Congratulations to our July 17th team of three climbers and guide Justin Sackett for safely and successfully reaching the summit of Mount Baker this morning! Well done team! Everyone is off the mountain now and headed home savoring a job well done.
Here’s a couple of shots of the ascent. Stay tuned for more PWN climbing this upcoming weekend when we will have teams on Mount Baker and Mount Rainier!
Sunrise on ascending Mount Baker climbers
Nearing the summit of Mount Baker
Definitely a challenging season on the world’s highest peak, but in the end Sagarmatha smiled and opened her arms, welcoming us to journey to her highest point. Our @madisonmtng team had magnificent summit days on May 11th and 23rd, with a total of 17 foreign climbers and 23 Nepal Sherpas reaching the top, of which 5 foreign climbers went on to summit Lhotse with 6 Sherpas. Among our team was Arthur Muir, now the oldest American to reach the top of the world and Kristin Harila who reached the top of Everest at sunrise and the top of Lhotse later that day at sunset.
Despite the pandemic, the harsh weather, and other challenges which forced many teams to cancel mid-late season, our team pulled together and remained focused on our mission, accomplishing what we came here to do, and everyone (foreign climbers & Sherpas) made it off the mountain safely.
We are very grateful to our clients who believed in and trusted us, our guide and Sherpa staff who went above and beyond, and the mountain for giving us the opportunity to test ourselves and admire the view from the top for a few fleeting moments. We look forward to returning to Everest in the spring of 2022, Namaste 🙏!
Everest 2021
Here’s expedition leader Garrett Madison with today’s dispatch from Mount Everest base camp:
Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Madison Mountaineering Everest and Lhotse team. We are in Everest Base Camp.
We had a nice, restful day here in base camp – cloudy and snowy all day. We were going to head out today but no helicopter flights and we decided to delay one day, so we are planning to head out tomorrow. Some folks are going to be trekking down the valley over three days to Lukla and others are hoping to helicopter out if the weather clears. But the Cyclone Yaas out of the Bay of Bengal has created some very inclement weather here in Nepal in the Himalaya, so there might not be many helicopter flights coming soon.
Anyhow, we’re having a great time here, we’re savoring our summit success, and the fact that we all made it down safely and just enjoying our time together here as a team. It’s been a wonderful two months here together in Nepal on the expedition, trekking, climbing, suffering together (haha), and we’re just enjoy our last day together here before we all head out.
So, we’re doing well and looking forward to another good night of rest in base camp.
(photo: Madison Mountaineering team member Art Muir, at 75 years young, the oldest American to summit Everest along with climbing sherpa Pasang Bhote on the summit of Mount Everest!)
If climbing Mount Everest is in your future, please contact our office, we would love to have you climb with us!
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:
– Instagram:
– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map:
Riding high on the team success, Garrett and the team call in from Everest base camp:
Hey! This is Garrett and the team here at Everest Base Camp. We just finished our team celebration dinner. We all got down safe to base camp through the Khumbu Icefall today.
What a WONDERFUL group of people! I’m so happy everyone’s down safe. We had a great time up there in a safe and successful climb! [big team cheer]
Best team ever!
Art Muir, now the oldest American at 75 years-young to summit Mount Everest, in the background: “Kurt, we could not have done it without all your help!”
Well, thank you Art. I’m just in awe of your amazing accomplishment. Wow! Just wow! From the home office in Seattle, hats off to all the team members, guides, and climbing sherpa, staff, and porters that really make the whole expedition possible. We are so proud of all of you!
From Everest’s SE ridge on summit day
Andrew H and Garrett on the summit of Everest
Kristin B and climbing sherpa Mingmar at the top of the world
Kevin W enjoying a Coke with Phurba Rita Sherpa upon arriving in base camp
If climbing Mount Everest is in your future, please contact our office, we would love to have you climb with us!
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:
– Instagram:
– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map:
Our Everest team is safely down to Camp II and expedition leader Garrett Madison provides the recap of the descent from the South Col via sat phone:
Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Madison Mountaineering Everest and Lhotse expedition. Today is May 24th. It’s 8:07 PM and we are all safely down in Camp II.
Today we woke up at Camp IV on the South Col about 6:00 AM, had breakfast, started packing, and made our way down from the South Col, over the Geneva Spur, down the Lhotse Face, over the Yellow Band, and onwards down over the [garbled] at Camp III, down the Western Cwm into Camp II. We’re all safely back in Camp II.
We’re tired – it was a big effort getting down today. But, everybody’s doing okay here in Camp II.
Our plan is to get up tomorrow at 4:00 AM and head out by 5:00 AM to make our way down through the Khumbu Icefall to base camp. So we’re not out of the woods yet, but we’re down to Camp II, we’re doing well, and we’re just so fortunate and so happy that we had a beautiful summit day yesterday on Everest. Nine clients, four guides, and over twenty sherpas were all able to make the summit on what was probably the nicest summit day I’ve ever had – beautiful conditions up there. And some of our climbers were also able to make Lhotse. So very fortunate that everyone had good climbing and is down safe.
One more day to go here through the Western Cwm and the Khumbu Icefall to be back at base camp. We are looking forward to making our way towards Kathmandu and back home.
All’s well here in Camp II and we’ll check in soon!
(photo: Madison Mountaineering archives)
If climbing Mount Everest is in your future, please contact our office, we would love to have you climb with us!
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:
– Instagram:
– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map:
Via sat phone from Camp IV on the South Col of Mount Everest, expedition leader and now 11-time summiter of Mount Everest, Garrett Madison provides the happy news:
Hello! This is Garrett calling in for the Madison Mountaineering Everest and Lhotse expedition. Today is May 23rd, it’s 7:30 PM in Nepal. We are at Camp IV on Mount Everest’s South Col.
We had an amazing day. We left around midnight on the 23rd and summited Mount Everest this morning. It was a beautiful day! It was clear, calm, and probably the nicest summit day I’ve had on Everest out of my 11 summits!
Our team of nine clients, four American western guides, and over 20 Nepal sherpas all made it to the top of Everest and back down safe. So, we had a wonderful day! It was beautiful – amazing views as far as the eye could see and we spent a long time at the summit.
Tonight, we have some climbers heading out for Lhotse. In fact, one of our climbers, Kristin Harila, actually already summited Lhotse. From Everest to Lhotse today in record time! She is on her way down from the Lhotse summit now.
Big congrats to Kristin and to all the members of our team for making it up to the top of Everest today and back down to Camp IV safely.
We aren’t out of the woods yet; we have to get down to Camp II tomorrow. We are going to wake up, pack, and be safe on the way down the Lhotse Face to Camp II. But, we’re very happy that the weather forecast from Marc De Keyser worked out and we got a beautiful day here on the summit of Everest. It couldn’t have been better! We are very fortunate and are looking forward to a safe descent.
(photo: Madison Mountaineering archives)
If climbing Mount Everest is in your future, please contact our office, we would love to have you climb with us!
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:
– Instagram:
– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map:
Our Everest base camp staff is in touch with the climbing team and is reporting the following May 23rd Everest summits (all times NPT):
Total of 14 members and guides and 22 sherpa.
Congratulations to all the climbers and our entire 2021 Madison Mountaineering Everest staff! Well done. Wishing everyone a safe descent.
Official news to follow.
From Everest base camp, expedition leader Garrett Madison checks in with some exciting news and a look ahead for what’s still to come:
Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Madison Mountaineering Everest and Lhotse expedition! Today is May 11 and we have some exciting news to report.
Jon Gupta, Kenton Cool, and Rebecca Ferry have all summited Everest along with three of our Nepal Sherpa team (Dorjee Gelgen Sherpa, Chhetan Dorjee Sherpa, Lakpa Wongchu Sherpa). They are back in Camp IV on the South Col now resting up. It sounds like tonight some of them will be going for Lhotse, the fourth highest mountain in the world. Hopefully they’ll have another great day up there. It sounded like almost no wind today on the Everest summit and they got some great photos and video. Another great day coming tomorrow in the weather forecast before the winds pick up.
The rest of our team is doing well. We had some members return from Namche today and the rest of the team is coming back from Namche tomorrow. We will be doing our distancing and isolating when people come back – staying away from the group for 72 hours and testing upon arrival and after 72 hours. So we’re feeling good about that and looking forward to a good long time here in base camp resting up before we head up on our summit rotation. We’re waiting for that weather forecast to look good for us.
So, all’s well here in base camp. We’ll be training with our oxygen systems over the next few days and doing some hikes to the surrounding areas and just enjoying Everest base camp.
All’s well here and we’ll check in soon!
If climbing Mount Everest is in your future, please contact our office, we would love to have you climb with us!
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:
– Instagram:
– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map:
We are very pleased to report the following Mount Everest summits today ranging from 06:45 to 08:34 local NPT time:
Congratulations all! Godspeed for a safe descent.
With the expedition complete and the team relaxing in a comfortable hotel with great Wi-Fi, expedition leader Garrett Madison provided this expedition recap and a cache of amazing climb photos:
Hello, this is Garrett calling in for the Madison Mountaineering Mount Kenya expedition. We are back in Nanyuki, Kenya at the base of Mount Kenya. We had a wonderful climb yesterday to the summit – all three high points were reached on the peak: Lenana, Nelion, and Batian, the highest point on Mount Kenya. It was a beautiful 18-pitch technical rock climb and rappel back down. It was about a 16-hour day for us.
Today we descend down, back into the lush forest, and to the Soames Hotel here, a very comfortable place to stay in Nanyuki. Tomorrow, we’ll head back to Nairboi and fly back to the USA.
It’s been a great trip and we look forward to returning to Kenya at some point in the future.
Comfortable breakfast in camp
Chase on the climb!
On one of the traverse sections of the route
Making our way to the Batian summit of Mount Kenya
Climbing the final pitch of snow
At the summit of Mount Kenya, Africa’s 2nd highest peak
The final 18 pitches of 5.6 – 5.7 rock climbing on 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:
– Amazon Alexa devices with the Madison Mountaineering Flash Briefing skill:
– Instagram:
– our Garmin inReach Mini powered real-time tracking map: