Seeing the route on Makalu!

The Madison Mountaineering Makalu expedition team took to the climbing route today, hiking up to ‘crampon point’ to acclimatize and get familiar with the start of the path to the summit. Under blue skies and with the sun shining, the team moved well above base camp, taking in views of the mountain, surrounding peaks, and down to their base camp below. Expedition leader, Terray Sylvester checks in with this dispatch after another great day on Makalu:

Hello! This is Terray calling in for the Madison Mountaineering Makalu (8463m/27,766ft) expedition – today is April 29th.

Today, we woke up after a windy night here in base camp. But, the sun was shining so we took the opportunity to hike on up to ‘crampon point’ at about 6,000-meters, a little more than an hour above base camp. It was a great hike! The fresh snow made the footing a little difficult, but the team did really well and we had excellent views back down toward base camp and of all the peaks to the south of us, as well as a perspective almost all the way to the summit of Makalu!

We made it back down, had a late lunch, and we’ve just been resting since then. We’re looking forward to another movie in our base camp cinema tonight and dinner before that! So all is well here in base camp and we’ll be in touch tomorrow.

En route to ‘crampon point’ (photo by Terray Sylvester)

Climbing up the route (photo by Terray Sylvester)

Our climber, Aga, with a view back toward 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