Jugal Himal Gyalzen 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 guide calls at the hotel in the evening to introduce themselves and confirm tomorrow's plan. Overnight in Kathmandu.

Your guide runs the full briefing at the hotel: the nineteen-day plan, the five-day approach, the acclimatisation profile and the summit day, along with an honest account of what climbing a peak with no established route involves.

Then the equipment check. Boots are tried with crampons on, harnesses fitted over climbing layers, and anything unsuitable swapped for rental kit here.

Our office lodges the climbing permit, the national park permit and the TIMS card. Because there are no lodges beyond Bhotang, the crew also does the full camping and food load-out today. Overnight in Kathmandu.

East out of the Kathmandu valley on the Araniko Highway toward the Tibetan border, then north at Dolalghat on a hill road to Chautara, the district headquarters of Sindhupalchok.

From Chautara a rough jeep track climbs north through terraced farmland and villages that were badly hit by the 2015 earthquake and have been rebuilt since.

Bhotang (1,800 m) is a Tamang village at the road head, and from tomorrow everything moves on foot with no lodges anywhere ahead. Around 6 to 7 hours. Overnight at Bhotang.

North out of the village and straight onto the ridge, climbing 900 m through terraced fields and then into forest.

The trail is a herders' and pilgrims' path rather than a trekking route — narrow, steep and unmarked, with no lodges, no teahouses and nothing resembling a sign.

Kami Kharka (2,700 m) is a grazing clearing in oak and rhododendron forest where the crew puts up camp. It is warm, green and completely quiet. Around 6 hours. Overnight at Kami Kharka.

Up the ridge through the last of the rhododendron, which in April is in full flower along this whole section and is the reason spring departures are worth considering despite the cloud.

The forest thins into juniper and then open grass, and the views open south over the middle hills toward the Kathmandu valley and north to the first of the Jugal peaks.

Pauwa Bas (3,500 m) is a bare ridge camp with a stone shelter used by pilgrims in August. Your guide starts taking saturation readings this evening. Around 6 hours. Overnight at Pauwa Bas.

A shorter day along the crest of the ridge, climbing steadily over a series of grassy tops with the country becoming increasingly bare.

The Jugal Himal opens properly here — Dorje Lakpa, Madiya and Gyalzen along the northern skyline, with the Tibetan border ridges behind them.

Hile Bhanjyang (3,950 m) is a saddle with a shrine and a stone shelter. It is exposed and cold at night, and on a clear evening the lights of Kathmandu are visible eighty kilometres to the south-west. Around 4 to 5 hours. Overnight at Hile Bhanjyang.

A short day north along the ridge and then down to the lakes, on ground that is bare, wind-scoured and entirely empty.

Panch Pokhari (4,100 m) is a chain of five glacial lakes with a small shrine and a few stone shelters. Each August at Janai Purnima several thousand Hindu pilgrims walk up from the valleys for a single day; for the rest of the year there is nobody here at all.

The afternoon is free to walk round the lakes, which takes an hour and is worth doing. Around 3 to 4 hours. Overnight at Panch Pokhari.

Climb high, sleep low. The morning walk goes north-east up the ridge above the lakes toward 4,700 m and back, on open ground with nothing technical about it.

From the high point the whole western Jugal is laid out and, more usefully, so is the route on Gyalzen Peak — the glacier, the shelf where high camp goes and the slope above it. Your guide spends an hour with binoculars working out this season's line, because there is no established one.

Back at the lakes for the afternoon. Around 4 to 5 hours. Overnight at Panch Pokhari.

North-east off the pilgrimage trail and onto the moraine, climbing 600 m over boulder ground with no path at all.

Gyalzen Base Camp (4,700 m) is a tented camp on a flat shelf below the glacier, with the lakes visible below to the south-west and the peak directly above.

The afternoon is spent settling in and going over the route from underneath, which always reads differently from the way it did through binoculars yesterday. Around 4 hours. Overnight at base camp.

A working day on the glacier ice above camp. Every climber is taken through rope-team travel with correct spacing, crevasse rescue with a hauling system, jumaring on fixed line with a pack, changing over at anchors, and abseiling.

Crevasse work gets the most time, because the glacier between base camp and high camp is broken and is crossed roped in the dark on summit morning.

