Kusum Kanguru 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 thing on today's schedule. If you have shipped or bought gear locally, this is the evening to unpack and lay it all out — tomorrow's check is detailed.

Your climbing guide calls at the hotel to introduce themselves and set tomorrow's plan. Overnight in Kathmandu.

The most searching briefing we give. Your guide takes the seventeen-day plan apart section by section: the glacier to Camp 1, the rotation, the mixed ground above High Camp, the ridge, the abseil descent, the turnaround times and the hazard windows.

The equipment inspection is exactly that. Ice tools, crampons, harness, belay device and boots are all examined, and your guide will discuss your climbing history in specific terms — routes, grades and when. On a grade D peak this conversation determines what happens at base camp.

Our office lodges the NMA climbing permit and park paperwork with your passport and photographs, and takes copies of your insurance documents. 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.

As the aircraft turns on to final approach, the triple-summited peak filling the sky to the east is Kusum Kanguru itself. It is worth looking at properly now, because the next good view is from underneath it.

Loads are sorted with the porters, and the trail drops north to Phakding (2,610 m) through Chaurikharka and Ghat. Around 3 to 4 hours. Overnight at Phakding.

Five prayer-flagged suspension bridges across the Dudh Koshi, then a climb through blue pine to Monjo and the Sagarmatha National Park entrance — the point where the Kusum Khola opens to the east.

Past Jorsalle the Hillary Bridge crosses high above the confluence, and the trail then climbs 600 m to Namche.

Namche Bazaar (3,440 m) is used here purely for acclimatisation — the route to base camp goes back down this valley in two days. Around 6 hours. Overnight at Namche.

Climb high, sleep low. The morning goes up to the Everest View Hotel (3,880 m) and across to Khumjung and Khunde beneath Khumbi Yul Lha.

From the ridge the whole south side of the Khumbu is visible, and your guide will point out the line of the route on Kusum Kanguru from a distance — the glacier, the shoulder where Camp 1 goes, and the ridge above it.

The afternoon is free, and it is the last hot shower and cooked-to-order meal until the walk out. Your guide takes the first saturation readings tonight. Around 4 hours. Overnight at Namche.

Back down the valley you climbed yesterday, past the Hillary Bridge and through Jorsalle to Monjo, and then off the Everest trail entirely.

The route turns east into the Kusum Khola, a steep forested side valley with a herders' path that fades to nothing after the first hour. It is a completely different environment from the trail you were on this morning — dense rhododendron, moss, and the noise of water.

Camp goes up at around 3,700 m in a clearing. From here on the group is self-contained, with everything carried in. Around 6 to 7 hours. Overnight in the Kusum Khola.

Steeply up out of the forest and onto open ground, gaining 800 m on rough terrain with the valley narrowing and the peak coming into view above the head of the cirque.

Kusum Kanguru Base Camp (4,500 m) sits on moraine below the glacier, and the whole route is visible from it — the broken ice above, the shoulder where Camp 1 goes, the mixed ground, and the ridge running to the highest of the three summits.

The afternoon is spent going over that line with your guide in detail, and resting. Camp is established properly today because the group will be based here for the best part of a week. Around 5 to 6 hours. Overnight at base camp.

The day that decides who climbs. On the ice and rock above camp, each climber works through ice tool technique, placing and removing screws, mixed movement in crampons, jumaring on a loaded line over an edge, and abseiling from a hanging stance.

Your guide is assessing, not teaching. The question is whether you can do these things efficiently while cold and tired, because on the route there is no flat ground to sort yourself out on and every minute spent fumbling extends the hazard window.

Anyone the guide is not satisfied with is told today, at base camp, and that decision stands. Meanwhile the Sherpas begin fixing the glacier and the lower slopes. Overnight at base camp.

The first time on the route proper. The group climbs the broken glacier above base camp on fixed line, weaving through seracs and crevassed ground — the section with the most objective hazard on the mountain, which is why it is climbed early and left before the sun reaches it.

