A breakfast of Hotcakes at the Roadhouse, a sort of gigantic Alaskan pancake. The final gear wrap up time in our room, figuring out which duffle we are taking, what stays in Talkeetna and what comes on the mountain.

A quick lunch at the Denali Brew Pub where we meet Abdul, one of our team expedition members from Switzerland. We will meet Daniel soon after at AMS. Daniel is from Saskatchewan, Canada.

At 2pm Kai – our head guide – picks us up with all our gear, very nice to see him again after last year’s training on Denali National Park’s Ruth Glacier. We head to Alaska Mountaineering School (AMS) for the briefing, guide introduction and gear check. We meet everyone, run through all of our gear item by item to make sure we are covered, this is a crucial part of the meeting. Then we pack our lunches for the next 3 weeks. Each week is around 3 kilos of snacks and that will be our lunch. A variety of chocolate bars, dried bananas, crackers, babybel, peanuts and trail mix.

One last stop at the local AMS Shop for the last gear purchase, a few small ropes / cordelettes for me, bottle insulator and an AMS cap.

Back to the Roadhouse, where I try to wrap up my last work tasks, authorize payments and talk to the team. I have a nice chat with Sarah for probably the last catch up in a few weeks.

Dinner at the brew pub again, quick blog update and off to bed.