Talkeetna

Adrian, Joe and Aaron have made it to AK. But it is not quite time for climbing yet. The next 2 to 3 days will be spent shopping for food and last minute gear in Anchorage, then traveling to the town of Talkeetna where we will meet with the park service. After that we will be repacking our gear once again, and waiting for our turn to fly onto the glacier by ski plane. The 45 minute flight is meant to be one of the most scenic (and exciting) on earth, and cuts a couple of weeks of bushwacking and mosquito swatting off of our trip.

The break in the weather that we wrote about last week lasted just long enough for our team to successfully summit Denali, and to beat their hasty retreat safely down and out. Then conditions returned to their normal 50mph wind-driven snows. But our summit day was perfect. Calm and warm by Denali’s standards,we still had to wear 3 layers of long underwear and fleece, goretex, and our down jackets to stand on the summit! Our climb was up the upper west rib from our high camp at 16,300 to the summit at 20, 320.