Summit attempt coming up!

The Madison Mountaineering Carstensz Pyramid Expedition team reached their base camp today, tucked into the Yellow Valley at the foot of the peak. The flight into base camp is an exciting one, which we carried throughout the day. After settling into their tents, the team took to the lower section of the route for some technical skills review and acclimatization. Everyone did great! It won’t be long now before we start out on the summit push. Expedition leader, Terray Sylvester checks in with this dispatch from Carstensz Pyramid:

Hello! This is Terray calling in for the Madison Mountaineering Carstensz Pyramid (4884m/16,024ft) Expedition. Today is June 15.

Today we woke up early, headed over to the airport in Timika (31m/103ft), and the weather cleared! We were able to fly to base camp (4285m/14,050ft). So our entire team is now up at base camp, which is fantastic. It’s common for there to be some delays, because the weather in Papua is so wet and variable. But yeah, we had really good conditions and it’s fantastic to be here!

We spent the morning relaxing, and then this afternoon we headed up to the first, the “first terrace,” as it’s called. The first of three major ledges, on the lower portion of the route, just to get acquainted with the climbing on the lower route before we do it in the dark during our alpine start, and to stretch our legs and get a little bit of an activity to help us acclimatize now that we’re at 14,000 feet.

So, uh, yeah, we had really good foray on the route, rappelled back down to base camp, and now we’re just waiting for dinner. Dinner will be tuna steaks, and chicken wings, salad, french fries. Should be really good!

Yeah, it’s a beautiful evening here; calm with some mist drifting through the Yellow Valley. We’re really looking forward to making our first attempt at the summit tomorrow, if the weather cooperates. So we’ll 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