Dispatches
Our team of climbers, cameramen and Argentina support staff after our climb and celebratory ‘asado’ (barbecue) in base camp. We had a wonderful expedition on Aconcagua, everyone is safely off the mountain, and now beginning the trek out from base camp. We are looking forward to arriving in Mendoza tonight and enjoying some warm weather!
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 Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates
– Instagram:
With all of the Aconcagua team safely down to base camp, expedition leader, Garrett Madison, provides today’s expedition dispatch:
Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Aconcagua team. We are all back down in Plaza de Mulas base camp – 14,000 ft. on the normal route of Aconcagua. We had a great time on our expedition.
Yesterday our team went for the summit and we don’t want to reveal what happened on our summit attempt because we want to save it for TV show which is forecoming. But we’re all back down safe and the weather’s great. It’s been a fantastic team, great expedition. Just a wonderful experence here on Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Western and Southern Hemispheres. Wonderful time in Argentina.
And our plan tomorrow is to trek out and head back to Mendoza. We’ll probaby get in late to Mendoza after an 18 mile trek out and 3 hour drive back to Mendoza. All’s well here on Aconcagua. We’ll check-in soon!
Sid Pattison, the barbecue chief!
Cacho, our Argentinian guide who leads our climbs exclusively and reached the summit of Aconcagua for his 50th time!
By the way, it’s not too early to start making your plans to join us on other expeditions in the 2020 season! Contact our office for details.
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 Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates
– Instagram:
With drama and suspense worthy of a TV show, expedition leader Garrett Madison provides a recap of summit day on Aconcagua:
Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Aconcagua team. Today we went for our summit push and we had good weather, but we’re not going to tell what happened because we want you to watch the show when it comes out.
Everyone’s back down safe, which is the most important thing, and doing well. The team is in high camp 3 – Cholera Camp, tonight and will be heading down to base camp tomorrow. And then heading out the following day back to Mendoza.
So everyone’s doing well, lots of great filming, and exciting times here on Aconcagua and we’re looking forward to the final production of the show.
(photo: earlier this week at base camp)
By the way, it’s not too early to start making your plans to join us on other expeditions in the 2020 season! Contact our office for details.
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 Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates
– Instagram:
Hi, this is Garrett calling in for the Aconcagua team. We’re up at high camp, Camp 3 on the normal route – Cholera Camp (5945m/19,504ft). And everyone’s doing really well. The weather seems to be improving so we are looking forward to potentially a nice summit day. But there’s only one way to find out. So, we are going to wake up early at 4:00am and start climbing by 6:00am and hopefully have some good luck up there and have a great climb. We’ll check-in soon. Thanks!
(photo: earlier this week at base camp)
By the way, it’s not too early to start making your plans to join us on other expeditions in the 2020 season! Contact our office for details.
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 Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates
– Instagram:
The plan is to move up to Camp 3 tomorrow after waiting out the winds hitting the upper mountain. Here’s expedition leader, Garrett Madison, with the details:
Hello! This is Garrett calling in for the Aconcagua team up here at Camp 2 on the normal route – Nido de Cóndores. We took another rest day today as we are watching the winds up high. It looks like the strong winds have been persistent for a couple of days but they should be dying down. So our plan is to head up to Camp 3 tomorrow and go for the summit the following day. Fingers crossed for good weather. The team’s doing great up here. Everyone’s in good spirits and we are looking forward to moving up the mountain soon! All’s well here on Aconcagua. We’ll check-in soon!
By the way, it’s not too early to start making your plans to join us on other expeditions in the 2020 season! Contact our office for details.
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 Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates
– Instagram:
Expedition leader, Garrett Madison, reports in from Camp 2 on Aconcagua:
Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Aconcagua team. We’re up here at Camp 2. We had a great rest day in Nido de Condores camp. Nice day – not too windy and not as warm as yesterday but still not too cold.
