We woke up to a damp day in Talkeetna and the team was starting to get anxious. We enjoyed a big breakfast at the Roadhouse to build up our caloric storage for the expedition. I went for a stroll around Talkeetna and along the railroad tracks just to keep the muscles loose. I also passed the local Talkeetna airplane runway. Alaskan bush pilots take pride in how short of a runway they can land and take off on, and this landing strip is definitely worthy of some bragging rights. It was decided around mid-day that there would be no flights out and I started running the numbers. Luckily there were contingency days built into the schedule, but the weather on Denali is fickle, and any day not on the mountain is one less day of margin to reach the summit. To pass the time we napped and played table tennis in the backyard. AMS was also running a mountaineering course for the Wounded Warriors Project and they invited us over to a BBQ behind their mountaineering store. Despite the rain, everyone was in great spirits and it was an honor to spend some time with these former soldiers.
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