Above the glacier a rock and snow shoulder gives the platform for Camp 1 (5,300 m). Four to five hours, and it is a genuine climbing day rather than a walk with a load.

The night here is the point of the exercise — sleeping at 5,300 m before returning to base camp is standard expedition practice and is what makes a summit push from 5,800 m realistic. Overnight at Camp 1.

Down the fixed ropes and back across the glacier in the cold of the morning, reaching base camp before the sun is on the seracs. Three to four hours.

The rest of the day is genuine rest — eating, drinking, sleeping in thick air, and letting the acclimatisation from last night's altitude consolidate. Recovery at 4,500 m happens; at 5,300 m it does not.

The Sherpas spend the day carrying loads and fixing the ground above Camp 1 toward High Camp, so that the summit push moves onto rope that is already in place. Your guide reviews the forecast and sets the plan for the next three days. Overnight at base camp.

The summit push begins. An early start reverses the glacier to Camp 1 and then continues onto the sustained ground above it — fixed ice and mixed sections that go on for several hours, considerably harder than anything below.

High Camp (5,800 m) is a set of platforms cut into the mountainside, small, exposed and comfortless. There is room for the tents and nothing else. Seven to nine hours from base camp.

Dinner is early and brief. Kit is laid out, rope pairs are set, and your guide gives the weather call and a hard turnaround time which will not be renegotiated in the morning. Overnight at High Camp.

Moving by midnight, because the ground above has to be climbed and descended before the sun loosens it. The route works up ice at 50 to 60 degrees on fixed line, broken by short rock steps taken in crampons with tools — the sections that make this a grade D route rather than an AD one.

Above the mixed ground the knife-edge summit ridge begins, corniced and exposed along its whole length, climbed one at a time with the Dudh Koshi valley four thousand metres below on one side.

The main summit (6,367 m) is the highest of the three tops the mountain is named for. The view runs from Everest and Lhotse north to Mera and the Hinku south, and includes the entire Lukla-to-Namche trail you walked at the start of the trip.

The descent is a long sequence of abseils down the same anchors, and it is the part of the day that demands the most from a tired party. Twelve to sixteen hours round trip. Overnight at High Camp.

Camp comes down and the group descends the whole route — the mixed ground, Camp 1, and then the glacier, timed once again to be off the serac ground before the sun.

Everything above Camp 1 is abseiled and the fixed ropes are stripped as the team goes, which is slow and is not optional: leaving rope on a mountain is neither safe for the next party nor acceptable practice.

Base camp (4,500 m) in the afternoon, with thick air, a hot meal and the first proper sleep in three days. Six to eight hours. Overnight at base camp.

The reserve day, and on this peak it is used more often than not. Kusum Kanguru turns parties back for wind, for fresh snow on the rock steps, and for simple loss of time on ground that does not allow hurrying.

If the summit was missed and the party is strong enough, the group goes back up to High Camp today and climbs tomorrow, with the ropes still fixed. Your guide weighs the party's condition honestly — a team that came down exhausted does not go back up.

If the summit went to plan, the day is spent resting at base camp or starting the walk out early. Given this peak's success rate, a party that used its reserve day and still stood on top has done something genuinely uncommon. Overnight at base camp.

The whole approach in reverse, in a single long day. Down the moraine and into the forest of the Kusum Khola, then out to Monjo and back onto the Everest trail.

South through Phakding and past the mani walls, then the final climb to Lukla (2,840 m). Eight to nine hours in total, and the last of it is on legs that have not been on flat ground for a week.

The evening is the end-of-trip dinner with the guide, climbing Sherpas, cook crew and porters, and the point at which tips are given. On this route the crew fixed and stripped a grade D line; it is worth saying so out loud. 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 in peak season.

As the aircraft climbs out of Lukla it turns beneath Kusum Kanguru, and from the window the ridge you were on two days ago is clearly visible. It is a better summit photograph than most people get from the top.

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

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 — climbers who get up Kusum Kanguru are generally ready for Ama Dablam or Cholatse, and we would be glad to talk about either.