Sorry to have kept everyone waiting. Adam and I have had a busy couple of days trying to recover from exhaustion and sore muscles.
I would first like to thank Joe and Evelyn. They have gone above and beyond helping us out during this expedition. Opening their home up to us, letting us use their car and driving us to Talkeetna is just scratching the surface of how wonderful and helpful they have been. This trip would have been a lot more hectic if it was not for them. Thank you both very much!
Adam and I had hoped to have more communication while we were on the mountain. We were told that there was a possibility of cell service at a few different points of the mountain. Unfortunately, at none of these points did our phones want to work or to connect to the network that was available. We had given our parents a tentative schedule which we were planning of following, however, due to feeling strong, acclimatizing well and great weather, we were able to move up the mountain more quickly than we had originally thought.
Over the next few days, Adam and I will give you a more in depth look on our climb to let you know how it went.
May 12, 2012
We had our meeting with the rangers at the Talkeetna Rangers satiation. They showed us a slide show presentation about the route up the mountain and intimidate you to no end about where lots of people had fallen or died along the way. It was a little nerve racking however we had done our research and we were prepared. They also gave us a green pale with a bunch of plastic bags. This was our new toilet. Luxury!! J We were also instructed that we had to carry the full plastic bags until we found a deep crevasse to throw it in. However, it is very important to keep the mountain clean which we found was very true.
May 13, 2012
We woke early to a beautiful day with clear skies for flying. We took Sheldon Air into base camp. Sheldon Air was very friendly and helpful and even made us delicious homemade cookies. A great treat as we were not going to have any home cooked meals for awhile.
We took a Cessna 185 plane toward the Alaska mountain range on a 45 min flight. Surrounded by snow covered peaks, we weaved our way towards base camp elevation 7,200 feet/2,200 meters.
Base Camp is a small community with climbers coming and leaving. It is located on the southeast fork of the Kahiltna Glacier. There is a base camp manager making sure each team has fuel, wands for marking the trail and caches (cache is a bag of supplies that we buried to retrieve later) and sleigh for pulling gear. We spent our first night here to start our acclimatization.
We took a Cessna 185 plane toward the Alaska mountain range on a 45 min flight. Surrounded by snow covered peaks, we weaved our way towards base camp elevation 7,200 feet/2,200 meters.
Base Camp is a small community with climbers coming and leaving. It is located on the southeast fork of the Kahiltna Glacier. There is a base camp manager making sure each team has fuel, wands for marking the trail and caches (cache is a bag of supplies that we buried to retrieve later) and sleigh for pulling gear. We spent our first night here to start our acclimatization.
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| Kitchen |
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| Luxury Toilet |
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