To start the new year, our second Mount Vinson expedition team moved up to High Camp to position themselves for their summit push within the next couple of days. Terray Sylvester calls in today’s dispatch:
Today we woke up and had bacon and french toast for breakfast and then moved from Low Camp (2774m/9,100ft) to High Camp (3536m/11,600ft). We had beautiful weather all day – clear, sunny skies and basically calm air, no wind.
Now we’re settled down in High Camp. We had hamburgers for dinner with risotto and veggies.
[remainder of sat photo call garbled and cuts out]
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:
https://madisonmountaineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/IMG_0415-scaled.jpg14082560Garretthttps://madisonmountaineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/logomm-300x138.jpgGarrett2022-01-02 04:05:292022-01-02 19:51:17Vinson Team Two Moves to High Camp
Great news! Garrett and the entire team made the summit of Mount Vinson today. Way to go team! Special congratulations to Jen for completing her Seven Summits quest!! Here’s Garrett via sat phone just minutes are from Mount Vinson High Camp with the details:
Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Madison Mountaineering Mount Vinson expedition team. Today is Tuesday, December 28th and we reached the summit of Mount Vinson today – the highest point in Antarctica.
We had a beautiful day, just fantastic weather, and great route conditions. Myself, John, and Jen got up to the top around 5:30 PM, a beautiful evening summit with 24-hours of daylight here in Antarctica. We just got back to camp, had dinner, and heading to bed now at about 11 o’clock.
All’s well here and we’re heading down to Vinson Base Camp tomorrow. Hoping this great weather sticks around for a while.
We’ll check in soon. Thanks!
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:
Team member John provides today’s expedition update from Mount Vinson High Camp. Spoiler-alert: tomorrow they will make a summit attempt!
Hello, everybody. This is John checking in from Vinson High Camp on behalf of my fellow teammate Jen and expedition leader Garrett Madison.
Today we enjoyed a very relaxing rest day advance of our summit day tomorrow. The weather was glorious today so we took advantage of it to taking some photos, walk around, get some exercise, and it’s an early night in bed in advance of our big day tomorrow.
All is well, spirits are high, and we look forward to giving you an update tomorrow night!
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:
https://madisonmountaineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/IMG_0881-scaled.jpg19202560Garretthttps://madisonmountaineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/logomm-300x138.jpgGarrett2021-12-28 00:16:352021-12-28 01:47:36Update from Vinson High Camp
Vinson Team One made the move up to High Camp on Mount Vinson yesterday. It was a nice climbing day from Low Camp to High Camp up the steep fixed ropes. The team is now enjoying some good weather. Everyone is happy, healthy, and doing well — not to mention super psyched to be getting ready for the summit push! Stay tuned…
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:
After the Kilimanjaro summit, this incredibly strong team hiked all the way down and out – what a big day! Expedition leader, Garrett Madison calls in from Arusha with all the details:
Hello this is Garrett calling in for the Kilimanjaro dispatch. We got back from the summit late last night after reaching the top at 06:00 am on August 15th. It was a beautiful day, we had the mountain all to ourselves. Stunning views over the Serengeti. Myself, Drew, and his daughter Jordan made it to the top and back down, packed up our camp and just kept going! We got all the way out to the [Mweka] gate and back to Arusha in time for a late dinner.
Tomorrow Drew and Jordan are heading off on safari. It should be a beautiful time on the Serengeti and Ngorongoro game parks – good game viewing.
It’s been a wonderful Kilimanjaro expedition. He are very happy that we got to work with our crew here in Tanzania of porters, cooks, guides, … and support their livelyhood here. They’re just a wonderful group of guys and hopefully we will get to see them again very soon!
Sunrise on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro
Beautiful African Sunrise
Happy climbers summit Kilimanjaro
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:
Earlier today, our Kilimanjaro team trekked the 2.7 miles below the southern face from Karanga Camp to our high camp on the Mweka Ridge: Kosovo Camp (4870 m / 15,978 ft).
