Ojos del Salado & Aconcagua expedition

We’ve kicked off an exciting combo expedition to Ojos del Salado and Aconcagua! Ojos del Salado is the highest volcano on the planet and Aconcagua is the tallest peak outside of Asia, together combining for a challenging duo for a few intrepid climbers! The Madison Mountaineering team has arrived in Chile where they’ll first attempt Ojos del Salado, before turning their sights towards Aconcagua. Expedition leader, Terray Sylvester checks in with this dispatch from El Salvador:

Hello! This is Terray calling in for the Madison Mountaineering Ojos del Salado (6893m/22,615ft) and Aconcagua (6961m/22,837ft) expedition – today is December 30th.

Yesterday, everyone arrived in the Copiapó (390m/1,280ft) airport in the Atacama region in northern Chile, and then we drove to the little mining town of El Salvador at about 8,000 feet or just over 2,000 meters. We spent the night here and just had a nice breakfast. This afternoon, we’ll have lunch here and then we will continue to our first campsite on the Pedernales Salt Flat to the east of us. We’ll be there for a night and then will do our first acclimatization ascent on Doña Ines volcano (5075m/16,650ft).

All is going well! The team is in great spirits and good health. It’s beautiful weather here in the Atacama, really pleasant summer temperatures, and clear skies – but the skies are almost always clear because it’s one of the driest deserts on the planet.

So, we’ll be in touch via inReach over the next few days. We won’t have much cell service or WiFi, but we’ll be able to communicate by satellite text. That’s all for now!

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