and getting all the photos, the team will return to Camp Muir to pack up and then continue their descent to Paradise later today.  They will end their adventure with a celebration at Rainier BaseCamp.

Congratulations to today's climbing teams!

Another wide ranging cold front is dropping across the U.S. this weekend, drawing down Arctic air and threatening to plunge temperatures below zero from coast to coast. Seriously cold wintertime temps aren’t abnormal for many athletes in more northern climes, and most grit their teeth, throw on a couple more layers, and continue with their training. Training goes on and we make the most of the weather, but treat these cold snaps with respect. Several studies, by the Norwegian and Swedish national athletic programs, as well as the US Olympic committee, have shown that strenuous endurance training in cold, dry conditions can lead to lung and bronchial irritation and inflammation, and that prolonged training in these conditions increases the incidence of asthma and bronchospasms. After the Nagano Winter Olympics in 1998, the US Olympic committee found that over 25% of the American team suffered from bronchospasms (uncontrollable spasms of the bronchi), and that of cross country skiers (athletes making long and exerted efforts in snowy and cold conditions), this respiratory problem was present in over half of the individuals. A similar study of elite level cross country skiers in Sweden and Norway showed repeatedly that over half of these athletes display asthma like symptoms and decreased lung capacity. While a few days of training during a cold snap won’t be enough to cause most athletes long term respiratory distress, it could be enough to cause some bronchial irritation and inflammation that could impact training for the next few weeks. This may be a good time to focus your training week on a few more gym and indoor workouts, and if you do train outside, consider training with a neck gaiter or buff over your mouth, to help warm the air as it enters your lungs. In chronically cold places, such as Alaska, athletes have developed special masks for training in cold conditions. Essentially stripped down respirators, they hollow metal grid of the mask retains the heat of each exhaled breath, helping to warm the next breath. Stay motivated, wear a few more layers, and take care. If an outdoor workout leaves your lungs and throat feeling raw and irritated, don’t push it. Do your next few sessions indoors, the irritation heal and subside. Good luck and happy training! Read more about the respiratory studies here. Questions? Comments? Share your thoughts here on the RMI Blog!

The Expedition Skills Seminar - Muir September 16 - 21 led by RMI Guides Matias Francis and Seth Burns have wrapped up an excellent week of training at Camp Muir.  The team enjoyed stellar weather and were able to complete their seminar training, ice climbing up to AI6+, alpine bouldering and candy bar snow protection tests (you will have to ask them) and more.  The team will descend from Camp Muir today and return to Rainier BaseCamp for a final celebration.  Nice work everyone!

Photo: Matias Francis

Mental preparation for mountaineering is just as important as the physical training. Often the mental hurdles of the mountains can be just as intimidating and overwhelming as the physical challenges. You’ll want to have some strategies to rely on when the climbing gets difficult and you can use your training to figure out what works to keep you mentally engaged and focused during the climb. Below are a few ideas we’ve gathered from our guides and climbers over the years:  Break It Up Instead of viewing the climb as single massive undertaking, break the trip into sections, and sub-sections, and sub-sections of sub-sections. If summit day is still days or even weeks away, don’t focus on it when you’re first shouldering your pack. Instead, break the trip in smaller portions: reaching Base Camp, moving to Camp 1, etc. Then segment out the day’s climbing into sections and concentrate on just the stretch you’re on. It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the enormity of the climb ahead but by breaking the endeavor into smaller sections of climbing you can separate it out into achievable parts.    Climb Beautifully When the going gets tough and you find yourself struggling, try focusing all of your attention on the physical movements. Dial in your cramponing techniques, concentrate on climbing in perfect balance, focus on  your footwork, pay attention to your rope interval. Turning your attention to these small tasks brings your attention to the immediate actions you are taking and keeps you engaged and focused.  Focus on the Now Much like climbing beautifully, try focusing on the immediate trail ahead and don’t go through the exhausting mental exercises of “what-if”, “maybe”, or “perhaps” of what is over the rise. Instead of worrying about how intimidating the crevasse crossing you heard other climbers mention might be, what the altitude will feel like, how long the descent is going to be, or any other number of possibilities, focus on the route in front of you. By staying focused you won’t burn mental energy exploring unknowns and you’ll stay engaged. When you get to those times of the climb or places on the route, you may just find that they are far more manageable than you led yourself to believe.  Count When the going gets really tough, try counting steps. Many climbers descend from the mountains with tales of putting their heads down and counting a certain number of steps - 20, 50, 100 - before looking up again. Don’t lose focus of what you’re doing and continue to climb safely and in tandem with your team, but counting is another way to give yourself something immediate to focus on to help get through the challenging sections.  Wander On most climbs there are many moments such as the approach or the descent where you’re off of the technical sections of the mountain that require active focus and you’re simply walking up or down a trail. It’s okay to let you your mind wander! Stay engaged with what you’re doing so you don’t stumble, but let your mind think about things other than the trail ahead. Maybe it’s thinking about how to plant the garden, remembering quotes from your favorite movie, solving a nagging problem, or even what meal you’ll treat yourself to after the climb - anything that can give you a little mental escape.  Every climber has different mental strategies that work for them. The trick is finding what works for you. Whether it’s a long weekend hike or a tough interval session, you can use your training routine to experiment with different ways of keeping yourself mentally engaged, even when the training get’s tough.  Did we miss something? Share your suggestions on mental strategies and read past Weekly Mountaineering Training Series on the RMI Blog!

