Gearing up and assembling the team

The May 16 West Buttress expedition members all met each other today for the first time at the Earth Bed and Breakfast in downtown Anchorage. The guides Zach and Adam met all nine climbers and spent the morning checking gear; the third guide Luke was unavoidably detained out of state but will meet the group tomorrow morning.

Zach spent an hour familiarizing everyone with the general format of the expedition, talking about everything from nutrition to rope travel basics to expedition schedule, before passing out the lunches for the entire expedition. Zach favors a system where people have the option to see what lunch food they'll be taking on the mountain and adjust their lunch menu to their personal taste. Expedition nutrition is a very important aspect of every expedition; because of the workloads involved in Alaskan mountaineering, climbers need to take in more food to replace what they are burning while carrying loads and just plain keeping warm in the cold mountains. The altitude can make this difficult because it affects many people's appetite, so as you need more food it becomes harder to take it in. Zach, Adam and Luke have decades of experience in backcountry kitchens between the three of them and they have assembled a very tasty menu, so folks on this trip shouldn't have any trouble eating enough to stay energized on this trip.

A quick visit to the local climbing shops brought everyone back to the B+B for a final bout of rigging packs for glacier travel before separating for what may be their last night in town for two to three weeks....

There was a scare involving a lost bag at the airlines that made it seem as if the team may have had to wait a day for it to show, but Zach persevered and refused to believe Alaska Airlines when they told him the bag wasn't in Alaska- he pulled off a major save by going to the airport and locating the bag himself. The team will be departing Anchorage as scheduled tomorrow morning to drive to Talkeetna, hop on one of Talkeetna Air Taxi's flights and fly into the majestic Alaska Range!