This morning, a group of climbers from around the globe are meeting three guides from Mountain Trip to take the next step in their journey of molding themselves into a team, which will help give them the best possible chance of standing in the summit of North America in just a couple of weeks.

Today they will discuss some of the strategies that they will employ in the coming weeks and set the foundation for communication, perhaps the most important tool in their collective tool box.  The guides will inspect all of their equipment and help the climbers make those difficult decisions about which items should stay in Anchorage and which should go up on the mountain.  They will accompany the climbers as they make their last-minute purchases at local climbing shops and enjoy their first meal together as a team at one of our favorite spots in town, The Bear Tooth.

The plan is to finish preparations today, spend the night at the Earth Bed and Breakfast, and drive the two hours up to Talkeetna, AK tomorrow morning.  They will attend an orientation provided by our National Park Service and hopefully fly to the glacier tomorrow afternoon.

Let’s meet the team!

CLIMBERS:

Ilkka Anhava from NY, USA
Jarno Vande Walle from Belgium
Kjell Vande Walle from Belgium
Bruno van Wilderode from Belgium
Allen Wilson from Texas, USA
Alexandra Levin from NY, USA
Jacques Fox from Luxembourg
Peter White from Ireland
Jeff Furman from Kansas, USA

GUIDES:

Peter Inglis from Colorado, USA
Bill Dwyer from Alaska, USA
Kevin Forster from Alaska, USA

Stay tuned for photos, blog posts and audio posts from the field.  We will also post a link to the team’s Spot GPS device at the right of this webpage, where you can follow the group’s progress as they make their way up Denali.