Puja Day

The Madison Mountaineering Manaslu expedition team held their Puja ceremony today, which is a crucial piece to many of our expeditions in the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges. The Puja is a sacred ceremony where we make offerings and ask the mountain for safe passage before beginning any climbing. It was another great day in the mountains, the team is in good spirits, and ready to start their first rotation on Manaslu, the world’s eighth-highest peak! Expedition leader, Terray Sylvester checks in with this dispatch from the Himalayas:

Hello! This is Terray calling in for the Madison Mountaineering Manaslu (8156m/26,759ft) expedition – today is September 10th.

Today we had our pre-climb Puja! A Lama came up from Sama village and we had a nice ceremony asking the mountain for safe passage while we climb. Then, in the afternoon after lunch, we prepared for our first rotation on the mountain. Tomorrow, if all goes as planned we will move up to Camp 1 (5700m/18,700ft) with the goal of spending about four nights on the mountain before returning to base camp (4859m/15,944ft). That will be a crucial step as we acclimatize for our eventual summit push.

Right now, it’s beautiful in base camp! We’ve got a clear view down the valley over the cloud-tops looking toward Chamar (7165m/23,507ft) and [Chachung?] peaks in the distance, it’s just really nice here. So, all is well and we will be in touch from higher on the mountain!

Members of our Sherpa team during the Puja. From left, Tenzi, Temba and Ming Dorchi. (Photo by Terray Sylvester)

Temba stringing prayer flags over our base camp. (Photo by Terray Sylvester)

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