  We present a written version of four lectures given at the NATO Advanced
Study Institute on "CD Perspectives on Hot and Dense Matter"in Cargese, Corsica
during August, 2001. Over the last year the first exciting results from the
Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) and the four experiments BRAHMS, PHENIX,
PHOBOS, and STAR have been presented. In these lectures we review the state of
RHIC and the experiments and the most exciting current results from Run I which
took place in 2000. A complete review is not possible yet with many key results
still preliminary or to be measured in Run II, which is currently underway, and
thus the emphasis will be on the approach experimentalists have taken to
address the fundamental physics issues of the field. We have not attempted to
update the RHIC results for this proceedings, but rather present it as a
snapshot of what was discussed in the workshop. The field is developing very
quickly, and benefits greatly from contact and discussions between the
different approaches of experimentalists and theorists.
