Blessings in Pangboche!

After a short ceremony where the team received blessings for safe passage while venturing in the mountains on their expedition, we continued onward to the village of Pheriche! Everyone is in high spirits and enjoying the blue-bird skies they’ve had thus far while trekking further up the Khumbu Valley. Tomorrow holds more time for acclimatization, as the journey continues onward towards Everest base camp. Expedition guide, Terray Sylvester, checks in with today’s dispatch from Nepal:

Hello, this is Terray calling in for the 2023 Madison Mountaineering Everest (8848m/29,032ft), Lhotse (8516m/27,940ft) and Nuptse (7861m/25,791ft) expedition! It’s April 9th.

Today we started the day with blessings at the monastery in Pangboche (3985m/13,074ft). The blessing is intended to secure us safe passage as we climb in the mountains here in Nepal. It’s really a nice event during the trek to Everest base camp (5364m/17,598ft). Then we continued on up to Pheriche (4371m/14,340ft) with a stop for lunch in Shomare (4010m/13,156 feet). The weather was great today again – a few clouds are coming into Pheriche now, but otherwise we’ve had great views of Thamserku (6608m/21,680 ft), Ama Dablam (6812m/22,349ft), Taboche (6495m/21,309ft), Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse.

So now we’re just resting in Pheriche! Tomorrow we’ll probably go for an acclimatization hike high above Pheriche and Dingboche (4410m/14,470ft), and then enjoy some coffee and great baked goods in the bakery over at Dingboche.

So, all is well here in Nepal! We’ll be in touch tomorrow.

Blessing with Lama Ngawang Paljur in Pangboche. (Photo: Terray Sylvester)

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:

• Enable the skill and add to your flash briefing to hear our daily audio expedition updates on select expeditions.  Just say, “Alexa, play my flash briefing.“

– Instagram:

• @MadisonMtng
• @GarrettMadison1
• @terray_s