Makalu Expedition

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.

Rest is the only item on today's schedule. Unpack and lay out your equipment tonight — tomorrow it is inspected item by item, and Kathmandu is the last place anything can be replaced.

Your expedition leader calls at the hotel in the evening to introduce themselves and set tomorrow's plan. Overnight in Kathmandu.

A full working day. Your leader takes the fifty-one day plan apart stage by stage — the approach up the Barun, base camp, the rotations, the summit window and the reserve days — and then goes through the route itself.

The equipment inspection is item by item: boots, crampons, harness, ascender, belay device, screwgates, down clothing, mitts, goggles, headlamps and batteries. Anything missing or unsuitable is bought or hired here today.

Because the Barun approach is a week of walking from the airstrip with no resupply, the packing is done carefully and weighed. Overnight in Kathmandu.

The formal side of an expedition. The team attends the briefing at the Department of Tourism with the liaison officer, where the permit is issued, the regulations are read out and the waste-management deposit is registered.

Meanwhile the expedition cargo is weighed, sealed into barrels and dispatched to Tumlingtar, where porters and pack animals will take it up the Barun.

The afternoon is free, and it is the last one with hot water, restaurants and thick air for a long time. Overnight in Kathmandu.

A forty-five minute flight east to Tumlingtar (405 m), a grass airstrip on a plateau above the Arun river in subtropical eastern Nepal. It is hot, green and about as far from a glacier as Nepal gets.

From the airstrip a jeep road climbs north for four to five hours through rice terraces, banana and cardamom, gaining a thousand metres on a rough and spectacular hill road.

Num (1,560 m) sits on a ridge crest with the Arun gorge dropping away on both sides. It is the road head; from tomorrow everything moves on foot. Overnight at Num.

A day that loses and regains eight hundred metres and ends almost where it started. The trail drops steeply off the Num ridge through terraced farmland to the Arun river at around 700 m, crossing it on a suspension bridge.

Then straight back up the other side, through villages, bamboo and cardamom gardens, in heat and humidity that comes as a surprise on the way to an 8,000 m peak.

Seduwa (1,540 m) is the entrance to the Makalu Barun National Park, where permits are checked. Around 5 to 6 hours. Overnight at Seduwa.

A gentler day climbing steadily north through farmland and forest, past scattered Rai hamlets, millet terraces and grazing buffalo.

The country here is entirely unlike the Khumbu — subtropical hill Nepal, with the mountains still hidden behind ridges — and the walking is through working farmland rather than trekking infrastructure.

Tashigaon (2,100 m) is the last permanent village in the valley and the last place to buy anything. Above it there is nothing but forest, ridge and, eventually, glacier. Around 4 to 5 hours. Overnight at Tashigaon.

The hardest day of the approach: 1,400 m of ascent on a relentless staircase of a trail, through dense rhododendron and oak forest hung with moss, with almost no flat ground anywhere on it.

The forest is genuinely beautiful and genuinely exhausting, and in spring the rhododendrons are in full flower for the whole climb.

Khongma Danda (3,500 m) is a small clearing on the ridge crest, the first camp with a view, and the first cold night. Six to seven hours. Overnight at Khongma Danda.

Out of the forest and onto the ridge. The trail climbs past a series of small lakes to the Shipton La (4,220 m), named for Eric Shipton, who came this way in 1952 on the reconnaissance that found the route to Makalu.

From the pass the mountains finally appear: Chamlang to the north-west, the Barun valley opening below, and on a clear morning the top of Makalu itself.

A rough descent along the ridge leads to Dobato (3,800 m), a camp on open ground with the whole approach behind you and the valley ahead. Six to seven hours. Overnight at Dobato.

A steep descent off the ridge into the Barun valley itself, dropping through fir and birch to the river and then turning north up the valley floor.

The Barun is one of the great valleys of Nepal and almost nobody sees it. Walls rise two thousand metres on both sides, waterfalls come off hanging glaciers, and the forest is old and undisturbed — this is protected habitat for red panda, musk deer and snow leopard.

Yangle Kharka (3,600 m) is a grazing meadow beside the river, and the loss of height here is useful acclimatisation. Around 5 to 6 hours. Overnight at Yangle Kharka.

North up the valley floor, climbing steadily as the walls close in and the forest gives out. The trail passes through summer grazing settlements — stone huts used by herders from Tashigaon for a few months a year, empty the rest of the time.

Above the last trees the valley becomes rock, moraine and grass, and the scale of it becomes obvious: Chamlang's south face on one side, the Barun glacier ahead, and Makalu still hidden behind a shoulder.

Langmale Kharka (4,410 m) is the last grazing camp. Around 5 hours. Overnight at Langmale Kharka.

The last day of the approach, climbing onto the moraine of the Barun glacier and following it north on rough ground with the valley narrowing to its head.

And then Makalu appears — all of it at once, from base to summit, a four-thousand-metre pyramid of rock and ice at the head of the valley. It is one of the great first sights in the Himalaya, and it stops most people where they stand.

