Tag Archive for: High Camp

Another Windy Day at High Camp

Co-guide, Conrad Anker, reports in from Mount Vinson that it’s another windy day at High Camp.  The team is hunkering down and waiting for a break in the weather for the summit attempt:

Greetings folks! Conrad here from VInson High Camp. It’s the 4th of January 2020.  And guess what? It’s our second full day of storm.

 

Looks like we have a low pressure that is coming off the Amundsen Sea. It’s blowing in from the Northeast. We have winds of a steady 20 knots and it’s about minus 20 celsius, so pretty cold!

 

But our team is psyched. We’re ready. We had a good time out building snow walls for our tents, cutting blocks and visiting with the other team members here – basically biding our time. Because we know if it wasn’t for a storm every now and then, it would be easy and it wouldn’t be mountaineering and we came here for adventure! We came here for Antarctica. I guess we’re getting served up what we came for.

 

Thanks for listening in. Talk to you soon. Take care. 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:

– 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:

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Windy rest day at High Camp

Today the Vinson team took a windy rest day at High Camp.  Expedition leader, Garrett Madison, provides the details via satellite phone:

Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Madison Mountaineering Mount Vinson expedition team #2 with co-guide Conrad Anker.

 

We are up at High Camp taking a rest day today. It’s become windy up here at High Camp. It’s been blowing a steady 20 knots today, which is probably too windy for us to climb in and also blowing some spindrift snow. So today we spent the day fortifying our tents, building snow walls around them to protect them from the wind and spindrift. And just enjoying the rest day in camp, had a few good meals, got to tell some stories, and looking forward to some good weather in the future.

 

Hopefully tomorrow or the next day. Although it looks like it might be a couple more days before this wind event passes and calm conditions return to the upper slopes of Mount Vinson. But in the meantime everyone’s doing great, we are in good spirits, having fun, and we’ll check-in tomorrow.  Thanks!

(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:

– 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:

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Team #2 reaches High Camp

Vinson High Camp

After a long day of making the move (+2,500 ft) from Mount Vinson Low Camp up the fixed lines to High Camp, guest guide Conrad Anker, phones in via satellite today’s expedition recap:

Greetings folks, this is Conrad from Vinson High Camp. It’s the 2nd of January 2020. What a great way to welcome in the new year. Our team set out from Low Camp, climbed up the shoulder on the fixed ropes for a little bit, and then some really beautiful terrian and yeah things are great and we have good weather, everyone’s healthy and we’re very thankful for the opportunity to be here with friends. And yeah we’re happy! That’s a good thing. Take care.

(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:

– 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 maps:

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Vinson team #1 back at Union Glacier camp

Union Glacier Camp

Our Mount Vinson team #1 is now back at Union Glacier camp and getting ready to return to South America tomorrow.  Expedition leader, Garrett Madison, calls in from camp with a recap of the busy day:

Hello. This is Garrett calling for the Mount Vinson expedition team #1. Today is Saturday, December 28th and myself, Bartek, Aga and Motoki have all return back to Union Glacier camp from Mount Vinson.

 

We had a wonderful day. We woke up this morning at Mount Vinson High Camp after our successful summit yesterday. We descended from High Camp all the way down the fixed ropes past Low Camp and down to Vinson base camp. And then a couple of hours later we were met by a Twin Otter aircraft where we boarded and flew back to Union Glacier camp. It was a very scenic flight, great views all around.

 

We had a nice dinner here at Union Glacier camp, and a shower and the climbers are looking forward to the flight out on the Ilyushin 76 jet tomorrow from the Blue Ice Runway back to Punta Arenas. Hopefully, the weather is good and our three climbers will be flying back to Chile and our next group of Mount Vinson climbers, along with guest guide Conrad Anker, will be flying into Union Glacier camp and heading to Mount Vinson.

 

All’s well here in Antarctica.  We will check-in again soon!  Thanks!

(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:

– 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:

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Mount Vinson 100% Summit!

Best Christmas

Great news from Antarctica where 100% of our first team reached the summit of the continent’s highest peak, Mount Vinson!  Here’s Garrett’s report from High Camp:

Hello, this is Garrett Madison calling in for the Mount Vinson expedition team #1. Today’s December 27th and we reached the summit of Mount Vinson today, the highest peak in Antarctica! The team did great.

 

We left at about 9:30 AM from High Camp after a quick breakfast and climbed all day, had some windy conditions and a bit of a cold on the way up, and then the weather got a little bit nicer and we got up to the summit ridge.  Got up to the summit, had it all to ourselves for a bit, took some photos and then made our way back down to High Camp.

 

We got back to High Camp around 6:00 PM and just finished up some dinner.  So, heading to bed early tonight and looking forward to heading down to Vinson base camp tomorrow and onward back to Union Glacier camp.

