Now at high camp on Izta, our Ecuador Volcanoes team is preparing for the summit push!
Hello from high camp on Izta! We made good time here this morning and enjoyed a lunch of ramen and carnitas (seasoned pork). Now we’ll rest until dinner.
We’ll do an alpine start tomorrow morning and hopefully be on the summit not long after sunrise. Everyone is feeling good and we’re stoked for the climb.
Elevation: 15,398.69 ft.
Lat: 19.154008 Lon: -98.637506
Our Ecuador Volcanoes team is continuing their acclimatizing on Izta and will be moving up to high camp before the coming summit push:
Hi from La Joya camp! We’ll spend a second night here before moving to high camp mañana. Today we took a scenic acclimatization hike to 15,400′. All is well.
Elevation: 12,952.72 ft.
Lat: 19.133538 Lon: -98.652183
A quick inReach message from our Ecuador Volcanoes team:
We are in La Joya camp at the base of Iztaccihuatl and all is well. Tomorrow we’ll do our first acclimatization hike.
Elevation: 13,020.67 ft.
Lat: 19.133560 Lon: -98.652226
Our second Mexico Volcanoes expedition this month kicked off yesterday in Mexico City. Here’s expedition leader, Terray Sylvester, with coverage of today’s activities and what’s next:
Hello, it’s October 18th and this is Terray calling in for the Madison Mountaineering Mexico Volcanoes expedition! Yesterday our trip started with a visit to the Teotihuacan pyramids on the outskirts of Mexico City. Those pyramids are the most visited ancient pyramids in the Americas and they’re home to the third biggest pyramid in the world, the Pyramid of the Sun. Actually the biggest pyramid in the world is also in Mexico. It’s over in the town of Cholula just a little ways to the east.
We had lunch there and then we had a welcome dinner here in Mexico City, as well. Great food, saw some Mariachis, and dancing. It’s pretty festive here in Mexico City right now as the country gears up for the Day of the Dead, which is in about a week.
Today we are getting ready to head off to Iztaccihuatl, which is our first objective of the trip. We’ll drive to Amecameca today where we will have lunch and then we’ll drive up to Paso de Cortés at about 12,500 ft. which is the pass that Hernán Cortés came over on his way to Mexico City when the Spaniards came into Mexico.
Over the next few days, we will climb Izta! All right, I’ll be in touch!
Living large and eating well in Mexico!
Checking out Mexico’s Teotihuacan pyramids.
Authentic Mexican cuisine. The real deal!
Pre-climb Mexican pyramid exploration
Welcome dinner in Mexico City!
Josh admiring the Pyramid of the Sun.
In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow our teams as they make their attempts on the world’s most formidable mountains on:
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Lead guide, Terray Sylvester, provides this detailed recap of our very successful Mexico Volcanoes expedition – the first of two this month!
Hello, this is Terray calling in for the Madison Mountaineering Mexico Volcanoes expedition that is just ending today, October 12th. Over the last 10 days we had a great trip!
It started out with a day in Mexico City. We visited the Teotihuacan pyramids on the outskirts of town – those are the biggest pyramids in Latin America. And then we drove to Iztaccihuatl, which is the third highest volcano in Mexico and the third highest volcano in North America – it’s 17,160 ft. tall. We spent three days climbing that and on our summit day, we had absolutely beautiful weather. Right now the rainy season is starting to taper off, so weather can be a little wet but we had sunny skies all day and we also had fantastic views of Popocatépetl erupting just to the south. Some of the eruptions were big enough that they made the local news.
From Izta we traveled down to Puebla where we spent two nights and took a rest day. Puebla is a beautiful, historic city so we had time to visit museums and enjoy some great food. And then we drove to the little town of San Miguel Zoapan, which is where our lodge is located at the base of el Pico de Orizaba, which is the third highest peak in North America and the highest volcano on the continent.
We piled all of our gear into 4WD vehicles and then we drove up the rough dirt roads to our base camp at about 14,000 ft., spent the next day acclimatizing, and then we climbed to the summit of Orizaba the following day. Yet again we had just perfect weather – beautiful sunny, cool, fall day. The mountain had recently recieved some snow, so climbing conditions were about as good as they get on Orizaba – not too icy, excellent path all the way to the top. At the top, you look down into a circular, deep, dramatic, summit crater. You can look out toward the Gulf of Mexico to the east. While you are climbing, you see the lights of Puebla down to the west and lights of Vera Cruz and smaller towns near that city, also down to the east. There’s also a big telescope array on Sierra Negra, which is a smaller volcano just to the south.
After the climb we were back down in our lodge in Zoapan by about 2 PM. We had a steak lunch and then we drove back to Mexico City. And now, today, our guests have time to visit museums – we’re going to the Anthropology Museum in Mexico City and the Frida Kahlo Museum. We’ll have a farewell dinner this evening and then everyone will head home.
We have another Mexico Volcanoes itinerary starting on October 17th, so check back here – we’ll post regular updates as that trip progresses.
Visiting the Teotihuacan Pyramids in Mexico
Our climbers watching Popocatépetl erupt while climbing to the summit of Iztaccihuatl in Mexico
Sunrise on Iztaccihuatl in Mexico
Success on Pico de Orizaba! Our Mexico Volcanoes climbers topped out on the third highest peak in North America in great weather
Success on Pico de Orizaba! Our Mexico Volcanoes climbers topped out on the third highest peak in North America in great weather
Congratulations to our Dykh-Tau team on their 100% success reaching the summit of Europe’s second highest peak! Here’s, expedition leader, Garrett Madison from Russia:
Hello, this Garrett calling in for the Madison Mountaineering Dykh-Tau expedition team. Today is Friday, September 17th and yesterday our team summited Dykh-Tau, beautiful route up to the second tallest peak in Europe and second tallest peak in Russia as well.
