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Pulling Together Wednesday, May 17, 2000
Hey this is John Race reporting from Talkeetna and Bill McCormack and I are ready to fly in with our group of five Alpine Ascents International clients and as always we're a bit frenzied because we're trying to jump in the plane and things are busy, busy. We're pulling our bags together. We're going to be flying with Talkeetna Air Taxi. The plan is to fly 45 minutes to Kahiltna Base where we'll start our attempt of the West Buttress of Denali. It's going to take us two to three weeks; we have 21 days worth of food. There's a total of seven of us in the team and this is always a busy time as each person on the team is trying to organize and pull together 110 to 120 pounds of gear that's going to get us up and own the mountain, well fed, warm and prepared for any difficulties that arise. Team spirits are high, bellies are full and stuffed with our last restaurant meal and we're ready to get this shown on the road. With luck we'll be able to send out an update between now and next week, but it could easily be when we reach 14,200 feet before we can use the cell phone again, we'll just have to see how that goes. The early part of the trip is going to involve refreshing our glacier tarvel skills, humping heavy loads, getting used to our team. We're going to be out on big glaciers but we hear that there's quite a bit of snow and things are relatively uncrevassed which will be nice. We'll make our way up to 14,200 feet and our Advanced Base Camp. And from there the route gets steeper and the climbing gets a little slower and becomes technically more challenging. We've got a great group, great pilots and an awesomely fun mountain to climb and we'll talk to you guys in a week. See you soon, bye.
— John Race, Alpine Ascents International, MountainZone.com Correspondent
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Hear John's Call from Talkeetna
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