Everest Archives

Everest 2019.09

Active Rest Day in Pheriche

Team on acclimatization hike above Pheriche

The team took an active rest day today in near the village of Pheriche. Garrett Madison, expedition leader, gives the lowdown on the day’s activities:

Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Madison Mountaineering / Mountain Hardwear Autumn Everest Expedition. Today is September 13th and we had a great acclimitization hike here in Pheriche (4280m/14,042ft.) in the Khumbu Valley. We hiked up a nearby mountain ridge about 2,700 vertical feet (823m) and came back to Pheriche for a late lunch and a relaxing afternoon.

We just wrapped up a nice dinner and we’re getting ready to head off to bed. Everyone’s doing well here. We are starting to feel the altitude a little bit. Our plan tomorrow is to trek up to the village of Lobuche (4940m/16,207ft.). So fingers crossed for good weather. It’s been a little cloudy and rainy but a few, brief interludes of sunlight. We are having a great time here and are looking forward to another great day on the trail.

Talking through the plan for the day (📸: Jess Talley / Louder Than 11)

Team on acclimatization hike above Pheriche

In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow the team as they trek to Everest Base Camp and then make their attempt to summit the world’s highest mountain on:

– Amazon Alexa devices with the Madison Mountaineering Flash Briefing skill:

Enable the skill and add to your flash briefing to hear Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates

– Instagram:

– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map:

https://madisonmountaineering.com/maps/everest-2019-autumn

September 13, 2019/0 Comments/by Garrett

Everest 2019.09

Deboche to Pheriche

Edging closer to Everest Base Camp, the team trekked from Deboche to Pheriche today. Expedition leader, Garrett Madison, phoned-in this update of the day’s progress:

Helllo! This is Garrett calling in for the Madison Mountaineering / Mountain Hardwear Everest Expedition – Autumn Season in Nepal! Today is September 12th and we had a great day trekking from the rhododendron forest in Deboche (the Rivendale Lodge), up to Pheriche. We are staying at The Edelweiss Lodge. We crossed some beautiful suspension bridges today, went through Pangboche, Shomare, and arrived at Pheriche this afternoon.

We had a wonderful dinner here in the Edelweiss Lodge and we are hoping for a clear day tomorrow for our acclimitization hike. Hoping to get some nice views of the surrounding mountains. Everyone’s doing great here in Pheriche at 14,000 feet (4255m) and we are looking forward to another beautiful day tomorrow!

Crossing a suspension bridge in the Khumbu valley (📸: Jess Talley / Louder Than 11)

It’s lush and green in the Khumbu! (📸: Jess Talley / Louder Than 11)

Everest! (📸: Jess Talley / Louder Than 11)

In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow the team as they trek to Everest Base Camp and then make their attempt to summit the world’s highest mountain on:

– Instagram:

– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map:

https://madisonmountaineering.com/maps/everest-2019-autumn

– Amazon Alexa devices with the Madison Mountaineering Flash Briefing skill:

Enable the skill and add to your flash briefing to hear Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates

September 12, 2019/0 Comments/by Garrett

Everest 2019.09

Namche to Deboche

Here is expedition leader, Garrett Madison, with today’s report on the trekking progress towards Everest Base Camp:

Helllo, this is Garrett calling in for the Mountain Hardwear Mount Everest Expedition. Today is September 11th we had a great trek today from Namche down the hillside and across the river, up to the Tengboche Monastery, and then down into the rhododendron forest to the village of Deboche. We are staying in the Rivendale Lodge here in Deboche.

We just had a great dinner and folks are heading off to bed. It’s raining hard outside – it’s feeling like a bit of the monsoon season. But we are hoping for clear sky tomorrow and a nice view of Mount Everest and Ama Dablam. All’s well here on the trek to Everest Base Camp.

Enjoying tea on the trek to Debuche

Outside the Tengboche monastery

Post dinner guitar session at the Rivendell lodge, Debuche

In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow the team as they trek to Everest Base Camp and then make their attempt to summit the world’s highest mountain on:

– Instagram:

– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map:

https://madisonmountaineering.com/maps/everest-2019-autumn

– Amazon Alexa devices with the Madison Mountaineering Flash Briefing skill:

Enable the skill and add to your flash briefing to hear Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates

September 11, 2019/0 Comments/by Garrett

Everest 2019.09

Acclimatizing around Namche

Tim Emmett in Khumjung today, mani stones beside

Today the Everest team continued their acclimatizing around Namche and up to Khumjung. Garrett Madison, expedition leader, provides a recap of the day:

Helllo, this is Garrett calling in for the Mountain Hardwear Mount Everest Expedition. Today is September 10th and we had a great day trekking around Namche. We went up to the Everest View Hotel and got a few glimpses of Everest and Lhotse.

Then we made our way over to the village of Khumjung and visited with some friends of ours, Renji Sherpa and his wife and son. They made us some boilled potatoes. We had some milk tea and then followed up by some Chhaang, or rice wine, which is really tasty.

