Hello Friends,
The gently swaying train winds gracefully through pristine Alaskan wilderness, spiriting me towards my greatest mountaineering challenge thus far; Denali (Mt. McKinley) the tallest mountain in America. Soon I’ll step off of the train in Talkeetna the gateway to the mountain. Here our team will assemble over the next couple of days, while we prepare our gear and ourselves for the expedition.
And so begins the adventure of a lifetime…
What is “The Danger Network”?
It is the system that I use to update my blog from the mountain. The technical details would bore most folks, but for the rest of you here it is. I use a network of highly trained weasels that can carry short 160 character messages (weasels have limited memory) back and forth and even allow my global position to be tracked. Once we start up the mountain this Tuesday I will be updating the Adventure Blog during the expedition via weasel-net and these updates will also be sent to your inbox. Sometimes the weasels make mistakes, so please forgive the inevitable typos.
Why Am I Getting This?
You are on this list either because you subscribed yourself or because we have some sort of affiliation and I thought you might be interested. Maybe I’m wrong and you don’t even like me. In that case, visit the unsubscribe link at the bottom and you will be unsubscribed , removed from my Christmas list and stricken from my will (Yes, I was going to leave you something). It’s too late to change your mind now, that ship has sailed.
Itinerary:
I’ll stay at the Fireweed Station Inn for a couple days of rest. The climbing team will assemble at the Fireweed and we leave for the mountain on Tuesday May 27. The climb in perfect weather would take 2 weeks, but Denali has the worst weather of any mountain in the world, so there is an extra 7 days planned for hiding in tents waiting for storms to pass. That said our drop dead date is June 16, 2014.
Trip Dates May 24th – June 17th
Climbing Days: May 27 – June 16, 2014
You will find our full climbing itinerary here as well as information on the mountain, such as real time weather and summit success statistics.
Real TimeTracking Map:
The weasels will be released and the tracking map we will begin populating on Tuesday the 27th when we start climbing.
Sponsor Shout Out!
A big thanks to Grab The Gold who supplied 30lbs of their delicious and all natural snack bars for the team. We will burn 5,000-6,000 calories a day while climbing, and these are, fast, easy, great tasting and the weasels love em!
Thanks Deejo for the ultralight Titanium pocket knives. Can’t wait to cut someone, I mean something.
Our inner vikings lift a tankard of ale to Beardski who gave us the beards we always wanted but were to lazy to grow.
And how can I thank BekoGear who took an interest in my nose and protected it with their fantastic protector. Maybe I’ll send you guys a summit booger.
A respectful nod to Goal Zero who’s solar charging solutions keep my weasels weaseling.
And Lifeproof who hooked me up with the new Nuud (It’s not as risqué as it sounds) versions of their fantastic waterproof cases, which have served me well. If you have not seen them, the design is very elegant. I pack an iPad Mini and and iPhone up the mountain, so this is important gear for me.
Of course without the competent team of IT professionals at Truewater none of this would be possible. They are so good at their jobs that nobody notices when I leave, so I added them to this mail list to remind to remind them.
And of course thanks to my wife Susan who is very supportive of my climbing. Although I suspect she has posterior motives, mainly what it has done for mine.
Now, where’s my weasel whistle?
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