Entries from Mt. McKinley
Posted by: Seth Waterfall
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mt. McKinley
Today was packing day. We met for breakfast at the ‘Roadhouse’ in downtown Talkeetna at 8:00 am. If there’s one thing to remember about eating at the Roadhouse it’s to order the half size portions. The full size breakfasts are unbelievably huge.
After breakfast we met up at Hudson Air. This is where the RMI storage unit is located. Hudson Air has been in the glacier flying business for 54 years and Jay Hudson, the owner, is very accommodating to our groups. He pretty much lets us have our run of the place.
We spend the morning going through all of our personal gear. One of the things that makes Denali tough is carrying all of the gear and food you’ll need for the whole three weeks, so it pays to go through each and every item to make sure that you don’t have too much, but also that you don’t forget anything.
After a break for lunch we meet at the NPS Ranger station in Talkeetna for our orientation meeting. This is a ritual that every Denali climber must go through. The Rangers meet with us and show a slideshow of the West Buttress route. This is also where we receive our Clean Mountain Cans and bio-degradable bags for disposing of human waste.
After finishing up at the hangar in the afternoon we all adjourned to Talkeetna for our last night in town for 18 to 22 days!
On The Map
Posted by: Seth Waterfall
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Mt. McKinley
Travel day. Today everyone arrived in Anchorage from their respective homes. John Lucia (the lead guide for the trip) and I have already been in Alaska for 10 days skiing in the Chugach and Talkeetna Mountains. Walter Hailes, the third guide on the trip, met all of our climbers at the Anchorage airport, while John and I picked up the RMI gear for the entire Denali climbing season from airfreight.
By the time John and I got back to Talkeetna, we only had a few hours to unload all of the gear before Walter and the rest of the folks showed up. After a quick rundown of the next days’ schedule, we put our luggage into the RMI storage container and headed off to the hotels for the night.
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