Ama Dablam Expedition and Island Peak Climbing

You land at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu (1,400 m), where our representative meets you in the arrivals hall and drives you to your hotel in Thamel.

Rest is the only item on today's schedule. Thamel's gear shops are a few minutes' walk away and stock most of what a climber discovers they have left at home.

Your climbing guide calls at the hotel in the evening to introduce themselves and confirm tomorrow's schedule. Overnight in Kathmandu.

Your guide runs the full briefing at the hotel: the thirty-five day plan, the acclimatisation profile, the order the peaks are climbed in and why, and what each summit day actually involves.

Then the equipment check. Boots are tried with crampons on, harnesses fitted over the layers you will really climb in, and anything unsuitable swapped for rental kit here rather than discovered at altitude.

Our office lodges the climbing permits and the national park paperwork today, which needs your passport and photographs. The afternoon is free. Overnight in Kathmandu.

An early flight into Lukla (2,840 m) — thirty-five minutes from Kathmandu, or a pre-dawn drive to Manthali and a twenty-minute hop in peak season, landing on the sloping runway cut into the hillside.

You meet the porters over tea, sort loads, and start north through Chaurikharka and Ghat, past mani walls and water-driven prayer wheels with the Dudh Koshi loud below.

Phakding (2,610 m) lies lower than Lukla, which makes for an easy first night at altitude. Around 3 to 4 hours. Overnight at Phakding.

Five prayer-flagged suspension bridges carry the trail across the Dudh Koshi, climbing through blue pine to Monjo and the Sagarmatha National Park entrance.

Past Jorsalle the Hillary Bridge crosses high above the confluence, and beyond it the trail turns uphill for 600 m of steady work — the first honest effort of the trip, with a first view of Everest partway up on a clear morning.

Namche Bazaar (3,440 m) has bakeries, gear shops and an ATM. Around 6 hours. Overnight at Namche.

Climb high, sleep low. The morning walk goes up to the Everest View Hotel (3,880 m), whose terrace looks straight up the valley at Everest, Lhotse, Nuptse and Ama Dablam.

From there the path continues to Khumjung and Khunde beneath Khumbi Yul Lha, past the monastery with its disputed yeti scalp and the hospital built by Edmund Hillary's foundation in 1966.

The afternoon is free for the Sherpa Culture Museum and a coffee. Your guide takes the first oxygen saturation readings tonight. Around 4 hours. Overnight at Namche.

Two hours of near-level balcony trail out of Namche, high above the Dudh Koshi, with Ama Dablam ahead almost the whole way and Everest over your shoulder.

At Phunki Thenga the trail drops to the river and climbs 600 m through rhododendron and birch forest to the saddle — a long pull, and the altitude is beginning to tell.

Tengboche (3,860 m) holds the largest monastery in the Khumbu, and its afternoon prayer ceremony is open to visitors. Around 5 to 6 hours. Overnight at Tengboche.

Down through Deboche, across the Imja Khola on a bridge above a narrow gorge, and up to Pangboche (3,930 m), the oldest permanent Sherpa settlement in the Khumbu.

Above Pangboche the last trees give out and the valley opens into a wide grey trough of moraine and grazing land, walled by Ama Dablam, Lhotse and Taboche.

Dingboche (4,410 m) sits among stone-walled potato and barley fields at the junction of the Imja and Khumbu valleys. Around 5 hours. Overnight at Dingboche.

The most important day of the approach. We climb the ridge behind the village to Nangkartshang (5,083 m) — steep but non-technical, two to three hours on scree and rock.

Touching 5,000 m and sleeping 600 m lower is what makes the first summit possible. Makalu appears over the eastern ridge, with Lhotse, Ama Dablam, Island Peak and Taboche arranged around you.

Back for a late lunch and rest. Four litres of water, more food than you feel like, and an evening saturation check. Around 4 to 5 hours. Overnight at Dingboche.

A short and deliberately easy day east up the Imja valley on the moraine, climbing gently through grazing land with the 3,000 m south face of Lhotse filling the head of the valley.

After a summit day and a descent, an afternoon in a lodge with a stove and a menu is worth more to the second peak than any extra height gained.

Chhukung (4,730 m) is the last teahouse before Island Peak base camp. Your guide reviews the group's condition here and confirms who is going on. Around 3 to 4 hours. Overnight at Chhukung.