We are going to see how the weather is tomorrow. Sounds like there’s some high winds coming in by the forecast but we haven’t seen them yet – haven’t felt the high winds so we’ll see what happens tomorrow. Either we’ll move up to Camp 3 or we’ll take another rest day here at Camp 2.
Everyone’s doing well here on Aconcagua. Check-in soon!
By the way, it’s not too early to start making your plans to join us on other expeditions in the 2020 season! Contact our office for details.
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 Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates
– Instagram:
The Aconcagua team made a carry up to Camp 3 – Cholera Camp (5974m/19,600ft.) today and are back at Camp 2. Expedition leader, Garrett Madison, phoned in today’s dispatch via satellite phone:
Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Aconcagua team. We are at Camp 2 on Aconcagua. We had a great day today. We carried up to Camp 3 – Cholera Camp at about 19,600 ft., cached some of our equipment and came back down to Camp 2 here at Nido de Cóndores – about 18,200 ft.
We are going to rest here tomorrow. It looks like there are some strong winds coming in tonight for a couple of days. Climbers have come down off the upper mountain from the high camps, including some of the rangers here on the mountain, just to get out of the way of the winds. So we will probably rest for a one day if not two depending on the high winds here. When it clears, we will head up to Camp 3 and move forward with our plan for a summit attempt.
Everyone’s doing great here. We’ve had good weather – high pressure […garbled…] not too cold. The team’s doing well and we’ll check in soon. Thanks!
By the way, it’s not too early to start making your plans to join us on other expeditions in the 2020 season! Contact our office for details.
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 Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates
– Instagram:
The Aconcagua team today moved up to Nido de Cóndores our Camp 2 at 5585m/18,325ft. Here’s Garrett’s dispatch:
Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Aconcagua climb. Today we climbed up to Camp 2 – Nido de Cóndores on Aconcagua on the normal route. Everybody did great! We got up to camp, set up our tents, relaxed a little bit, and then had a nice dinner. Now we are getting ready to go to bed. The weather’s pretty good up here – not too windy, sunny. We are hoping for a good day tomorrow to do a carry to Camp 3 if weather permits, otherwise we’ll probably take a rest day at Camp 2. Thanks for following along. We’ll check-in soon!
Camp 2 on Aconcagua
The view from Aconcagua Camp 2
By the way, it’s not too early to start making your plans to join us on other expeditions in the 2020 season! Contact our office for details.
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 Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates
– Instagram:
Team member Sid Pattison provides today’s expedition dispatch as the team moves up to Camp 1 on Aconcagua:
Well the team made it up to Camp 1 (5052m/16,575ft) in good style today. We are up here, we got to reap the benefits of food and water we brought up the other day. Now, after dinner the team is sitting around watching a lovely sunset under clear skies in the shadow of an alpenglow summit of Aconcagua. We shall rest well tonight! This is Sid Pattison signing off!
Aconcagua Camp 1 (5052m/16,575ft)
Sunset from Aconcagua Camp 1 (5052m/16,575ft)
By the way, it’s not too early to start making your plans to join us on other expeditions in the 2020 season! Contact our office for details.
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 Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates
– Instagram:
Our Aconcagua team made a carry of gear up to Camp 1 and returned to base camp today. Expedition leader, Garrett Madison, provides this dispatch:
Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Aconcagua expedition. We had a great day doing a carry up to Camp 1 on Aconcagua today. It was sunny in the morning, clear, cold and we got up to Camp 1 – it was a little windy – cached our gear, our food, equipment, and personal items that we are going to retrieve when we move up to Camp 1 in a couple of days time.
Beautiful evening here in base camp, the stars are out, we had a wonderful dinner. We’re just relaxing, getting ready for bedtime and looking forward to a rest day tomorrow.
All’s well here on Aconcagua. Check-in soon.
Plaza de Mulas base camp
Carrying loads to camp 1 from base camp
Garrett & Sid in base camp with the peak behind
By the way, it’s not too early to start making your plans to join us on other expeditions in the 2020 season! Contact our office for details.
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 Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates
– Instagram:
