Touring Kathmandu

The Madison Mountaineering Manaslu expedition team took to the city streets today for some sightseeing around Kathmandu! We visited both the Boudhanath Stupa and Pashupatinath Temple before going back to the team hotel to make our final preparations for tomorrows move into the mountains. With good weather, we’ll load onto the helicopter and fly into the Mansiri Himal part of the Nepalese Himalayas, in the west-central part of Nepal. Expedition leader, Terray Sylvester checks in with this dispatch from Kathmandu:

Hello! This is Terray calling in for the Madison Mountaineering 2026 Manaslu (8156m/26,759ft) Expedition. Today is September 9th.

Today, we went for a tour in Kathmandu (1400m/4,600ft). We visited two of the cities many UNESCO world heritage sites. We went to Pashupatinath Temple, the most prominent Hindu temple here in the Kathmandu Valley. And then we also visited the Boudhanath Stupa, which is sacred to the region’s Buddhists.

It was a beautiful morning here. We’ve had a little bit of rain each day since we arrived. But this morning was sunny and it was a nice time visiting both of those amazing temples. And then we spent the rest of the afternoon just doing our final packing and preparation for our early heli flights to Sama Village (3530m/11,581ft) tomorrow.

We’re just heading to bed now after a nice dinner and looking forward to our helicopter flight into the mountains! We’ll be in touch tomorrow.

Touring around Kathmandu (photo by Terray Sylvester)

Our climber, Myles, visiting Pahupatinath Temple with local tour guide, Rita (photo by Terray Sylvester)

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 our daily audio expedition updates on select expeditions.  Just say, “Alexa, play my flash briefing.“

– Instagram:

• @MadisonMtng
• @GarrettMadison1
• @terray_s