 

So it’s been a great climb here on Mount Vinson with the first team, very successful.  We were lucky with good weather and good route conditions and great climbers.

 

We’ll check-in soon.  Thanks!

(photo:  Garrett Madison’s overused Vinson summit pic from the 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:

– 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:

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Rest day at High Camp

Near High Camp on Mount Vinson

The Vinson team had a nice, relaxing rest day at High Camp (3536m/11,600ft) today making their preparations for their summit attempt tomorrow.  Garrett Madison, expedition leader, provided the update via sat phone:

Hello!  This is Garrett calling in for the Mount Vinson expedition team #1.  Today is December 26th also Boxing Day for Candians and we had a wonderful rest day here at Vinson base camp, sorry!, High Camp, Vinson High Camp(!).

 

We are getting ready to go for the summit tomorrow.  The weather looks good, we had a good day, just finished a big dinner, and heading to bed soon.

 

Our plan is to wake up around 7:30-8:00am tomorrow and head out of camp around 9:00am.  Hopefully we’ll get to the top of Vinson in the afternoon and back down in the evening time.  People are feeling great, good weather, and we are excited for the summit climb tomorrow!

 

We’ll check in soon.  Thanks!

(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:

– 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 maps:

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Merry Christmas from Antarctica!

Vinson High Camp

With Christmas wishes to everyone following along, expedition leader Garrett Madison provides an update of today’s climbing on the highest mountain in Antarctica:

Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Mount Vinson expedition.  Merry Christmas, it’s December 25th and we made our way from Low Camp up to High Camp today.

 

We had a great day climbing up the fixed lines and beatifull views, hardly any wind, no clouds in the sky, just perfect conditions all around.  We made it up to High Camp, dug out our cache, set up our tents, and cooked some dinner.  Now we are tucked in our sleeping bags, ready for bed.

 

We are not exactly sure what we are going to do tomorrow.  We are either going to rest or we might give it a shot going to the summit.  We’ll see how we’re feeling.  The forecast looks good, so we are happy to be up here.  Everyone’s doing well and we’ll check it soon.

 

Merry Christmas!

(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:

– 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 maps:

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The move to High Camp

Branscomb Ridge

Our final Mount Vinson expedition, in conjunction with PolarExplorers, made the move to High Camp today as reported in the satellite phone dispatch from expedition leader, Garrett Madison:

Hi, this is Garrett calling in for the Mount Vinson expedition number three with Garret and Jim Lumberg.  We are up at high camp today on January 17th.  We made the push from Low Camp up to High Camp after waking up this morning at Low Camp and having a nice breakfast.  Then we climbed up the fixed ropes about 1,000 meters or 3,300 feet to High Camp.  It was a little cool and windy once we got to High Camp.  But we managed to set up tents, get some water going, had dinner.  And now we are tucked into our sleeping bags, ready for a nice long sleep.

 

There were a couple of other teams that were up here and summitted today:  the Alpine Ascents and IMG crews.  They will be heading down tomorrow and it will be just us up here!  So we are looking forward to having the mountain all to ourselves.  We are going to take a rest day tomorrow and see what the weather forecast brings for a potential summit the following day.

 

Everything is great here on Vinson!  We will check in soon.

(photo:  Madison Mountaineering Vinson 2019 team two)

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Summit Attempt Tomorrow!

Near High Camp on Mount Vinson

As the team readies for their summit attempt, team member Linda gets the honors and provides today’s dispatch from High Camp on Mount Vinson:

Hello, this is Linda calling in from the Madison Mountaineering Vinson team two.  We had a wonderful day here at High Camp, resting, enjoying the scenery, and getting ready for our summit attempt tomorrow.  The weather looks beautiful!  We just had our summit talk and a good dinner and we are getting ready to settle in.  We are going to get up early and hopefully head to the summit tomorrow!!

 

Sending our love to friends and family!

(photo:  Madison Mountaineering archives)

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Vinson team two at High Camp

Vinson High Camp

Our Vinson team two is now at High Camp!  Expedition leader, Garrett Madison, has this exciting update:

Hello!  This is Garrett calling in for the Mount Vinson expedition team number two:  Conan, Garrett, Shawn, Fon, Linda, and Paul!  Today is the eighth of January and we are up at High Camp.  We had a great day climbing from Low Camp up the steep fixed ropes to High Camp at just over 12,400 feet on Mount Vinson.  Beatiful weather today, clear skies, sunny, very calm, just a slight breeze to keep us cool on the way up so that we didn’t overheat.

 

Tomorrow we’re probably going to take a rest day.  We are going to sleep in and get up and see what the weather is doing.  But most likely we’ll be resting here before looking at our summit attempt in the next few days.

 

Everyone is doing great here on Mount Vinson and we will check in again soon.  Thanks!

(photo:  Madison Mountaineering archive)

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