In the afternoon the group walks part-way toward high camp and back — 300 m gained and lost. Meanwhile the Sherpas are above, finding and fixing the line, which on this peak is genuine route work rather than clipping into someone else's rope. Overnight at base camp.

A second day at base camp, spent on acclimatisation and on waiting for the Sherpa team's report from above.

The morning walk goes up the moraine toward 5,100 m and back, gaining and losing height on ground that asks nothing technical, with the Jugal peaks opening to the east.

The afternoon is rest. The Sherpas come down with the route report and your guide sets the plan and the turnaround time for summit day. On a peak with no established line, that briefing is worth attending closely. Overnight at base camp.

Roped from the moment the group leaves camp. The route works up the crevassed glacier on the line the Sherpas marked, weaving between open holes and over one or two snow bridges, for four to five hours with a moderate load.

High camp (5,400 m) is a set of platforms stamped out on the glacier shelf below the face, exposed and cold as soon as the sun goes.

The rest of the day is preparation: kit laid out, rope teams assigned, an early dinner, and your guide's weather call and turnaround time. Overnight at high camp.

Roped and moving by two in the morning. The first hour crosses the upper glacier to the foot of the face, and then the climbing starts.

The snow and ice slope runs at around 45 degrees on fixed rope for three to four hours, sustained and steady, with the sun arriving somewhere near 5,900 m.

The top of the slope gives onto a short corniced crest, taken one at a time. From the summit (6,151 m): Dorje Lakpa and the Jugal peaks along the ridge to the north-west, the Tibetan border a few kilometres north, Langtang Lirung beyond it, and south over the middle hills to the Kathmandu valley — visible on a clear morning, which is a strange thing to see from a summit almost nobody has stood on.

The descent abseils the slope and reverses the glacier to high camp and then base camp. Ten to thirteen hours. Overnight at base camp.

The first of two reserve days, and on a front-range peak they are used often — the Jugal catches cloud coming up from the south that the ranges behind it never see.

If yesterday failed on conditions, the group returns to high camp today and climbs tomorrow, with the ropes already fixed and the glacier route marked.

If the summit went to plan, this is rest at base camp above the lakes, with the whole western Jugal to look at and nobody within a day's walk. Overnight at base camp.

The second reserve day and the end of the trip's margin. If it is not needed for the climb, camp comes down today and the group descends to the lakes.

Everything the trip carried up from Bhotang goes back down with it — there is no infrastructure here at all, and what is left on this moraine would stay for a very long time.

The Sherpa team strips the fixed rope from the route on the way down. Nothing is left on the mountain, which on a peak this rarely visited matters more than usual. Overnight at base camp or Panch Pokhari.

Down the moraine to Panch Pokhari and past the lakes for the last time, then south-west along the ridge on the pilgrimage trail.

The walking is easy after a fortnight of moraine and glacier, and the country softens with every hour — bare grass, then juniper, then the first rhododendron.

Hile Bhanjyang (3,950 m) in the afternoon, with the Jugal behind you and the middle hills falling away to the south. Around 6 hours. Overnight at Hile Bhanjyang.

A long descent along the ridge through Pauwa Bas and back into the forest, losing 1,250 m.

The rhododendron and oak close in, and with them the warmth, the birds and the smell of vegetation after two weeks of rock and ice. In spring this section is in flower for hours at a time.

Kami Kharka (2,700 m) is the last camp of the trip, in a clearing where the crew has been before. Around 6 to 7 hours. Overnight at Kami Kharka.

Down the ridge through the terraced fields to Bhotang (1,800 m) in three to four hours, where the jeeps are waiting at the road head.

The drive down through Chautara and along the Araniko Highway takes six to seven hours, and the transition from an empty moraine to Kathmandu traffic inside a single day is abrupt.

Back in Kathmandu in the evening. A hot shower, a proper meal, and your summit certificate presented over dinner with the guide and the climbing Sherpas. Overnight in Kathmandu.

The trip 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, with the Jugal on the northern horizon if the air is clear.

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 — Langshisha Ri and Dorje Lakpa, over the ridge in the Langtang valley, are the two our returning Jugal climbers most often ask about.