Later we made our way back to Namche for lunch, had a restful afternoon, and a nice dinner here at the Panorama Lodge. Now we are all off to bed and looking forward to a great day tomorrow. Our plan is to head out around 8:30 in the morning, trek through Tengboche – visit the monastery there, and then down to the rhododendron forest of Deboche to the Rivendale Lodge. So, looking forward to a great day tomorrow. All’s well here in Namche!

Garrett, Tim Emmett, Kancha Sherpa (last surviving member of 1953 Everest expedition), Zac Bookman

Above Namche

The team in Khumjung

Tim Emmett in Khumjung today, mani stones beside

In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow the team as they trek to Everest Base Camp and then make their attempt to summit the world’s highest mountain on:

– Instagram:

– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map:

https://madisonmountaineering.com/maps/everest-2019-autumn

– Amazon Alexa devices with the Madison Mountaineering Flash Briefing skill:

Enable the skill and add to your flash briefing to hear Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates

September 10, 2019/0 Comments/by Garrett

Everest 2019.09

Namche Rest Day

Expedition leader, Garrett Madison, provides a recap of today’s rest day at Namche:

Hello! This is Garrett calling in for the Mountain Hardwear Mount Everest Expediton autumn season. Today we had a rest day in Namche and went for a hike up to the Mount Everest museum above town and had great views of Mount Everest, Mount Lhotse, and Ama Dablam. Beautiful day!

Then we came back down to the Panorama Lodge for lunch and shortly thereafter the rest of our crew arrived by helicopter! So we went over to the helipad and greeted them. We then spent the afternoon together drinking coffee, enjoying Namche, and we just finished a nice dinner.

It’s great to be all together here and we are looking forward to a good acclimization hike tomorrow up to the Everest View Hotel. All’s well here in Namche.

Statue of Tenzing Norgay above Namche

First View of Everest (on the left)

In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow the team as they trek to Everest Base Camp and then make their attempt to summit the world’s highest mountain on:

– Instagram:

– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map:

https://madisonmountaineering.com/maps/everest-2019-autumn

– Amazon Alexa devices with the Madison Mountaineering Flash Briefing skill:

Enable the skill and add to your flash briefing to hear Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates

September 9, 2019/0 Comments/by Garrett

Everest 2019.09

Phakding to Namche Bazaar

Trekking day 2: Phakding to Namche Bazaar – Distance: 9.56km – Elev Gain/Loss: 1430m/-624m

Today the trekking team hiked up the hill to the village of Nachme Bazaar where they will spend a couple of days acclimatizing. Expedition leader, Garrett Madison, made this expedition dispatch:

Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Mountain Hardwear Autumn Everest expedition. Today is September 8th and today we made our way from the village of Phakding up to village of Namche Bazaar. It was a beautiful trek up the river gorge with lush green hillsides and raging rivers coming down that we crossed over on suspended bridges.

It was a warm day, it was hot, but we enjoyed it and got up to Namche about 3:30 this afternoon. We are settled into the Panorama Lodge, our favorite place to stay here in Namche. We’ve been staying here for 10 years now – at least once if not twice a year. We are looking forward to a good night’s rest.

Tomorrow we are going to be here and go for an acclimatization hike and a few more members of our team will be joining us tomorrow. So, looking forward to having the whole team together! We will check in soon. Thanks!

Cool Morning Waterfall Shower

A warm welcome to the Panorama Lodge in Namche

The rivers are gorged from the monsoon rains

In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow the team as they trek to Everest Base Camp and then make their attempt to summit the world’s highest mountain on:

– Instagram:

– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map:

https://madisonmountaineering.com/maps/everest-2019-autumn

– Amazon Alexa devices with the Madison Mountaineering Flash Briefing skill:

Enable the skill and add to your flash briefing to hear Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates

September 8, 2019/0 Comments/by Garrett

Everest 2019.09

Kathmandu to Lukla to Phakding

Trekking day 1: Lukla to Phakding – Distance: 8.30 km – Elev Gain/Loss: 394m/-639m

Expedition leader, Garrett Madison, provides the recap of today’s exciting flight to the trailhead mountain village of Lukla and the first day of trekking towards Everest Base Camp:

Hello! This is Garrett calling in for the Mountain Hardwear Everest expedition and base camp trek. Today is September 8th. We were very lucky this morning to have an early flight at 6:00 AM out of Kathmandu and landed in Lukla. But not after a fun, unplanned stop in the small village of Phaplu on the way. The clouds rolled in and the Lukla airport was closed en route on our flight so the pilot diverted and landed at a small airstrip on the way. Then when the clouds parted our pilot took off and landed us in Lukla.

From Lukla we made our way up the start of the Khumbu Valley. It’s amazingly green here right now! It’s been raining so much at the end of the monsoon season. Everything is just incredibly green and vibrant. A lot of growth here – the vegetation, the trees, the forest… So, we’ve got it really good here! We are at Phakding in the Sunrise lodge. We just finished a good dinner and are heading off to bed.

