The Preparation

So, a team was formed with the objective of climbing Mt Logan. After that, it didn’t take long for us to decide that we were all capable of, and interested in, climbing the East Ridge route. This was good too – we had without fuss achieved a significant group decision – The route was chosen :)

Now Mt Logan is in a Canadian national park (Kluane National Park to be specific) and to climb it you need to have a permit – Particularly since any trip is going to take several weeks and it’s a dangerous undertaking and the National Parks people want to know who is doing what and where and when – since they are the people who have to come get the bodies and inform the families when it all goes wrong!
For Mt Logan in particular, this “Permit” process takes at least three months and you have to provide personal details such as “climbing resume” and “next of kin” contact information etc. Fortunately we were aware of this stuff and we had the time to get it all done since we were about six months away from the climbing season. Mt Logan is in such an “unpleasant” location weather wise that there is only a month or two of the year when people attempt to climb it (for the most part anyway). Our plan was to climb in the first weeks of June, which is more or less the common wisdom of when the weather is most reliable and the route conditions are best.
As I recall it, a couple of team meetings were held early on and some tasks were allocated amongst the team and then we all went off and got things done. Other decisions that were made without too much fuss were:

1) Each rope team should be fully independent of the other for versatility and safety reasons (tent, equipment, etc not shared between groups).

2) Each rope team would do meal preparations as a group (not individual) since this reduced equipment.

3) The two rope teams would climb together if at all possible to maximize safety and minimize trail breaking (deep snow) etc.

4) This was a single expedition and each rope team was of course there to help and support the other team in an emergency – including the possibility of abandoning their own climbing efforts to help the other team if needed.

It turned out that my “group tasks” were to organize a team first aid kit and a satellite phone (for emergency use) as well as to organize the flight arrangements for the ski plane to get us into base camp. This was not too much trouble as I already had most of the information I needed and we had a few months of time to get it done.

Marcus and I decided that as far as meals went we were more or less compatible and we would take it in turns to do an evening meal for two people on alternating days. We also decided that breakfast would be independent (we each do what we want) and lunches would not really exist (during the day you climb! – no sitting around or cooking…) but munchies etc to be eaten while on the move would also be up to the individual to prepare. Our initial estimates were that we would want about one week of food for the “approach” (getting into base camp and on to the start of the climb); two weeks of food for the climb its self: and finally, one more week of food in case we got pinned down by bad weather at some point (from fly in to fly out).
That meant about a month of light weight food for arctic conditions – My guess was that I would need about one and a half kilograms of high energy and dehydrated foods per day to make this work – That’s about fourty kilograms of food for the trip and the total cost would be about $600.
So, after the initial meetings we all went our own ways and started organizing and acquiring all the special clothing and equipment that we would b needing. When we wanted to share info or had questions we just fired off emails to the group to get advice etc.

Special Equipment:
As mentioned, Mt. Logan is very high altitude and in the far North and in a notoriously bad weather location. We were going to need the equipment that climbers on the high Himalayan peaks use – minus the oxygen equipment that Everest climbers tend to use.
I looked at my gear and I had most of the technical stuff that I needed but some special extras for the extreme cold were:
Vapour Barrier Sleeping Bag liner – Stops frost build-up in the down of the sleeping bag in very cold sustained camping conditions.
Insulated Boot Liners and OverBoots – To protect the climbers feet from frostbite in the extreme cold.
Heavily Insulated Jacket, Pants and Gloves – Just for general living in the extreme cold.
Extra sleeping mat – Again for general camping in the extreme cold.
It took a little effort to get the over-boots since they are made by very few companies, but the rest was not hard to get through the MEC – The Canadian equivalent of Americas “big box” outdoors store REI.
The other stuff that we used was the standard fare for serious outdoors activities in the Vancouver region. From thermal underwear to extreme cold sleeping bags and glacier glasses, to “Whisperlight” stoves and crampons, ice axes, ice screws and climbing ropes.

I already had it :)