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Posted by: Eric Frank, Mike King, Jack Delaney, James Bealer, Abby Westling
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
After a week of unexpected park closures and a wonderful spring storm, our first Muir seminar of the season has concluded. Despite the less than stellar weather conditions, the team was able to shift gears and make the most of their time on the mountain. Climbers learned important skills like route planning, glaciology, snow sciences and spent several days practicing and honing their crevasse rescue skills.
Congratulations team – we hope you enjoyed your time on the mountain!
Posted by: Robby Young, Sean Collon, Steve Gately
Categories: Guide News
Sean Collon: Rock climbing and mountaineering have a large number of common skills, techniques and physical requirements. Approaching rock climbs with heavy packs full of gear builds stamina, and the climbing itself requires total body strength; all of which contributes to success in the big mountains. When guiding, or on personal mountaineering trips, I rely heavily on the rope skills I have developed largely in the vertical world of rock climbing. But more than all of this, rock climbing, in and of itself, is fun. Like any type of climbing, it is physically and mentally demanding. It can be pure enjoyment, often scary and painful, but always tremendously rewarding.
Steve Gately: After a busy Rainier season, trips like this provide us with some welcomed vacation time, while also allowing us a great opportunity for continued training. With back-to-back trips to Aconcagua coming up this winter, keeping my skills sharp is important to me. One aspect that goes consistently overlooked is not only the mental capacity but also the situational awareness needed for such long expeditions. For me, rock climbing is a way to keep my assessment skills sharp. There is some inherent risk in rock climbing, similarly to anytime that we step out into the mountains. This requires you to be constantly assessing situations, risk, hazards, terrain etc. This level of awareness is invaluable. You can be as strong as the best climbers out there, but without that ability to constantly assess your surroundings and problem solve when needed, well, you won't last very long in the mountains. For me, as a guide, this is one of the most important contributions I can bring to my trips and rock climbing provides an excellent way to stay strong, keep my skills sharp, and have a ton of fun while doing it!
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Robby Young is as talented on rock as he is on glaciers and skis. He is spending the winter ski patrolling and teaching several avalanche courses in Utah and planning on a ski trip to Iceland this spring before his Denali expedition. See more of Robby's photography at www.robbyyoungphotography.com.
Sean Collon is an RMI guide, originally from Michigan, spending this winter season in Utah ski instructing at Canyons Resort and training for the AMGA Rock and Ski Instructor Courses. He has climbed rock and alpine routes all around the Pacific Northwest and throughout the country, and guiding with Dave Hahn next summer on Mt. McKinley.
Steve Gately is heading to the southern hemisphere this winter to guide on Aconcagua. Returning to Park City, UT, he will be found skiing, ice climbing and working on another short film about backcountry skiing in Utah's Wasatch Range before heading north to Alaska next summer.
Be safe. You are the best and most experieced guide in the world, so you really don’t need me to say “Be Safe” but we are all hearing about the conditions this year - so BE SAFE. Bill M.
Posted by: bill mcgahan on 5/19/2012 at 10:49 am
Hey Dave,
Mark Gray here. You led a climb on Rainier about 6 years ago where you were called of for a rescue of some other RMI group. It had snowed off and on through the night and we would probably would have not tried for the summit anyway. Needless to say I was amazed to even have been able to climb to camp Muir with you and have followed your Everest attempts ever since. Just wanted you to know you are in my prayers as you once again head for the the top of the world!
Posted by: Mark Gray on 5/19/2012 at 9:29 am
Sunday, October 10, 2021 - 5:46 pm PT
Greetings from La Malinche! Today the team moved away from the busy streets of Mexico City to the mountains that surround it. We got great views of our future objectives, Ixta and Orizaba on our drive today across the Mexican country side.
Everyone did great hiking up to 13,700ft on La Malinche, a dormant volcano. We had sunny skies today and no wind.
Tonight we are going to feast on some authentic Mexican food and stay in cabanas at 10,000ft. The cabanas we are staying in were once used by the Mexican Olympic team for their training. The stars are out and it is a beautiful night up here.
That’s all for now, tomorrow we move to the base of Ixta.
Sounds like a pretty perfect start to your adventure! Here’s to tomorrow and more great memories!
Posted by: Constance Roth on 10/10/2021 at 8:35 pm
Posted by: Adam Knoff, Hannah Smith
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Everest BC Trek and Lobuche
Elevation: 16,950'
This morning came as both a blessing and a curse. Most of our previous evenings have transitioned nicely from our enjoyable group dinner into bed time which we naturally gravitate towards around 8:30 or 9. On paper this trip offers yak loads of down time and should, if played right, give each of us a solid 9 hours of shuteye.
But we all know plans, as perfect as they may seem, play out far differently than the spreadsheet says they should. Just ask Vladimir Putin about that.
But thankfully none of us are crazy, demented humans and simply get a bit sidetracked with issues such as stomach funkiness, altitude weirdness and in the case of last night, a pack barking dogs. There were only four of them, I know because I chased them around the village of Lobuche at 2 am with rocks and a ski pole, but nothing would make them stop. We were sleeping at an altitude of 16,000 feet so it wasn’t the easiest anyway but never had I heard nonstop dog shouting for 8 hours straight. So this morning was a blessing because they finally shut up when the sun hit but a curse because I was tired and cold and just wanted to stay in bed. But we had miles to cover!
After our standard breakfast, complete with dog stories, admissions of no sleep and an eagerness to get on the trail, we slung our packs and followed our Sherpa leader Dawa. The path started easy but soon steepened and became a lot more rugged when we began to cross a small glacier. Our objective was the last village of Gorak Shep, before getting to Everest Base Camp tomorrow. A steady three hour stroll landed us on target with views of Nuptse and Everest dominating the views up ahead. The day was perfect and we knew our hike up a ridge line to a small summit called Kala Patar was going to be stunning.