RMI Guide Dave Hahn contacted Everest Base Camp from the South Summit. The team is doing well and the weather is great. They are enjoying watching the sunrise and have gotten some great photos. The team is taking a break at the South Summit which will allow climbers descending from the summit to get past. The weather is great, the team is strong, they have plenty of oxygen and a good pace so far. RMI Guide and Everest Base Camp Manager Mark Tucker

Friday, February 16, 2023 | 5:38 PT

This morning everyone reported having slept soundly. As it turns out, even climbing half of Antisana is still hard. We're recovering and now looking forward to Chimborazo, which has been giving us quite the show this evening. We're staying at the Chimborazo Lodge, an historic mountain lodge run by Marco Cruz, a climbing legend in Ecuador. It sits at about 13000' right at the base of the southwest flank of the mountain. There is no cell reception and no wifi, giving us a chance to unplug and hone our focus towards the task at hand, climbing another massive volcano. With any luck and a lot of trying hard we may have a chance to visit a truly majestic summit. Stay tuned!

-- RMI Guide Dustin Wittmier

Today was officially a rest day. Our team had different definitions of what that means but all in all we are going to bed content.

If you haven’t already guessed we had breakfast at 7:30 am, drank tea and coffee until 9 then prepared to go on a short walk.  Being a lazy day, three out of the five departed by 10:15 while two others stayed back to enjoy some down time in the lodge. The weather started cloudy but improved by late morning offering new views of Makalu, the world’s fifth highest mountain and the north side of Ama Dablam which we have been viewing from its more popular side on the west.  

Two members of the team hiked to a small summit at 16,600' for some extra acclimatizing while the others went back to the lodge for lunch.  

Overall it was a pleasant day here in Pheriche which should set us up for our next stretch to Lobuche tomorrow.   

We hope all is well back home.  

 

