“We know people by their stories: their history, their habits, their secrets, their triumphs and failures. We know them by what they do. We want to know mountains too, but they’ve got no story. So we do the next best thing. We throw ourselves onto them and make the stories happen.”  –Bruce Barcott

Click here to go to the photo/video album for this day

It all started like most good things do, with delicious Portland Waffles. We headed out around 10 in the morning to pick up some last minute supplies from the Mountain Shop, followed by some amazing waffles for brunch before hitting the road.

The drive to IMG HQ, located in the tiny town of Ashford, WA, was quite scenic with the Columbia River on one side and gorgeous forested mountains on the other, We got in at 2 PM & met our amazing lead guide Chris Meder. Chris had us play a little icebreaker introduction game as a way of getting to know the other members on the team. So without further ado, from right to left in the picture at the top of the page, we have –

Ann – A medical student currently doing her Residency & someone who’s racked up an impressive climbing resume, including Kilimanjaro, Everest Base Camp, and a harrowing encounter where she had to bunker down in between some rocks for 21 hours to avoid high winds & stormy mountain conditions!

Roberto, who is actually climbing Denali later this year! We wish him luck on his climb. He’s an entrepreneur in the medicine testing industry & had some really insightful knowledge about the details of the whole testing process. He’s done a brutal 12 day mountaineering school in Alaska where he had to cook his own food & fend for himself! This course must be a walk in a park in comparison.

Richard, an avid mountaineer from Ohio. He’s been all over the world and climbed such famous mountains such as Elbrus and Aconcagua, and was also the only one in our team to have climbed Rainier previously. I feel that Richard was the most fit climber in our group. His extensive experience was clearly evident.

And finally we have Carlo, the vegan tennis instructor from New York City, originally from Italy. Carlo grew up climbing mountains and he likes to climb the Adirondacks & other mountains around the New York/Jersey area, but he climbs them only in winter. Of course.

We had a great group, and thoroughly enjoyed climbing with everyone. We are all here because we love climbing mountains, the snow, and cold weather, so we were all definitely in our element. With such rich backgrounds, there was an abundance of storytelling!

After introducing ourselves, we headed out to the breezeway to have our gear checked out by Chris. Chris went around certifying every piece of gear on the list. After all, the Mountain is a bad place to find out you’re missing your left boot! We then got everything packed for tomorrow & headed out to dinner at the local diner. Food was good, and we all got to know each other a little better.

Continue to Day 1