June 12, 2018 It’s always a good day when one of our teams calls in from the summit of Mt. Rainier; today was no exception. Our Disappointment Cleaver Team battled the cold temps and reached the summit in good form this morning. They’ve made their way down the Muir Snowfield and are now looking forward […]
June 6, 2018 The hardest decisions are often ones that don’t give you definitive closure. Frustrating to say the least. Mountain guides are forced into this decision more often than most, and certainly with more on the line than most. We saw that yesterday on the Emmons route with Dallas and his team when they […]
May 2, 2018 The first IMG climb of the Mt. Rainier season is just a few days away and we’re not letting those days go to waste. This morning our newly hired guides gathered at IMG for our annual new guide training. The goal for these three days is to get them up to […]
April 30, 2018 Every spring IMG Guides come together for our annual Guide Training weekend just before the start of the Rainier climbing season. This year we packed the room with 37 Guides. Saturday is typically reserved for getting to know the new guides (10 this year), discussing any new protocols, a refresher on […]
April 23, 2018 IMG Senior Guide Betsy Dain-Owens checked in by radio from the lower slopes of Mt. Rainier today. Her report was that the Denali Prep Seminar team is having an absolute blast in the good weather. Their plan for today is to work on some of the fundamentals (ice axe arrest, cramponing, and […]
April 23, 2018 Justin Merle began guiding on Mt. Rainer in 1999 and hasn’t stopped. Since his first climb as a guide, he’s accumulated over 160 summits of Mt. Rainier and countless other summits here in the Great Pacific Northwest and worldwide, including seven summits of Mt. Everest. Merle, an AMGA certified Alpine Guide, has […]
April 13, 2018 As always Rainier has provided a great training venue this week. Snowy winter weather, wind, and variable terrain gave our Denali Seminar team exposure to all aspects of expedition climbing. Over the last 6 days they’ve experienced expedition camp maintenance, crevasse rescue scenarios, navigation training, fixed rope courses and, of course, the […]
From: Dustin Balderach Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2018 To: Tye Chapman Subject: Relaxing at Refugio Paine Grande Hey Tye. All continues to go beautifully (pun intended) down here in Torres del Paine. We just finished a great big dinner here at Refugio Paine Grande. A super nice lodge located right on the shores of the […]
February 7, 2018 IMG Senior Guide Dustin Balderach checked in from Refugio Chileno in Torres del Paine National Park this afternoon reporting that he and his team “had a great day today”. They got a nice early start from Puerto Natales which put them on the trail about 10:30am. Once on the trail they made […]
January 26th, 2018 I met Liz in 1979 on my first Himalayan Expedition and she wanted to know everything about what happened.  Since then, I met her dozens and dozens of times in Kathmandu, as I traveled back and forth to Nepal over the years with our climbing teams. Ever the journalist, Liz was all […]
