Waking up slowly in my tent on the slopes on Kilimanjaro, I heard camp beginning to stir. Local guides, porters and climbers started to emerge from their tents dotting the Shira I campsite. From a variety of different directions, the common Swahili greeting “Jambo” was being tossed around. In varying degrees of pre-coffee stupor, some…
“Ham and Eggs” By Nick Aiello-Popeo, 2017 While most visitors to the Central Alaska Range toil under heavy loads on Denali’s West Buttress, some of us prefer the relatively-smaller surrounding peaks, with their steeper faces and lighter backpacks. It was during my first trip up Denali in 2010, while flipping through a well-worn guidebook in…
The Dec. 17 Mountain Trip Aconcagua team had a great day of trekking and are now in basecamp. They woke up early this morning and crossed over the Rio Vacas on the backs of the mules, and continued up the valley to basecamp. The team is all doing great and blown away at how…
Join Mountain Trip for our Avalanche Rescue Course — a one day course designed to teach essential avalanche rescue skills. UPCOMING COURSE DATE: TBD If you ski in the resort sidecountry or backcountry in the San Juans, this avalanche rescue course is a great step in continuing to refresh and build your competency. Both you…
Working Your Core The following article was written by Scott Johnston (Uphill Athlete co-founder and coach, co-author of Training for the New Alpinism) for Mountain Trip climbers to understand and execute a proper core strength workout. Whether you are gearing up for a Denali summit, or trying to perfect your winter ski conditioning, Uphill Athlete…
How do you know if you are ready for Mount Everest? By: Bill Allen Himalaya Program Director (3 time Everest Summiter) The difficulty and challenges involved in a Mount Everest climb have, in some spaces, been totally over-hyped with people equating it with a death defying experience only for the most incredible athletes, and in…
Step, kick, stab; step, kick, stab; step, kick, stab—so it goes for the majority of long mountaineering expeditions, for days on end, relentlessly uphill. Above 17,000’ (or even above 14,000′) simple tasks like these— raising your boot to the next foothold, jamming your crampons into the snow, and plunging in your ice axe for security…
We don’t often run trips to Mount Rainer, but we had a special father and son team and were able to get a permit to take them on the mountain. Congratulations to David and Turner for getting to the top of Mount Rainer on their way to summiting the highest peak in all 50 states!…
Denali 2017 Season Wrap-Up: A look back at a tough season in the Alaska Range Tough Weather: Weather is always the dominant force and topic of discussion on Denali. The fickle whims of the weather generally determine who will get an opportunity to climb high on the mountain. This season was a particularly challenging season…
2017 Denali Season! As the days grow longer in the northern hemisphere, the Mountain Trip family starts to migrate north to Alaska. After a while, it just feels natural, part of the cycle of the seasons, that tug deep inside that pulls us north. Maybe that’s what birds feel? Alaska, as we like to say,…