Readying to start the first rotation!

The Madison Mountaineering Ama Dablam expedition team is eyeing the start of their first rotation. In the last few days, the team hunkered down while the mountain received large amounts of snow. Now it seems that storm has ended and we can start to prepare to for our first rotation once conditions on the mountain settle down. With that, the team is very excited to get the climbing underway! Expedition leader, Terray Sylvester checks in with this dispatch from the Himalaya:

Hello! This is Terray calling in for the 2026 Madison Mountaineering Ama Dablam (6812m/22,349ft) expedition. Today is Halloween.

For the last two days, we’ve been receiving precipitation from Cyclone Arnab, which materialized at the Bay of Bengal, and then swung up to the northwest and sent a lot of moisture into the Himalayas. So, all told, we probably got over a meter of snow here in base camp (4600m/15,100ft). And it now seems like that storm cycle has ended. The stars are out for the first time in 48 hours, and it’s a beautiful, crisp, clear night.

So we’re going to start thinking about heading up the mountain for our first rotation, although we’ll give the mountain some time to settle and become safe. So probably tomorrow will be another day in base camp for us and then perhaps the following day we’ll move to Camp I (5791m/19,000ft). But we’ll see, depends on conditions.

All is well here in base camp. will be in touch tomorrow.

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