#rapidascent

#RapidAscent / #RapidDescent. Patience is everything in finding a window to summit #MountEverest. We waited to hit the sweet spot of warm and windless. It was a tough to wait. We watched teams push into dubious weather, return battered, frostbitten, and summitless, while others returned victorious. The failures justified our decisions but the successes made it more difficult to wait (despite us being happy for them). We stayed low, resting, watching the winds rake the upper #NortheastRidge. When the wind barbs on the meteogram became confused and dropped off the steady southwest flow it was time to #climb. Our window came later than expected, but I can't complain. 25 days after @brooks.entwistle arrived we were standing on the highest point on Earth! We summited 5/27/2017 and descended to #EverestABC the same day. We rested, packed, congratulated our Sherpa team and the #EverestNoFilter crew, and took off for Base Camp this morning. 12 hours ago we were at 21,000', now we're at 14,000' in the middle of #Tibet and in 12 more hours we'll be back at 29,035' - seated in an air plane! @alpenglowexpeditions #AdventureDoneRight #Everest2017 #Everest (at Mount Everest)

Our #Sherpa team at #EverestABC (minus Dorje, our resident radio expert, who was out working- sorry Dorje!) . These guys are still cracking smiles even though we were hoping to be on the #summit right now. From left to right: Panuru, Pasang Ringi, Norbu, Phurba, QuanChuck, Mingma, Tula, @namgye and an acquaintance from next camp. It gets tough when the season goes longer than expected, even on a #RapidAscent trip. @chadpeele and I are on our 29th day, @brooks.entwistle is at day 20... Still not bad for #Everest. Summit window is in our sights- moving up soon! #Everest2017 #Northside @alpenglowexpeditions #DarnTough #strapinventureout #getonup (at Mount Everest)

Lhasa, Tibet. The @AlpenglowExpeditions guide team is recovering from jet lag in the holy Tibetan city and prepping to begin the #Everest2017 climbing season. It's great to be back with our gang from last year: @chadpeele, @estebantopomena and our team doc @monica_piris! We'll be #climbing the mountain via the Northeast ridge. Our climbers will be meeting us tomorrow and we leave for #Everestbasecamp in two days. @adrianballinger @coryrichards, and our Sherpa team are already there, setting up and acclimatizing- can't wait to join up with the rest of the crew! @brooks.entwistle on the expedited #rapidascent to join soon thereafter 👊 #Tibet #Lhasa #Everest #MountEverest #NortheastRidge #DarnTough #strapinventureout

This is a pre and post race combo pic...It was always going to be a fun one when it started off with me in my (awesome) poncho Through the wind, rain, thunder and lightening ⚡⚡ I had so much fun racing today and very happy to come away with the win 🏆🏅 #running #runlikeagirl #trailrunning #vegan #veganrunner #runner #runninglife #runnersofinstagram #runningintherain #runninginthemud #trailrunningseries #bitumenisboring #northface #rapidascent #clifbars #melbourneweatheratitsfinest

If you want to challenge yourself and have fun as you compete in one of the best marathons in the world, then you should sign up for the 100KM SURF COAST CENTURY.

Looking out at La Mano in the high #Andes while guiding #Aconcagua with @alpenglowexpeditions last year. At 6,962m (23,000!) Aconcagua is the highest peak in south America and a great place to test your mettle at altitude. Every time I go to altitude I feel that my body has benefited from previous experience up high. If you've got big plans for Himalayan peaks or want to try out #RapidAscent (climbing big mountains by pre-acclimatizing), now is your chance: We still have a few open spots on our expedition departing on December 3! Call or email the office this week and mention this post for a special offer. Contact @alpenglowexpeditions: [email protected] 877-873-5376

Made it! So psyched to be back in Seattle. The autumn feel here is reminding me that ski season isn't far off! This is @brooks.entwistle ripping turns at about 24,000' on our descent from the summit of #ChoOyu. Ski conditions were not blower, champagne, Utah or any other type of face melting #powder, but we got a few pretty damn good turns up there. Can't complain at 8000m! #🍕🍟 @AlpenglowExpeditions #RapidAscent #8000mSkiTeam (at Frēlard Pizza Company)

This is what it looks like to ski from 8,201 meters! It doesn't look that bad... But it was quite challenging! Tied for most challenging were snow surface and hauling the ski gear to the top. At 8000 meters every once counts and skiing adds a whole lot of ounces. Skis alone add at least 7 pounds (we carried real skis, not tiny ski mo skis) and leaving options open for descent lines I carried a lot of gear for crevasse rescue and rappelling anchors. As for the snow surface, in general we had a good snow season. Lots of consistent small storms without huge wind... At least right until our summit push. Just before we went up, a sizable and windy storm striped the upper slopes of the mountain and left a wind pressed and variable surface. You can't count on good snow quality at these elevations, but we were able to get a few good turns and there wasn't much dangerously firm snow. I skied from the top, arm wrapping the fixed lines through the yellow band and sticking close to @Brooks.entwistle my ski client. When we reached Camp 3 (24,300') we skied some great quality turns together to Camp 2 where we met @adrianballinger and @emilyaharrington. My skis stayed on until Camp 1, with a rope length rappel over the ice cliff. What a fun #🍕🍟 descent! Psyched to be on the #8000mskiteam! @AlpenglowExpeditions #RapidAscent #ski8000 #chooyu2016 (at Lhasa Gang-Gyan Hotel)