Makalu Base Camp (4,870 m) sits on the moraine below the south-east face. After eight days of walking from the road head, the expedition is finally at the mountain. Around 5 hours. Overnight at base camp.

A day of low effort and a great deal of organisation. Sleeping tents are set up properly, the mess and kitchen routine is established, and the charging, water and toilet arrangements are explained.

Your leader runs the oxygen systems check — mask, regulator and hose fitted to your own face and hood, at altitude, with the flow rates and changeover drill walked through.

The afternoon is spent walking gently on the moraine. After eight days of walking up from the road head, two easy days here are what the body needs before anything else happens. Overnight at base camp.

The puja. A stone chorten is built, juniper is burned, and every piece of climbing equipment on the expedition — axes, crampons, harnesses, boots, oxygen masks — is stacked at the altar to be blessed.

No Sherpa on our team will go onto Makalu before it has been done. Prayer flags are strung from the chorten across the camp, rice is thrown, and it usually finishes with chang and dancing.

It is also the day the whole team, climbers and Sherpas together, first behaves like one group — which on a mountain this isolated matters more than it does elsewhere. Overnight at base camp.

A full working day on the glacier ice near camp. Every climber works through jumaring on steep fixed line with a pack, changing over at anchors, abseiling, arresting a slip on hard ice, and moving on mixed ground in crampons.

The mixed-ground work gets extra attention on this mountain, because the summit pyramid is the one place among Nepal's 8,000 m normal routes where a climber has to actually climb rather than plod.

Your leader watches each climber individually and keeps anyone who needs it back for the afternoon. Overnight at base camp.

An acclimatisation walk up the moraine toward 5,300 m and back, gaining and losing height on ground that asks nothing technical.

The view from up there takes in the whole south-east face of Makalu, the Barun glacier running north, and — behind you — the valley you spent eight days walking up. It is worth an hour with binoculars while your leader traces the route.

The afternoon is rest and packing. The Sherpa team is already working above, establishing and stocking advance base camp. Overnight at base camp.

The first move onto the mountain. The route crosses the Barun glacier and climbs its upper moraine north, five to six hours on rough ground with a personal load while the Sherpas move the camp.

Advance base camp (5,700 m) sits below the face and functions as the working base for everything above — a mess tent, a kitchen and sleeping tents, staffed for the season.

From here Makalu is directly overhead and the scale is difficult to take in: nearly three vertical kilometres of mountain above the tents. Overnight at advance base camp.

A day at 5,700 m doing very little, which is the point of a rotation. Sleeping at this altitude is what the body has to learn, and it learns it by being made to.

In the morning the team walks an hour up toward the foot of the route and back, to look at the ground the next rotation climbs and to gain a little height.

The rest of the day is spent in the dining tent drinking and forcing food down. Appetite falls off sharply above 5,500 m, and eating badly here is what leaves climbers short a month from now. Overnight at advance base camp.

The first time on the fixed ropes. The route climbs snow and ice above advance base camp — steepening as it goes, four to six hours on the line the Sherpa team has fixed.

Camp 1 (6,400 m) is a set of platforms cut into the face. The team touches it, spends an hour there, and abseils back down to advance base camp; this rotation is about the height reached, not the night spent.

It is also the first honest test of how each climber moves on steep fixed rope with a load at altitude, and your leader watches closely. Overnight at advance base camp.

Down the glacier and its moraine to base camp in four to five hours, losing 800 m and arriving in what feels like a completely different atmosphere.

The first rotation is complete: the team has slept at 5,700 m and touched 6,400 m, and everybody now knows what the fixed ropes on this mountain feel like.

Base camp (4,870 m) by early afternoon, with a hot meal and the prospect of three days of doing nothing. Overnight at base camp.

The first of three recovery days, and the hardest to spend well because most people feel worse today than they did yesterday — the fatigue of a rotation arrives late.

The prescription is unglamorous: sleep, drink four to five litres, and eat considerably more than you want to.

Your leader and the expedition doctor take saturation, pulse and weight readings and review them against the baseline from Kathmandu. Anyone whose numbers are drifting the wrong way gets a conversation rather than a schedule. Overnight at base camp.

The second recovery day, and the one on which people start feeling human again. Base camp settles into its rhythm: breakfast late, cards and reading in the dining tent, a slow walk on the moraine, dinner early.

Work goes on around you. The Sherpa team is carrying loads and fixing rope above Camp 1 toward Camp 2, which on a mountain with few other expeditions is work our own team does rather than shares.

The evening weather briefing in the communications tent becomes a fixture from about now. Overnight at base camp.

The last day before the second rotation, spent on preparation rather than effort. Personal loads are packed for five nights above base camp, crampons and harnesses checked after their first hard use, and boots dried properly.

Your leader briefs the rotation in detail: advance base camp, Camp 1, and then a climb to Camp 2 at 6,700 m for a night before returning.