We like to pass by the popular, and often very crowded, Barafu Camp and take an extra hour of climbing up to Kosovo Camp. This much quieter camp positions us for a slightly shorter summit day. After an early dinner, the team will hit the sack early to get some much-needed rest to be ready for tomorrow’s early morning, alpine start of SUMMIT DAY!
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:
The team is now safely down to Vinson base camp and Conrad Anker reports on the day in this expedition dispatch:
Greetings sports fans! This is Conrad calling from Vinson base camp. It’s the 8th of January 2020. What a way to start this fresh, new decade. We’re all back here after a wonderful and adventurious and trying expedition to the summit of Antarctica, Vinson Massif.
We had bad weather and a couple clear windows and today we started out at about 6am in a blizzard and we had to pack up camp, and head down to Low Camp, and then all the way back to Vinson base camp. The team was really excited for everything that went on.
What we have now at Vinson base camp is probably about 45 climbers that are all backlogged hoping to get out on a flight tomorrow. But it’s been foggy and no flights here for the last week to get to Union Glacier, all be it with weather in the mountains. But our team was happy to have spent six nights at High Camp inside a small tent that turned into a Top Raman sauna everytime we cooked.
Taking our changes on less then optimal weather and getting shut down and then coming back to wake up on a beatiful crystal clear day and getting the summit. So that’s what you come to expeditons for is to challange yourself, to make new friends, to be in scene places, and maybe have a laugh along the way.
For all of us here a big shout out especialliy to Roxy – yup that’s her – for her Seven Summits success and everyone else on the team. So wishing you all the best. Take care and stay tuned. Bye
By the way, it’s not too early to start making your plans to join us on Mount Vinson for the 2020/2021 season next December! Contact our office for details.
In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow the teams as they make their attempts to summit the highest mountain in Antarctica on:
https://madisonmountaineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/cdv_photo_002.jpg300300Garretthttps://madisonmountaineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/logomm-300x138.jpgGarrett2020-01-09 01:22:002020-01-09 01:22:00Down to Vinson base camp
Today the Vinson team bided their time at High Camp waiting for the weather to clear. Conrad Anker provides a recap of the day and the plan for tomorrow in this sat phone dispatch:
Greetings folks, this is Conrad Anker from Vinson High Camp. It’s the 7th of January, 2020.
Well, the weather gods, we like them, we honor them, we respect them. After our 15-hour window of good weather where we had the majority of our team make the summit, it came in fast and furious. It was blowing wet snow coming in off the Amundsen Sea. So, we did the right thing, which was to hibernate, sit in our tents, and not go down the ropes, seeing as it was, we could barely see across camp.
It’s about 9 o’clock in the evening here local and it’s calm and clear. Well, it’s clear – it’s still blowing. But relatively calm after these last few days of a steady 20 knots to 25 knots of wind coming from the east. So, it’s looking good.
The team is out breaking their tents out of the snow that has kind of cemented them in and getting them ready. We are going to wake up early tomorrow and get down to advanced camp, the Low Camp and then from there head to Vinson base camp. And, weather permitting, we’ll catch our Twin Otter flights to Union Glacier.
And for the team of V4, we’ve had a wonderful time, we’ve made new friends, we’ve experienced the highs and lows that Antarctica has to offer. Pretty much the consensus over our humble fare this evening as we had dinner was that the trying and challenging trips are the ones that leave a lasting memory. So, we’re coming home with lots of memories and we’re thankful to all of you out there in the far reaches of the world that tune in and listen to us.
So, this is Garrett and Conrad signing off. Be well. Talk to you tomorrow.
(photo: Madison Mountaineering December 2019 Team #1)
By the way, it’s not too early to start making your plans to join us on Mount Vinson for the 2020/2021 season next December! Contact our office for details.
In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow the teams as they make their attempts to summit the highest mountain in Antarctica on:
https://madisonmountaineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/PHOTO-2019-12-30-07-47-03.jpg12001600Garretthttps://madisonmountaineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/logomm-300x138.jpgGarrett2020-01-08 00:52:402020-01-08 00:52:40Vinson team ready to head down to base camp tomorrow
We encourage you to listen to the audio of Conrad Anker’s entertaining sat phone dispatch about today’s activities high on Antarctica’s Mount Vinson:
Greetings folks, it’s the 6th of January 2020 and this is your intrepid journalist/mountaineering Conrad Anker calling from Vinson High Camp.
