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And so our EPIC adventure begins in Talkeetna, a small town north of Anchorage with a population of 876 that is "a quaint little drinking town with a climbing problem." We arrived in Anchorage on Sunday and Monday, which gave Van a chance to do some last minute organizing and Matt a chance to hang out with Everleigh for an extra day. The Tuesday was spent getting some necessary equipment from AMH and REI, snack shopping for the trip and we had a team dinner at a local Chinese place with the additional team members (Dan, Ed and Gabe).
The next morning Dan picked us up from our scummy hotel with our huge bags of gear and we swung by Fred Meyer for coffee and croissants. We were soon on the road for our Ranger check-in meeting in Talkeetna. Matt lived a little bit on the wild side by being a tiny bit presumptuous and purchased a Denali badge before he had even summited. Risky business (better not jinx us)! Matt had a craving for smoked salmon before the meeting so we made a quick visit to the salmon centre across the road that was showing the Super Salmon documentary which we saw at the Banff Film Festival.
After the meeting, we went back to the plane hanger to finish off organizing our equipment and loaded the plane in anticipation for our flight to base camp (aka Kahiltna International Airport). Unfortunately the weather didn't play ball and we ended up having to stay the night at the hanger with the monster mosquitoes (an Alaskan native bird). The next day wasn't any better, but it did give us a chance to visit the local brewery, go for a bike around town and get a pizza. There were heaps of painted Alaskan animals/scenes (e.g. grizzly bear, moose) with missing heads for tourists which we played around with too. The next day was Friday and the morning forecast wasn't spectacular so we had a hearty brunch at Roundhouse. Fortunately it wasn't much of a wait after this when we got to fly out and really begin our trip!
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