--RMI Guide Adam Knoff 

Just a quick note to you that everyone here at Annapurna is safe. Yesterday everyone came down off the mountain to wait out some heavy storms. It had been snowing steadily all day today when the large earthquake struck just before noon. It was so forceful! It felt as if we were inside a snow globe being shaken by God. The storm kept us from seeing much but we could hear avalanches ripping down the mountains all around us. The roar was so loud I thought we'd surely be hit. Annapurna Base Camp is situated on a muddy ridge clinging to an adjacent mountain. During the earthquake large sections peeled off and cascaded down some 800ft to the glacier below. Totally insane, but nothing made it to us, and everyone is safe here. My thoughts go out to everyone in Nepal, especially my friends in Kathmandu and over on Everest. Climbing Update: The 24th of April I descend all the way from Camp 4 at 7000m on Annapurna to base camp. But before I get into why I descended without attempting the summit I'll talk about the earthquake. It had been snowing steadily all morning today when, at around noon, a large earthquake struck. The earthquake was so forceful, it felt as if we were inside a snow globe being shaken by God. The storm kept us from seeing much but we could hear avalanches ripping down everywhere. The roar was so loud I thought we'd surely be hit. Annapurna Base Camp is situated on a muddy ridge clinging to a adjacent mountain. During the earthquake large sections peeled off and cascaded down some 800ft to the glacier below. Totally insane. As I write this another roar of what sounds to be a massive avalanche rips down Annapurna. On the 23rd I made my way up from Camp 3 to Camp 4. The route is straight-forward. It starts with a low angle section of ice up a serac out of camp 3. To a traversing section of steep snow then a long ramp to C4. The ramp connects the German Rib with the summit area of Annapurna. The ramp is a slope of 30 to 45 degrees and it was covered in fresh deep snow up to waist deep. That afternoon myself and another team set up camp underneath a serac at 7000m. Their plan was to start out that same night with their 4 Sherpa guides to leave at 8pm to break the route and the 4 members of their group to follow at 9pm. I decided not to attempt the summit because: - Too cold of a night to climb without supplemental oxygen - Retreat would be difficult at night as the wind was blowing too much snow and covering the track. - no previous time spent above 18,000', so I was not properly acclimatized. - too much technical ground below us - with forecasted storm by Noon the next day. - high risk of avalanche if caught above camp 2 after the storm. I descended from C4 the morning of the 23rd. As I was leaving, the members of the team that had attempted to summit started straggling in from their failed summit attempt. They were too tired to descend from C4. I re-broke the route to C3 in sketchy and quite heavy deep snow. As I dropped down a final steep descent before Camp 3 on an arm wrap rappel, I plunged into a concealed crevasse. I was already feeling quite sick from overheating in my down suit. The sun had come out and started slowly deep frying me in the down suit. But luckily I was stable enough that I could wriggle out of the suit without falling any further. Half way in a hole, about to vomit from overheating and my arm wrap biting into my forearm, I comically rolled down into C3. I was moaning in discomfort, dry heaved a few times, and laid there motionless for a time. I had to get moving again though, because the weather was coming in fast. I cached a few things at Camp 3 and started rappelling off the serac whose top forms the flat surface of camp 3. The route down the German Rib is steep and riddled with crevasses and alpine ice. But large areas of the route had deep snow blown in from the night prior. ... Another large avalanche is ripping down Annapurna... this place is quite unstable since the earthquake. Soon after completing my descent from the serac I, twice, stuck a leg into a concealed crevasse while rappelling down the further slope. I shouted to a Sherpa named Pemba from the summit team that we'd better employ the buddy system and re-break the route together. As we started down the visibility went to zero and a heavy fall of snow started. About midway down we lost our rappel lines and started carefully climbing down without the safety of the lines. Searching the snow with our ice tools for the rappel lines while slowly inching our way down. We were In a couloir with seracs all around and above us, my mind kept telling me we were in a very dangerous place to be moving so slowly. A few minutes before finding the lines again we set off a small slab slide 3 ft to our right. Things were getting spooky! Finally, we made the last rappel onto the glacier below the German Rib. Now the last hurdle was finding camp 2 in a whiteout. An island of safety in the insanely dangerous glacial field below the crosshairs couloir and sickle ice cliffs. In the reduced visibility we wove through large ice blocks of avalanche debris by GPS. We moved with baited breath - hoping not to hear that tell tale rumble that has become such a familiar sound to me here at Annapurna. The Korean team a day earlier had had a near miss right in this area. After having been on the move on a very scary mountain, in terrible weather, for 11 hours I finally arrived at Base Camp at 8:40pm that night. Descending through deep snow and limited visibility all day. At Base Camp I found out that an avalanche had hit the team at camp 4 earlier that night. No one was hurt but they had to cut their way out of their tents. They were also all exhausted from their summit attempt. Including one climber who had frostbite on his hands and one suffering from HAPE. They would later be rescued via helicopter. Three of the 5 teams here at Base Camp are leaving, The team that attempted the summit blew their oxygen supply. Another team's Sherpas bailed because of concerns that Annapurna wasn't to be climbed this year. The mountain is angry. Yet another small team's permit has run out. I was planning to stay until mid-May as now I am acclimatized and my equipment is cached. However, with recent events I'm not sure what will happen, there's a lot of hearsay... and Annapurna sounds extremely unstable right now. I've heard at least three avalanches while I was writing this. -RMI Guide Alex Barber