We are now back safely in our Bezengi base area here, a little mountain village and very happy that we had a successful climb, it was a tough four days and three nights up on the mountain climbing alpine style, with heavy packs. We had a little bit of weather on summit day-some fresh snow.
Everyone did great! We got up to the summit and down safely and we really enjoyed the experience. It was a wonderful trip here in Russia, between climbing Elbrus and then climbing Dykh-Tau! We were very lucky with good weather on both mountains.
Happy to be back safe!
In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow our teams as they make their attempts on the world’s most formidable mountains on:
– Amazon Alexa devices with the Madison Mountaineering Flash Briefing skill:
– Instagram:
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With a beautiful summit day, our team topped out on Europe’s highest peak, Mount Elbrus, this morning. Here is Garrett Madison with a recap of this quick climb:
Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Madison Mountaineering Mount Elbrus climb. Today is Friday, September 10th and we had a perfect summit day on Mount Elbrus.
We were blessed with beautiful conditions, couldn’t have been a better day. No winds, no clouds in the sky and good route conditions. Chase and I got up to the summit with our Russian guide, George around 7:00am and had it all to ourselves for a little while. We took some photos and admired the views and made it back down to our high camp and then descended all the way back down to Terskol and Cheget, where we had a celebration dinner with our group and another group that we summited with today.
It’s been a great climb here on Mount Elbrus, a very quick climb. Normally we spend a few days here, acclimatizing here at the Terskol/Cheget area and also up on Elbrus at the high camp. But due to the weather, we knew today was the good day, and we had to go for it. So, we took advantage of the good weather and did a quick climb and got lucky with a beautiful summit.
So, we’re going to rest here a couple of days, do some fun activities and then head off to our next mountain, Dykh-Tau in the Bezengi base area, not to far from here.
The view of Mount Elbrus’s twin peaks from the high huts
Sunrise on Russia’s Mount Elbrus, Europe’s highest mountain
Perfect summit day on Mount Elbrus!
At the Mount Elbrus summit with Chase and our Russian guide George
In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow our teams as they make their attempts on the world’s most formidable mountains on:
– Amazon Alexa devices with the Madison Mountaineering Flash Briefing skill:
– Instagram:
– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map:
Our 2021 Russian adventure is in full swing. Garrett Madison and team member Chase M. are in position for their summit attempt on Europe’s highest peak, Mount Elbrus starting in just 11 hours:
Hello! This is Garrett calling in from Mount Elbrus, Russia – highest mountain in Europe!
Chase and I arrived here on Mount Elbrus and we’re up here at the mountain huts at 3800m. Looks like the weather is going to be great tomorrow. And then after that, a few days of snow and high wind – some stormy weather. So, we are going to go for our summit push tomorrow morning. Just a short trip up here, hopefully good weather. If we can’t get up tomorrow, we’ll rest a few days, let the storm pass, and then go for the summit next week.
At the moment, it looks like good weather tonight and tomorrow, so we’re going to go for it – fingers crossed for calm winds. We are looking forward getting up to the highest point in Europe (5685m / 18,650ft).
We will check-in soon!
The view of the Baksan Valley from the slopes of Mount Elbrus
The twin peaks of Europe’s highest point, Mount Elbrus in Russia.
Enjoying the high camp huts on Mount Elbrus
In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow our teams as they make their attempts on the world’s most formidable mountains on:
– Amazon Alexa devices with the Madison Mountaineering Flash Briefing skill:
– Instagram:
– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map:
Congratulation to our August 21st climbing team for another great summer 2021 Mt. Baker climb. 100% of the team made it to the summit of this iconic Pacific Northwest peak. The weather couldn’t have been better and everyone had a fantastic experience.
Well done team! Everyone is off the mountain and home savoring a job well done. Make your plans to climb with us in the Pacific Northwest in 2022.
Dawn breaking during the summit push (📷: Terray Sylvester)
Climbers on the summit plateau of Mt. Baker (📷: Terray Sylvester)
Our 2021 K2 expedition is now concluded with just Garrett and our crew preparing to fly home. Expedition leader, Garrett Madison, calls in from Skardu, Pakistan with this final expedition dispatch:
Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Madison Mountaineering K2 expedition which now has concluded!
We’re back in Skardu and all of our members from the UK, the USA, and Ukraine have flown out and are back home now. Just myself and the Nepal Sherpa team and the Pakastani team are here in Skardu. We arrived last night from the trek out from base camp to Skardu. It took us four days.
Today we did some gear organizing, and some sight-seeing around Skardu. We are hoping tomorrow that we have good weather to fly to Islamabad. All’s well here in Skardu. Nice weather and we are looking forward to getting back to Islamabad and on our way home.
It’s been a wonderful expedition here. We had 100% summit success with 21 summits of K2 on our team in total and everyone made it down safely and is on their way home healthy, which is the most important.
So, we had a wonderful expedition. Thanks for following along. Looking forward to our next expeditions out there on the horizon.
Starry skies above K2
The day we set off from base camp for the K2 summit push. Serious faces..
A very happy 3-time K2 summiteer at base camp
After getting down from the successful K2 summit rotation, happy face!
Garrett with Sherpa and Pakistani crew departing K2 base camp
Cutting the celebratory K2 cake in Skardu
Post-K2 celebration in Skardu
If climbing K2 or Broad Peak is in your future, please contact our office, we would love to have you climb with us!
In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow our teams as they make their attempts on the world’s most formidable mountains on:
– Amazon Alexa devices with the Madison Mountaineering Flash Briefing skill:
– Instagram:
– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map: