Arrive in Anchorage about 1:00 am. Thankfully all of my gear arrives with me intact. If your gear doesn't make it your climb is over before it even begins.

This time of year it never really gets completely dark this close to the Arctic circle, it is just a dim twilight sort of glow. Catch a shuttle over to the Days Inn and catch about 4 hours sleep. Did I mention that everything is more expensive in Alaska? Food, motels, ...

In the morning I catch a shuttle to Talkeetna, about two hours away, with Talkeetna Shuttle. A nice lady named Stephanie was the driver and I was the only inbound passenger that morning. She said that another member of our expedition had come in the previous day, the Englishman from Beijing, Nigel Clark.

Stephanie said she was originally from Florida, which seems just about the most opposite place you could be from before moving to Alaska. She told me that "nobody is from Alaska," and by the end of the trip I believed it. There are just a few natives, and they have them on shifts. Everyone else is from somewhere else originally.

On the ride into Talkeetna I spied a truly odd sight, a blue-colored onion-shaped dome sticking up above the trees off the highway. I told Stephanie it reminded of a Coptic Church and she said that it was a Russian Orthodox Church. It seems that when the Russians ran the place they forced the natives to accept the R.O. religion and it is still practiced, at least by the old timers.

When we got to Talkeetna Stephanie took me to the offices of Talkeetna Air Taxi (TAT), the bush pilot service that would fly our expedition to the mountain, to check in. I was planning to stay in their bunkhouse that night, which is free for their customers the night before their climb and the night they return. I had already spent enough dough on equipment, guide fees and airline flights that free sounded good to me. It wasn't the Hilton but it would do alright. Stephanie dropped me off there with all my gear.

After arriving at the bunkhouse I called the AAI office to check in and let them know that I had arrived. Alan (our in-town coordinator) advised me to consider staying elsewhere and suggested that I go over to the Roadhouse and stay there. Besides being better accommodations they served good breakfasts, which sounded good to me. I checked into their bunk room with four beds. For the moment I was the only one in there, although I knew that was likely to change. Fortunately the other guy that came in later didn't snore. I am a light sleeper so I always seek out other non-snorers for tentmates on these trips.

During the day I meet up with the two guides for the trip, lead guide Brennan Brunner and Eric Johnson. They both seem very nice and have a sense of humor, which is very important for such an undertaking. You've got enough Type A's to deal with in the next few weeks without the guides being that way.

Also met Nigel, one of the other expedition members. He is 54 years old and a British expatriate living in Beijing, China. He runs the British Chamber of Commerce in China and is a former geologist who has worked all over the world in his previous career. His biggest previous climb is Aconcagua in Argentina earlier this year. Aconcagua is a rockpile nearly 23,000' high, and is the highest point in South America.

Nigel turns out to be a non-snorer so I ask him to share a tent on the mountain. We have not connected with any other expedition members yet so we end up going to dinner together at a greasy spoon down the main road about 1/2 mile for our last chance at a decent dinner for many days.

Click on a picture to see it full size.

	Talkeetna, Alaska: a drinking town with a climbing problem.
	Nigel Clark and I ate here for lunch. He was a teammate and we ended up in the same tent on the mountain. There is a route on Denali called the West Rib, which makes the name of this pub sort of an inside joke among climbers.
	The Roadhouse is where I stayed before and after the climb in Talkeetna. They have a great kitchen that makes great breakfast and lunch as well as sweets like huge cinnamon sticky buns. They have a few bedrooms and a bunkroom where I stayed the night before the climb began. Note the bear-proof trash can in the lower right.
	The Roadhouse has a large open dining room with 3 or 4 long tables. Just like the roadhouses of old, you just grab an open seat and pick from one of the two choices on the menu, either of which are good. That is Nigel Clark on the right, one of my teammates. Lots of tourists come through Talkeetna.
	The sitting room at the Roadhouse. Out of the picture there is a stuffed chair to the left and a couch to the right.
	The Fairview Inn, another historic old building in Talkeetna, which started out as a schoolhouse years ago.
	One of the few stores in town, with a very modest selection just like the others. If you want to buy real groceries you have to drive for an hour.