Digging Out

The Madison Mountaineering Ama Dablam expedition team has been hard at work in base camp. From digging out from all the fresh snow, to continuing their acclimatization efforts, the team has been kept busy and motivated for the climbing to come. In just a short time, the team plans to start their first rotation up the mountain where they’ll be able to familiarize themselves with the route and keep up their acclimatization. Expedition leader, Terray Sylvester checks in with this dispatch from Ama Dablam Base Camp:

Hello! This is Terray calling in for the 2026 Madison Mountaineering Ama Dablam (6812m/22,349ft) expedition. Today is November 2nd.

Starting the evening of the 28th, we received more than a meter of snow here in base camp (4600m/15,100ft), which was sent our way by Cyclone Arnab down in the Bay of Bengal. The last few days, however, have been clear and sunny! We spent the first two days after the storm digging out here in base camp and waiting for the mountain to settle.

Today we hiked part way up toward Camp I (5791m/19,000ft) to stretch our legs and gain some more acclimatization. And now we are assessing conditions on the mountain above us and preparing for our rotation. It’s possible we’ll start that tomorrow morning by moving up to Camp I, or maybe we’ll wait a bit longer.

The team’s doing well. It’s very beautiful here in base camp right now. Base camp looks very different than it usually does with a lot of fresh snow on the ground.

We’ll be in touch tomorrow!

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