And that’s a wrap on the Mexico Volcanoes with 100% success on both the Iztaccihuatl and Pico de Orizaba volcanoes! Our expedition team leader Terray Sylvester recaps the day:
Hello, this is Terray calling in for the Madison Mountaineering Mexico Volcanoes expedition. It is Monday, October 25th. This morning we climbed up to the summit of el Pico de Orizaba (5636m/18,491ft), the highest volcano in North America and the third highest mountain on the continent.
We left camp at about 1:00am under starry skies and had really good climbing conditions. Some fresh snow had fallen on the mountain the day before, which made footing a little bit more challenging than usual but at least we didn’t have the icy conditions that can sometimes be present on the upper mountain. We topped out right around 9:30am and took a few summit photos up there in the sun and were back down in camp by noon.
Now we’re back in Mexico City. We had a few celebratory beers along the way. The team is getting ready to fly home out of Mexico City tomorrow. So all in all, it was a great expedition! We had 100% success on our two main objectives Iztaccihuatl and Orizaba and it was great to be down here in Mexico.
Climbers Josh and David on the summit of Mexico’s el Pico de Orizaba
On the upper mountain of Pico de Orizaba
Approaching the summit of Orizaba with the mountain’s shadow to the west
Acclimatizating in Mexico near Pico de Orizaba
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 daily audio expedition updates on select expeditions. Just say, “Alexa, play my Madison Mountaineering flash briefing.“
– Instagram:
– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map: