Virtual Everest 2020 – Support the Sherpas

Climbers on the Lhotse face

Normally, at this time, our Everest climbing team would have just finished two nights at Namche Bazaar and trekked on to the village of Deboche where they would be spending the evening with our friends at the Rivendell Lodge and looking forward to six more days on the trail towards Everest Base Camp.

But as you know, this terrible COVID-19 pandemic has changed just about everything for all of us.  Our thoughts are with everyone impacted from the dire to the inconvenienced.  Included in that are all of our Nepal staff, including Sherpa and other mountain workers who depend on the spring climbing season for such a large percentage of their annual income.  Income that is used to support their families, buy food, pay school costs, maintain their homes, and more.  This year’s loss of income will be a considerable hardship for many of them.

While Madison Mountaineering will be doing what we can to lessen the loss, we need your help!  Please consider making a generous donation to the GoFundMe campaign we have established to assist our impacted Nepal staff.  All proceeds will be distributed directly to them.

Also, friend of Madison Mountaineering, Alan Arnette, who for many years has been providing excellent daily coverage of the Everest climbing season (and other climbing expeditions year-round) has this year created a wonderfully entertaining fictional day-by-day ‘coverage’ – Virtual Everest 2020 – that we hope you will follow and enjoy!

We will get through this together and be climbing again soon!

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Nepal announces all expeditions cancelled for Spring 2020

Climber on Mount Everest

Late last week amid all of the rapidly evolving global cancelations and shutdowns to slow the spread of the coronavirus, the government of Nepal officially announced the cancellation of all Spring expeditions along with additional changes to their tourist visa requirements.

While we are saddened that all of the hard work and preparations of our team members, our guides, Sherpa, and staff won’t allow us to enjoy the challenge and beauty of Himalayas this spring, we applaud and respect Nepal’s decision.  The health and wellbeing of all of us global citizens is top priority.

The mountain will always be there — let’s go climb Everest next season together!

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Welcome to Everest 2020!

The Everest summit ridge on May 23rd

Welcome to Everest 2020! Our annual spring Mount Everest expedition begins in just 30 days. Our strong team of international climbers will gather at the Hotel Yak and Yeti, our Kathmandu home-base and the launching point of countless Mount Everest expeditions over the years. Here in Seattle, we are now gathering expedition equipment, food and supplies, making logistical arrangements with our Nepal support staff, and ensuring that all of our climbing team members and trekkers have everything ready to go. Busy times at Madison Mountaineering HQ! We are looking forward to our continued best-in-class rate of success and safety on Everest. Leaders in setting the fixed ropes, we have put the first team on top in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019.

We are excited by the upcoming season and hope that you will all follow along with our expedition dispatches as the team makes their way to base camp and then up the mountain!

If climbing Mount Everest 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:

  • Enable the skill and add to your flash briefing to hear Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates

– Instagram:

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Climb Conclusion Celebration

Aconcagua team celebrates at Plaza de Mulas base camp

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:

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Team safely down to base camp

Base camp, everyone down safe! Great expedition, stay tuned for the TV show and what happened in the summit push!

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!

Sid Pattison, the barbecue chief!

Cacho, our Argentinian guide who leads our climbs exclusively and reached the summit of Aconcagua for his 50th time!

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:

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Did they summit??

High camp 3 on Aconcagua, new MHW Trango 3 tents in action! Served us well!

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:

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Going for the summit tomorrow

The evening's glow on Aconcagua

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:

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Up to Aconcagua Camp 3 tomorrow

Sunset from Aconcagua Camp 1 (5052m/16,575ft)

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:

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Rest Day at Camp 2

The view from Camp 2 on Aconcagua

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:

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Carry to Camp 3

The view from Aconcagua Camp 2

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:

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