Tomorrow we are going to head up to Namche. Everybody’s feeling great. It’s surprisingly quite here in the Khumbu. We have the lodge all to ourselves and we didn’t see many people on the trail today because it’s not quite the trekking season which starts up in October. We are feeling great and looking forward to a great day trekking up to Namche tomorrow.

(photo: Lukla airport from the Madison Mountaineering Everest archives)

In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow the team as they trek to Everest Base Camp and then make their attempt to summit the world’s highest mountain on:

– Instagram:

– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map:

https://madisonmountaineering.com/maps/everest-2019-autumn

– Amazon Alexa devices with the Madison Mountaineering Flash Briefing skill:

Enable the skill and add to your flash briefing to hear Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates

September 7, 2019/1 Comment/by Garrett

Everest 2019.09

The Mountain Hardwear Everest Expedition kicks-off

All of us at Madison Mountaineering are very excited that after many months of planning, the Mountain Hardwear Everest Expedition kicks-off today! Expedition leader, Garrett Madison, is now in Kathmandu with the entire trekking team and just provided this update to start off this exciting and rare Autumn season attempt on Mount Everest:

Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Mountain Hardwear Autumn 2019 Everest Expedition! The team is in Kathmandu (the trekking team) and we went out for a wonderful team dinner yesterday evening. Folks are getting ready to head out on a city tour of Kathmandu today and we are planning on flying to Lukla tomorrow morning, weather pending. It’s been a very wet monsoon here the last few months in Nepal. We are hoping for some dry weather coming up shortly here to start our trek into base camp. So, we are very excited to be here and to be launching the expedition and heading up into the Khumbu Valley and making our way towards Everest Base Camp!

In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow the team as they trek to Everest Base Camp and then make their attempt to summit the world’s highest mountain:

– on Instagram:

– on our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map:

https://madisonmountaineering.com/maps/everest-2019-autumn

– on Amazon Alexa devices with the Madison Mountaineering Flash Briefing skill:

Enable the skill and add to your flash briefing to hear Garrett Madison’s daily audio expedition updates

September 6, 2019/0 Comments/by Garrett

Everest 2019.04

Everest 2019 Spring Recap

Congratulations to our Everest 2019 spring team in successfully climbing the world’s highest peak, but more importantly making it down safely! In contrast to what the media has portrayed, our experience on summit day was a pleasant one, due to a strong and experienced team. Our guides and Sherpas not only installed the fixed lines to the summit, which ‘opened’ the route on May 14^th for all climbers on the south side of the mountain but also supported our climbers in a seamless climb of Mount Everest. The challenge of climbing Everest, coupled with the added uncertainty of the weather and other climbers on the route, can create adverse conditions. However, our team of professionals orchestrated a perfect expedition under the circumstances.

Climbers celebrating at the summit

The Everest summit ridge on May 23rd

In my 12 expeditions to Everest, this was one of the finest teams of hard working, competent, positive, and pleasant Nepal “Sherpas”, many of who I have climbed with for the last 5 years. Big thanks for these incredible guys who helped us make our extraordinary success possible!

Madison Mountaineering rope fixing team on Everest summit day

MM rope team on summit day

Now our attention turns to the world’s second highest peak, K2. Today, our advance team of 100 porters and 2 Pakistan high altitude climbers left the village of Askole to begin the 100 km trek to K2 base camp.

K2 supplies headed to base camp

Over 100 porters and staff leaving Askoli for K2

We are excited to meet our climbing team in Islamabad in mid-June and make our way to ‘Chogori’, the savage mountain.

Our autumn Himalayan season following K2 will be action-packed, with our first ever Expedition to Everest in the fall! We also have expeditions attempting Ama Dablam, as well as an unclimbed peak! Previously, we have had very high success on these peaks in the autumn. For climbers looking to climb the highest peak in Oceania, we also have a Carstensz Pyramid climb. We invite you to join us if climbing in the Himalaya or Oceania is on your ‘to do’ list this autumn!

Our Mount Vinson expeditions also have some availability, if climbing in Antarctica is on your mind, contact us for details!

June 5, 2019/1 Comment/by Garrett

Everest 2019.04

A toast to a safe, successful climb

A toast to a safe climb at our base camp with the Khumbu Icefall behind

With the Everest season quickly wrapping up, here’s expedition leader, Garrett Madison, with a final dispatch from the 2019 Mount Everest base camp:

Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Everest team. Today most of our crew helicoptered down to Kathmandu and they are at the Yak & Yeti hotel, relaxing and enjoying a nice comfortable stay and a great dinner. Myself, Conan and Stuart along with Joyce are still here in base camp with our Sherpa team – just packing up the camp and we are hoping to head out tomorrow down to Kathmandu.

But, it’s been a great season for us. We have a very high success and safely all around with our team. It was a challenging season, very windy on the mountain and cold this year with a narrow summit window. And unfortunetly, there was a notable loss of life with climbers the last week on the mountain. But we are happy to be down safe and looking forward to heading home soon. All’s well here at base camp. Thanks for following along!