We powered down some lunch and headed out. The trail head was conveniently located two minutes from our lodge so before we could say yak cheese we were head up. The summit sits at 18,500 feet which we achieved an hour and a half after leaving. The vistas were as good as advertised and no matter how man times you see it, one can’t help but to be blown away by the size and power of the Everest cirque. We could also see Base Camp far below and got excited to go there tomorrow.
By 3 the clouds began to move up the valley, like they do every day at that time so it motivated us to descend and go get some tea.
Now we are resting before dinner and our schedule horizontal time. This isn’t planned, it’s a product of challenging days and a demanding environment. Plus it keeps us healthy.
Stay tuned for our journey to EBC tomorrow.
Adam, All the best to you and your group. Amazing pics!
Posted by: Uncle Chris on 3/31/2022 at 11:01 am
Wishing a peaceful night and good weather. Looking fantastic from your reports! Thank you each day for the update!
Posted by: Jane on 3/30/2022 at 10:33 am
Hello from 14,000ft on Pico de Orizaba! Today we left the comfort of Puebla behind for our final objective. A two hour bumpy 4x4 ride in the back of a pickup truck took us up to our basecamp on Orizaba. The team is feeling well rested for one more climb tonight.
We have clear skies at the moment and the forecast is calling for a clear summit bid tonight. We are looking forward to watching the sunrise from the side of an 18,491ft volcano. For some folks this will be a new altitude record previously broken on Ixta earlier this week.
Wish us luck for a beautiful morning of climbing. We will check in again tomorrow!
Posted by: Dave Hahn, Seth Waterfall, Mark Tucker
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Everest
Elevation: 28,700'
On The Map
Damn!! I can’t sit still in my chair. Go guys, go!
-Larry Seaton
Posted by: Larry Seaton on 5/22/2013 at 5:36 pm
Posted by: Adam Knoff
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Everest BC Trek and Lobuche
Elevation: 8,700'
We made it to the Khumbu! Normally I wouldn’t sound so excited but this was not an average day of travel.
Our day began with a modest 3:45 am wake-up call from our comfortable air conditioned rooms so we could get all of our luggage and bodies to the airport by 5:15. Our flight to Lukla was scheduled to depart at 6 which in theory would put us out of the smoggy Kathmandu valley and into the mountains at 7 am. Everything is good in theory until a human makes a silly mistake or Mother Nature takes the reins. In our case it was the later that began to send our perfectly good plan into a tail spin.
Landing in Lukla, which sits at 9,000 feet literally dug into a mountain side is considered one of the most challenging places in the world to land a plane, so conditions need to be just right. Today they were anything but. By 10 am we actually loaded a bus, got transported to the plane, sat on that hot and sweaty bus for 30 more minutes then got word the conditions deteriorated suddenly so all flights were on then off again sending us back to the terminal. By 1pm, 8 hours after arriving in the terminal we had moved a total of 20 feet. As reports of continuing bad weather reached us, we knew our chances of flying were dwindling.
So enter Plan B. If a fixed wing can’t fly, sometimes a helicopter can. And fly it did! After another hour and half of finagling we rounded up two birds to take the entire group, with luggage to Phakding, our scheduled place of rest for the evening. Wait, wasn’t there bad weather up there? Yes, and because of that we had to make an unplanned landing well below our village to avoid sinking clouds and big scary mountains. So enter Plan C.
The group flew in separate helicopters with one group making it on their second attempt and myself and Eva still stuck below. After much head scratching about how to reconvene the next day, our pilot motioned Eva and I to quickly load up so he could make a last ditch attempt at keeping the group together. By some blessing of karma, the clouds parted just enough to make it happen and we landed literally as the clouds began to close in again. With blades still running we jumped out, threw the luggage off the helicopter and off he went. We were both glad to be on the ground and not heading back into the ensuing white out.
As the bird disappeared we counted our blessings and began our efforts to find the rest of our team. Twenty-five minutes after landing we were all reunited drinking tea at the Sunrise Hotel in Phakding.
A warm fire, big dinner and a couple beers prepared us for a well deserved sleep.
I was impressed how the team kept a positive outlook and rolled with the punches despite an unpredictable outcome.
Tomorrow we begin our actual trek towards Namche. Follow along for hopefully a less intense entry tomorrow.
Cheers,
I’ve read several books about climbing Mt. Everest and love keeping up with your trek!
Posted by: Donna Randolph on 3/27/2022 at 8:39 pm
Best of luck and good weather.
Posted by: Jane on 3/23/2022 at 3:39 pm
Posted by: Matias Francis, Seth Burns, Henry Coppolillo, Roland Scott
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mount Rainier
Elevation: 10,080'
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
Posted by: Billy Nugent, Dave Hahn, Seth Waterfall
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Vinson Massif
great success cheryl holman :):):) toy
Posted by: wayne on 11/15/2011 at 5:23 pm
Be safe! Enjoy!!!
I will miss you MAW!!
Diane
Posted by: Diane Barnett on 11/14/2011 at 1:39 pm
Great clip! I had the honor of attending a fundraiser last night (Golden,CO) for Jeff Lowe’s “Metanoia” movie. One of the items they were auctioning off was a 3 day climb at “The Creek” with Jim Donini! Jim was there and personally offered the trip. As you can imagine, it went for a nice high bid!!
Posted by: Lori Stewart on 12/18/2013 at 7:30 pm
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