A half day of walking. The trail leaves Chhukung south-east, crosses a stream on planks, and follows the moraine of the Imja and Lhotse glaciers up a broad, stony valley.

Island Peak Base Camp (5,087 m) stands on sandy flats between the moraine walls, and the cook crew has camp up before you arrive.

The afternoon is a refresher session on the glacier ice, focused specifically on the headwall — jumaring on a steep fixed line and abseiling back down it — and then rest. Around 3 to 4 hours. Overnight at base camp.

A short move up the rock shoulder above base camp, two to three hours with a light load while the crew carries the camp.

High camp (5,600 m) shortens tomorrow considerably and gets the group onto the headwall before the sun softens the snow. After Lobuche's high camp at 5,400 m, this one feels almost familiar.

An early dinner, boots and harness laid out ready, and sleep by seven. Your guide gives the timings and the turnaround. Overnight at high camp.

Up at one, moving by two. The first section is a steep gully of loose rock by headlamp, leading onto the ridge and up to the glacier at around 5,900 m, where crampons go on and the group ropes up.

The glacier weaves between crevasses to the foot of the headwall — around 100 m of ice at 45 to 50 degrees on fixed rope, usually with the sun arriving partway up. After Lobuche's ridge it reads as familiar ground rather than a leap.

The wall tops out on a corniced summit arête followed one at a time. From Island Peak (6,189 m) the Lhotse wall stands directly opposite, with Makalu, Baruntse, Ama Dablam and Nuptse around it — and Lobuche East, which you climbed eight days ago, clearly visible to the north-west.

Then abseil the headwall and reverse everything to base camp. Twelve to fifteen hours. Overnight at base camp.

The reserve day for the second peak, and the reason this itinerary is twenty-three days rather than twenty-one. A single reserve day shared between two summits means the first bad window costs you the second peak.

If yesterday was turned back by wind, fresh snow or a member's condition, this is the second attempt, and your guide makes that call at base camp on the evidence rather than the schedule.

If the summit went to plan, camp comes down and the group starts the walk out early, banking a spare day against a cancelled Lukla flight. Overnight at base camp or Chhukung.

The link between the warm-up peak and the objective. Camp comes down and the group descends the moraine to Chhukung and on down the Imja valley to Dingboche, losing height fast.

From Dingboche the trail contours west and then climbs onto the moraine shelf beneath the mountain, on a path used by nobody but expedition teams and their yaks.

Ama Dablam Base Camp (4,600 m) is one of the pleasanter base camps in the Himalaya — grassy rather than rocky, sheltered, with running water and a full view of the route from the mess tent door. Camp is established properly today, because this is home for the next eighteen days. Around 7 hours. Overnight at base camp.

The puja is held this morning. A lama comes up from Pangboche, a chorten is built and juniper is burned, and the climbing equipment — axes, crampons, harnesses, boots — is laid out at the altar to be blessed.

No Sherpa on our team will go onto the mountain before it has been done, and it is not a performance for clients. Rice is thrown, prayer flags go up over camp, and it usually finishes with chang and a good deal of laughing.

The rest of the day is genuine rest and settling in — sorting personal kit, finding out how the mess tent works, and letting 4,600 m become normal. Overnight at base camp.

A full working day on the rocks and ice above camp. Every climber is taken through moving on rock in crampons, jumaring on steep fixed line with a pack, changing over at anchors, and abseiling from hanging stances.

The changeover at anchors gets the most attention, because on the Yellow Tower and the Grey Tower you will do it repeatedly, in gloves, with a long drop underneath, and a slick changeover is worth more on this mountain than raw strength.

Your leader is also assessing. Anyone who needs more time gets the afternoon; anyone who is not ready for the ridge is told here, at base camp. Meanwhile the Sherpas are on the spur, carrying loads to Camp 1. Overnight at base camp.

The first time on the mountain. The route follows the long rocky spur above base camp — scrambling, slabs, and exposed sections on fixed line, with a personal load of around 10 kg.

It is not technically hard and it is relentlessly tiring, five to six hours of hands-on ground with the altitude climbing steadily. Most people find it considerably more work than they expected from looking at it.

Camp 1 (5,700 m) is a scatter of tents on a rocky shoulder with a huge view down the Imja valley and, above, the Yellow Tower catching the last of the light. Overnight at Camp 1.

Down the spur to base camp in three to four hours, abseiling the steep sections and down-climbing the rest.

Sleeping high and recovering low is the entire mechanism of acclimatisation, and the descent is not lost ground. You will feel the difference on the second rotation.

The afternoon is rest, food and fluid at 4,600 m. The Sherpas continue carrying loads and working on the route toward Camp 2. Overnight at base camp.

A full rest day. Eating properly, drinking four litres, sleeping in the afternoon, and — for most people — reading, playing cards and getting to know the team.

There is equipment work too: crampons checked and adjusted, harnesses inspected for wear after a day of jumaring, and personal loads for the next rotation packed and weighed.

Your leader reviews the satellite forecast in the evening and confirms the timing of the second rotation. Overnight at base camp.

Back up the spur, and the difference is immediate. Ground that took six hours on the first rotation takes four or five, and the sections that needed thought a week ago are now simply familiar.

That improvement is the return on the rotation and the rest days, and it is the clearest sign that the acclimatisation is working.

Camp 1 (5,700 m) in the early afternoon, with time to rest properly before tomorrow — which is the day the mountain gets serious. Overnight at Camp 1.

The day everyone comes to Ama Dablam for. Above Camp 1 the ridge narrows and steepens through slabs and short walls, all of it on fixed rope, until it arrives at the foot of the Yellow Tower.

The Tower is around fifteen metres of near-vertical rock, climbed on an ascender in double boots, crampons and gloves at 5,900 m. In climbing shoes at sea level it would be unremarkable; here, with the Imja valley a vertical kilometre below your heels, it is the most talked-about pitch in Nepal.

Above it, Camp 2 (5,900 m) — tent platforms cut directly into the crest of the ridge, drops on both sides, and nowhere at all to walk to. Three to five hours from Camp 1.

Sleeping here is the point of the rotation and the reason the summit push works. It is also a night nobody forgets. Overnight at Camp 2.

A long descent: abseil the Yellow Tower and the ridge to Camp 1, then down the spur to base camp. Five to seven hours, and the abseils are where a tired party has to keep concentrating.

By the time you reach the grass at base camp the team has slept at 5,900 m and climbed the technical crux of the route. Everything the summit push requires has now been done once.

The afternoon is food, fluid and sleep in thick air. The Sherpas complete the stocking of Camp 2 over the next two days. Overnight at base camp.

The first of two full recovery days, and they are the most valuable idle hours of the expedition. Two nights at Camp 1 and one at Camp 2 have taken more out of the team than anyone feels at the time.

The routine is unglamorous and it works: eat past the point of appetite, drink four litres, sleep in the afternoon, and stay off your feet.

The satellite forecast comes in each evening, and from tonight the whole camp starts thinking in terms of weather windows rather than days. Overnight at base camp.

The last day before the push. Personal kit is split into what goes up and what stays; rope pairs are confirmed; radios, headlamps and batteries are checked; and your leader briefs the four-day summit sequence stage by stage with timings for each.

The Sherpas report on the state of the fixed ropes above Camp 2 — the Grey Tower, the Mushroom Ridge and the slopes under the Dablam — which is the information the go decision actually rests on.

The forecast arrives in the evening and the plan is set against it. If the window is not there, the reserve days at the end of the itinerary are what the expedition waits on. Overnight at base camp.

The summit push begins, and the spur goes by faster again — four hours or so for ground that took six on the first rotation.

Loads are lighter this time. Camp 2 is already stocked with food, fuel and the tents, so climbers carry personal equipment and little else.

Camp 1 (5,700 m) by early afternoon. An easy evening, as much fluid as anyone can manage, and an early night. Overnight at Camp 1.

A short day by design. The ridge and the Yellow Tower again, three to four hours, arriving at Camp 2 by late morning so the team has the whole afternoon lying down.

The Tower is easier the second time in the way that all of this is easier the second time: you know where the holds are, you know the changeover, and you know it goes.

The rest of the day is spent melting snow, forcing fluid and food, and sleeping badly on a ledge at 5,900 m. Your leader sets a departure time and a hard turnaround time before dark. Overnight at Camp 2.

Moving between midnight and one, straight out of the tents and onto the fixed rope. The Grey Tower comes first — a long mixed section of rock and ice, harder in sustained terms than the Yellow Tower and taken in the coldest hours of the night.

Above it the Mushroom Ridge: a corniced snow crest traversed one at a time, spectacular and thoroughly exposed, with the sun usually arriving somewhere along it. Then the final snow slopes, which pass beneath the Dablam itself — the hanging glacier the mountain is named for, and its principal hazard. This is the section that is moved through steadily and not lingered on.

