Final Adjustments

We are lifting off in 3 days. I guess I should be nervous having never undertaken a trip like this before, but curiously enough I'm indifferent. I just spend my days organizing and enjoying hot food. We both have the same boots, La Sportiva Spantik's. These boots are incredible, they feel like oversized rock-climbing shoes. First, we adjusted them to fit our crampons, then went for a little front-pointing test on a tree in our backyard. These boots have a stiff, precise feel to them. We decided to throw some weight on and see how fast we could charge up Mount Olympus. We should have picked a little less busy of a day because everyone we passed was very curious what was on our feet. After the 100th or so inquiry, I just started telling people we were astronauts breaking in our "moon boots", I think a lot of people believed me.



The boots handle exceptionally on rock, the rubber sole sticks to everything. I climbed around on them a little and had no problem edging or smearing. I can't believe how agile they are for a large double-boot. I have yet to test them in arctic environments but I am told they are one of the warmest available. I can't imagine a more ideal boot for tackling technical terrain on an arctic expedition. A little pricey, but completely justifiable, how can you really put a price on keeping your toes?

We decided to take training a little easy yesterday and went for a hike to a very unique sport crag in Big cottonwood Canyon. The approach was about 45 minutes but well worth it. I've never climbed rock that required such delicate movement, all of the climbs were sloping down the fall-line which made barn-dooring an ever present challenge, especially while clipping.

I counted up the food we are bringing, last night. So far we have approximately 103,000 calories, which according to my calculations gives us about 3500 calories a day for 30 days for one person. Our menu is pretty standard, mostly comprised of rice, oatmeal, peanut-butter, nuts, chocolate and beef jerky. I'm personally looking forward to housing obscene amounts of these foods because it's pretty much what I eat everyday anyway. I think the remaining calories deficit (about40kcals) should be made up with butterfingers, nutritious and delicious. When else can you eat candy bars all day and lose weight? We should definitely take advantage of it.

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