Talkeetna

According to the Talkeetna Chamber of Commerce, the town's name, loosely translated from area's Athabascan people, means "River of Plenty". More specifically, it means "He is Keeping Something Stored for Himself". Either way, the Chamber encourages you to visit.

The weather is good and the group plans to fly out from "River of Plenty & Self Storage" today to the Denali Base Camp. Talkeetna Air Taxi will be flying them to the Denali Glacier Base Camp on DeHavilland Otters or Beavers or similar varmint outfitted with ski landing gear.

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

Followed by Second Breakfast.

Sammy cleans her room.

Travis and Yosuke sort their Halloween candy.

Kevin took this picture for my benefit. He knows I love yurts. To my semi-expert eye, that looks like a Pacific Yurt model.

Northwest Passage Found

Near the Chugach (choo-gatch) Range.

Roadtripitus has obviously infected everyone at this point.

Day Two

Freddie, Yosuke, Shea, Travis, Sammy and Acacia

Order up.

Day Two Breakfast: The Caribou Cafe in Glennallen.

Wildlife! Some sort of skinny cow.

The Long and Winding Road

This road actually connects to other towns. Weird.

Breakfast in Haines at the awesome Mountain Market. Why doesn't Juneau have a Mountain Market? The Breeze Inn is not the same thing.

Perfect Sailing Weather

Assistant Profs of Art Jeremy and Pedar are taking a group of ceramics students up to throw clay in Fairbanks.

Forest and Travis

Just Forest and his well deserved cup of coffee.

ODS students Yosuke and Freddie

Chelsea, a veteran of 2009's capstone trip to the Brooks Range, and Profs. Jeremy, Kevin, and Pedar

On Our Way

The ODS crew caught the Matanuska ferry out of Auke Bay at 6:30 am today. They'll dock in Haines and drive to Tok, overnighting before continuing on to Anchorage.

Forest is better at packing a car than your dad.

The M/V Matanuska

Shea grabs all the luggage tags in hopes of a big tip.

Kevin the gourmet crams in his Trader Joe's stash.

Packing and Repacking

Professor Kevin Krein in his living room making a few last minute decisions before heading out to the ferry at 4 a.m.

Denali Trip Set to Begin May 10, 2010

The final weeks of planning and preparation are coming to a head. Follow this blog for updates called in by cell and satellite phone, and track our progress on the mountain via SPOT link at ODS Denali
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Notes on SPOT from Shea:

"There won't be any activity on the SPOT until we turn it on, so if you check it out then it will report "No messages to display." I will activate the SPOT once we reach Talkeetna and fly out towards the glacier. The SPOT worked out really well on our last sea kayak trip, but extremes such as high altitude and cold may affect the SPOT in ways we haven't noticed yet. The SPOT will send out our location every 10 minutes and I will activate a Check-In Message each day we reach camp, so it will be easy for folks to see our progress on the mountain. The SPOT Shared page will use a Google Maps interface, so remember that they can look at a satellite or hybrid view that will show location in better detail than the standard MAP view."

Actual SPOT link: http://share.findmespot.com/shared/face/viewspots.jsp?glId=0k6QtyHpO4Oo0vQ6LJLTkfh9mmC3QJroc