The summit (6,812 m) is a broad snow dome, and the view is the one the whole Khumbu has been arranging itself around for three weeks: Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse to the north, Makalu east, Cho Oyu north-west, and Island Peak, Baruntse and Chamlang laid out below.

The descent is a long sequence of abseils back down the ridge to Camp 2. Twelve to sixteen hours round trip. Overnight at Camp 2.

Camp 2 comes down and everything goes onto backs — tents, sleeping bags, stoves, rubbish. Nothing is left on the ridge.

Then the whole route in reverse: abseil the Yellow Tower, down the ridge to Camp 1, and down the spur to base camp. Five to seven hours on legs that did sixteen the day before.

Base camp (4,600 m) in the afternoon means grass, running water, a hot meal and the first real sleep in four days. The kitchen crew generally has something better than usual waiting. Overnight at base camp.

The first of three reserve days, and they are the reason this itinerary is thirty days rather than twenty-four. On Ama Dablam the mountain does not usually turn people back with storms; it turns them back with a week of wind that a shorter schedule cannot outlast.

If the summit has not yet been reached, the team is either resting for a second push or already back at Camp 1, depending on the forecast and on how much the first attempt took out of everyone.

If the summit went to plan, this is rest — and rest at 4,600 m after a 6,812 m summit day is an unusually satisfying way to spend a morning. Overnight at base camp.

The second reserve day. Between them, the three reserve days give the expedition roughly a week of tolerance for weather, which is what the mountain's autumn wind patterns actually demand.

In a season where the first attempt succeeded, these days are used to walk out early and bank the time against the Lukla flights, which are the least reliable part of the whole journey.

In a season where it did not, they are the second and sometimes the third attempt, and your leader manages them on the forecast and on the team's remaining reserves rather than on the calendar. Overnight at base camp.

The last reserve day and the last night under the mountain. If it is not needed for the climb, base camp comes down today: tents struck, loads made up for the yaks, and the site left clean.

That clean-up is not a formality. Everything the expedition brought up — packaging, batteries, fuel canisters, human waste from the toilet tent — goes back down with it, and the NMA garbage deposit is refunded against exactly that.

The chorten built at the puja stays, and the prayer flags with it. Most teams sit out for a while after dinner to look at the ridge one more time. Overnight at base camp.

Down off the moraine shelf to Pangboche, where several of the Sherpas on your team live, and where the monastery above the village is the oldest in the Khumbu.

Through Deboche and up to the Tengboche saddle, which is where most people stop and turn round for a long look — the mountain from here is exactly the photograph, and it now has your route on it.

The steep descent to Phunki Thenga and the balcony trail bring you to Namche Bazaar (3,440 m): hot water, a bakery, an ATM and a beer. Around 7 to 8 hours. Overnight at Namche.

The last walking day. Steeply down from Namche to the Hillary Bridge, then along the Dudh Koshi through Jorsalle and Monjo, where you check out of the national park.

Through Phakding and past the mani walls, then the final climb to Lukla (2,840 m), which after a month always feels steeper than it is.

The evening is the end-of-expedition dinner with the leader, the climbing Sherpas, the cook crew and the porters, and the point at which the summit bonus and tips are given. Around 6 to 7 hours. Overnight at Lukla.

Lukla flights leave early, before the valley wind builds. Thirty-five minutes to Kathmandu, or a landing at Manthali with a road transfer onward when the peak-season schedule applies.

Delays are routine rather than exceptional and can run to a full day, which is why no international departure is scheduled for today. If Lukla closes entirely, a helicopter seat can usually be arranged at your own cost and your leader handles the booking.

The afternoon is free for a long shower and Thamel. Your summit certificate is presented in the evening. Overnight in Kathmandu.

The expedition ends today. If your flight is a late one there is time for a last morning in Kathmandu — Boudhanath, Patan Durbar Square, or a slow breakfast on a roof terrace.

Our representative collects you from the hotel and drives you to Tribhuvan International Airport about three hours before departure.

If you are staying on in Nepal, we can arrange Chitwan, Pokhara, Lumbini or a Kathmandu valley tour. Safe travels — for a good many climbers Ama Dablam is the mountain that leads to Baruntse, Himlung or an 8,000 m peak, and we would be glad to talk about any of them.