Some details

I've been getting some questions from professed readers of the blog about the nitty-gritty of the trip.  This post is intended to clear that up.  If you are a student of Denali and the various things required to climb it, you'll probably find this boring.

Dates: We fly out Tuesday, the 26th - a week from today.  Our flight is Boston-Houston-Anchorage, because obviously Houston is the sensible place to connect.  We fly home Anchorage-Houston-Boston on June 9th.

In-town: We will spend the night of the 26th in Anchorage with a friend of Max's.  The 27th is going to be a busy day: we have to buy a bunch of food (freshies, mostly, but there is a long list), go pick up my rental skis at Alaska Mountaineering & Hiking, stop by a hardware store for some stuff to make wands and improve the sleds, drive to Talkeetna (still not sure how that's going to happen), meet with the rangers and get an hour-long-briefing, and then pack everything for the flight to the Kahiltna glacier.

The flight in / Kahiltna International Airport:  A few weeks ago we received an amazing offer from Lisa Roderick, who runs Denali base camp (affectionately known as the Kahiltna International Airport).  We're going to help her set up base camp in exchange for a free flight.  More on that to come.  Anyway, we have to be ready to fly in on April 28th, or the soonest day after that weather allows.

Warm up / Approach:  Because our permit doesn't start until May 8 (we reserved it before we got the offer to set up basecamp), we can't go pass Kahiltna Pass (about 11,000') on Denali until then.  That means we have about a week of enforced warm-up time, which we will hopefully spend on some warm-up climbs.  We've discussed the Mini-Moonflower, Mt. Frances, Kahiltna Queen, and even the Moonflower Buttress itself on Mt. Hunter.  In early May we are expecting temperatures to hit -30 F at night, so perhaps we'll just spend it building ourselves a pimp snowcave.

After the permit starts:  We'll begin moving the majority of our stuff to the camp at 14,200', which should take several days at least, depending on whether we decide to "double carry" or not.  Then we'll acclimate at 14, spend a few nights at 17, etc.  Since we've got plenty of time, we want to use it getting really well acclimated.  We're going to approach the Cassin via the West Rib Cutoff in order to avoid the northeast fork of the Kahiltna, the so-called "Valley of Death."

The climb:  Will be single-push style.  That means no stopping to sleep, just stopping to rest.  I think we're going to bring one sleeping bag and one bivy sack, to discourage stopping.  Light is right.

Then it's back to the KIA and home, and after that who knows.  Feel free to offer us employment at this juncture.