Well, if you listened to yesterday’s dispatch, you kinda got the news that we got hammered by some fierce winds, turned around at the rescue cache, came back to camp with our tails between our legs. We were humbled – properly. And the weather forecast was calling for today, the 6th, to be even more fierce and even more big stormy weather with a low coming in from the Amundsen Sea.
But then strange things happen in the mountains. At 6am it was calm, the sound of our tents flapping was replaced with silence. We poked out – it was a bluebird day. Nary a gust of wind or anything like that. We squeaked around camp and Garrett and I look at each other with ear-to-ear smiles and we said, “Let’s go!”
The weather forecast, well, never trust electronics, go with your mountaineer sense. Both Garrett and I felt that we had 12 hours of good weather and that’s what we had. So our team coalesced and we headed up and we all made it to the summit. Especially proud of Roxy on the culmination of her Seven Summits.
Now we’re here back at camp. The 12-hour window closed back up and we’re sitting on the anvil as the hammer descends upon us. But tomorrow we slide down the fixed ropes and ski back to Vinson base content knowing that we set out to do what we came to do, which was climb Vinson. We’ll keep you posted as more news happens.
Thanks for listening in. Take care!
(photo: Madison Mountaineering 2019 Team #1 summit on 12/27/2019)
By the way, it’s not too early to start making your plans to join us on Mount Vinson for the 2020/2021 season next December! Contact our office for details.
In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow the teams as they make their attempts to summit the highest mountain in Antarctica on:
https://madisonmountaineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/PHOTO-2019-12-30-07-47-02-1.jpg12001600Garretthttps://madisonmountaineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/logomm-300x138.jpgGarrett2020-01-07 01:56:212020-01-07 01:56:21Summit Success on Mount Vinson!
Today the Vinson team made a go at it. Conrad Anker provides all the details in his sat phone call from High Camp this evening:
Greetings folks, this is Conrad with an update from the Vinson expedition 2020. Well, it’s the 5th of January. We’re here at High Camp. We didn’t summit.
What gives? Well, there’s this massive storm coming off the Amundsen Sea – moist, wet air. There’s a lotta catch as that windy howls across flats of Antarctica and then hits the Sentinel Mountains. In the apex of that is the Ellsworth Range. So, there we were 11am, we got the radio call with winds of 15 knots, which is kinda good. But at the same time, as luck would have it, there’s a break in the sky and it’s sunny and it’s calm and so we get motivated and we’re like, we’re gonna strike while the iron is hot and head up there and summit.
So, we get out and we get all of our kit ready and we head into the gale. We get 3/4 of the way there to the final ridge with the wind blowing 40 knots. And at that point, it was painfully obvious the summit was not in the cards. It was better off that we came down safe and sound. Which is where we are.
There’s always a reminder that there are old climbers and bold climbers, but there are no old, bold climbers. So, we’re a bunch of old climbers. Happy for the experience, the camaraderie, the friendship, the time spent at the stove, the joy of sawing snow blocks, and the wonders of freeze-dried meals.
So, thanks for tuning in. We’re going to go into hibernation mode here for the next couple of days and see what this storm delivers. Who knows, maybe we’ll go up again. But at the very least, we are having fun and that’s why we came to Antarctica – to have fun. And if getting blown by a snowstorm is your type of fun then you’re just like us.
So, take care, have fun, and thanks for listening in. This is Conrad signing off.
(photo: Madison Mountaineering archive)
By the way, it’s not too early to start making your plans to join us on Mount Vinson for the 2020/2021 season next December! Contact our office for details.
In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow the teams as they make their attempts to summit the highest mountain in Antarctica on:
https://madisonmountaineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Vinson05-1.jpg10801920Garretthttps://madisonmountaineering.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/logomm-300x138.jpgGarrett2020-01-06 01:30:412020-01-06 01:30:41Vinson team makes a go at it
