Hello from Nepal!

The Madison Mountaineering team is back in Nepal this season with several different teams trekking and climbing around the Himalayas! After a long day of travel, everyone has arrived and is looking forward to the days ahead after some rest and final preparations. Together, we’ve gone through a gear check and orientation, capping off the day with a fun dinner at a nice restaurant nearby the hotel. Expedition leader, Terray Sylvester checks in with this dispatch from Kathmandu:

Hello! This is Terray calling in from Kathmandu (1400m/4,600ft) for the Madison Mountaineering programs in Nepal’s Khumbu Valley this fall – today is October 20th. Over the last 48 hours, our guests have been arriving in Kathmandu. Today, we kicked off our fall programs with an orientation and gear checks here at the Yak and Yeti Hotel, and then we just wrapped up a really nice welcome dinner at Mezze restaurant in the downtown core of Nepal’s capital city, just a block from the former royal palace.

We have guests heading out on a variety of programs! We have our Ama Dablam (6812m/22,349ft) climbing team, we have guests heading to Everest Base Camp (5364m/17,598ft), and we have some people who will trek to Everest Base Camp and then climb Island Peak (6189m/20,305ft) and Lobuche East (6119m/20,075ft). We have some folks who are heading out on the three passes loop up into the Gokyo area, and then looping back in toward Everest Base Camp and some of the popular 6,000-meter peaks in the area.

So we have a lot of activity underway here in Nepal and we’re looking forward to a really great season! Tomorrow we plan to do our pre-expedition city tour here in Kathmandu, and then the following day hopefully, we’ll start making our way up toward Lukla (2860m/9,383ft). So, all is well here in Kathmandu and we’ll be in touch!

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