The Madison Mountaineering Spring 2016 Everest trekking season has officially launched! Today our second trekking team of the season is arriving in the capital city of Kathmandu, Nepal. Trekking through the Khumbu Valley to Everest base camp is a life changing experience for many, as the spectacular mountain scenery integrated with Sherpa culture and Buddhist religion […]
Madison Mountaineering 2016 Aconcagua climbers are enroute to Mendoza! Everyone should be arriving by tomorrow and we will do our gear check, team meeting, and welcome dinner before heading off to the mountain! Aconcagua, also known as the “Stone Sentinel”, is located in Argentina near the border of Chile, and is the highest mountain outside of […]
Madison Mountaineering’s 2015 Mount Vinson climbers are currently enroute to Punta Arenas, Chile! Our journey begins in the Tierra del Fuego or ‘Land of Fire’ in Chile’s southernmost city of Punta Arenas, located on the straight of Magellan. The team will gather together, have a few welcome drinks, and check equipment for before departing on this […]
The climbing team is safely back in Kathmandu, Nepal! We had a wonderful dinner last night and today we are sorting equipment and preparing to head home to the USA. It’s been a wonderful trip with amazing people. On November 10th we climbed to within about 100 feet of the summit of Burke Khang (22,935 […]
Today we awoke at the Mweka camp on Kilimanjaro, after our successful summit climb the day before. The team is feeling great and is excited to continue the adventure. From the lush forest we descended 5000′ to the Mweka gate where we enjoyed a delicious lunch and said goodbye to our Tanzanian porters and guides. […]
Our summit day began at midnight, as we awoke for a quick breakfast then left camp to begin our ascent. We dawned headlamps and climbed through the pre dawn hours, reaching Stella Point (18,652’) just as the sun rose over the plains of Africa. In the dawn light we climbed the remaining distance to Uhuru […]
Today we climbed to our high camp. We left Karanga camp and crossed the barren hillsides to reach Barafu camp, and continued on to the Kosovo camp, our special high camp that rarely sees any other climbers. This camp puts us in a position above most other climbing parties, so that our summit day is […]
After breakfast we left camp and began our ascent of the Great Barranco wall! This scramble provided us with a great morning workout as we topped out at 14,500’ with spectacular views of the plains below! Then we descend to the Karanga river and hiked up a short distance to Karanga camp. Stats for day […]
We left Shira Camp and traversed the mountain, working our way up to the base of “lava tower” at approximately 14,800 ft. Some of us made a quick ascent of the lava tower, a fun scramble up with great views from the top, then descended down to Barranco Camp. From our camp we have a […]
Today, from the Machame camp we started hiking up the trail through the forest and gained elevation very quickly, as the landscape changed quickly from the lush forest to moor lands with large Senecio trees dotting the hillsides. We gained the Shira Plateau where we now have a great view over the valley below. Each […]