That night at Camp 2 is the most valuable single piece of acclimatisation in the expedition, and it is also the point at which Makalu starts to feel like a serious mountain rather than a long walk. Overnight at base camp.

Back up the glacier and its moraine, and noticeably faster than the first time — four hours or so for ground that took five or six.

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

Advance base camp (5,700 m) by early afternoon, with hot soup waiting and the rest of the day to lie down. Overnight at advance base camp.

Onto the fixed ropes again, and this time the team stays. Four to six hours of snow and ice on the line above advance base camp, with heavier loads than on the rotation touch.

Camp 1 (6,400 m) is a row of tents on cut platforms. It is the first camp where the exposure is obvious from inside the tent, and everyone stays clipped in when moving around outside.

An early evening, fluid forced down, and a night that most people find hard. Overnight at Camp 1.

A short day and a demanding one. The ground above Camp 1 steepens and the fixed line runs over mixed sections that need care with crampons on rock.

Three to four hours brings the team to Camp 2 (6,700 m), a smaller and more exposed camp than the one below.

Sleeping at 6,700 m is the purpose of this rotation. It is an uncomfortable night and it is the single thing that makes a summit push from 7,800 m realistic in three weeks' time. Overnight at Camp 2.

A long descent: abseil the fixed ropes past Camp 1 to advance base camp, then down the glacier and moraine to base camp. Six to eight hours.

The acclimatisation programme is now complete. The team has slept at 6,700 m and there is nothing more to be gained from going higher until the summit push.

Base camp (4,870 m) in the afternoon, and the mood changes noticeably: the preparation is finished and everything from here waits on weather. Overnight at base camp.

Down the moraine and the valley to Yangle Kharka (3,600 m), losing 1,270 m in a day and arriving somewhere with grass, trees and running water.

This descent is one of the most valuable decisions in the plan and the one most commonly skipped. Recovery does not happen at 4,870 m. Six weeks at base camp erodes a climber steadily; three days in the forest at 3,600 m, eating and sleeping properly, rebuilds one.

The Barun in flower in late April, after a fortnight of moraine and ice, is also simply a good place to be. Around 6 hours. Overnight at Yangle Kharka.

A day with nothing in it. Sleep late, eat everything the kitchen produces, wash in the river, and walk no further than the meadow.

Most climbers regain a kilogram or two here and, more importantly, sleep properly for the first time in weeks. The improvement in appetite is usually obvious within a day.

Meanwhile the Sherpa team is high on the mountain stocking Camp 3 at the Makalu La and Camp 4 with oxygen, tents, food and fuel — the heaviest and most dangerous work of the expedition, done by people who will then climb it again with you. Overnight at Yangle Kharka.

Back up the Barun through Langmale Kharka and onto the moraine — the same ground as the approach, walked now by a body that handles it very differently.

Seven to eight hours, and it is a useful gauge: climbers who come up feeling strong are ready, and those who struggle are told so and given more time.

Base camp (4,870 m) in the late afternoon. From tonight the expedition is entirely governed by the forecast. Overnight at base camp.

The waiting starts, and on Makalu it is often longer than on Everest because the windows are fewer. The jet stream sits on the summit for most of the year and lifts, if it lifts at all, in the second half of May.

Days are spent eating, sleeping and walking gently on the moraine. With few or no other teams in the valley, base camp is a quieter place than an Everest season and the waiting is harder for it.

The evening brings the specialist mountain forecast — wind speed at 8,000 m, temperature, precipitation and the confidence attached to each — read out in the communications tent. Overnight at base camp.

More waiting, and the discipline is not to burn energy. Climbers who fill these days with long walks to keep busy arrive at Camp 4 with less in reserve than those who read a book.

There is one useful piece of work: your leader reviews the oxygen plan with each climber individually — flow rates from Camp 3, at Camp 4, on summit day, and the changeover points where bottles are swapped and cached for the descent.

Masks and regulators are checked one final time against your own hood and goggles. On Makalu's summit pyramid a leaking mask at 8,400 m is not a problem that can be solved in place. Overnight at base camp.

The full summit briefing. Your leader sets out the schedule day by day, the pairings of climber and Sherpa, the radio times, the oxygen changeovers, and the turnaround time on summit day.

On Makalu that turnaround is earlier and stricter than on Everest, because the summit pyramid has to be down-climbed and abseiled rather than walked down. A climber who reaches the base of the pyramid late has already finished.

The Sherpa team confirms that Camp 4 is stocked and the pyramid is fixed. Nothing about the push begins until both are true. Overnight at base camp.

The last day at base camp before the push, and by now the forecast has firmed up enough to commit. Loads are packed for six nights above base camp, down suits are unpacked and checked, and boots are warmed.

Dinner is early and the camp is quiet. On a mountain where a season may offer a single window, the atmosphere on this evening is unlike anything else in the expedition.

Departure for advance base camp is set for first light. Most people do not sleep much. Overnight at base camp.

Up the glacier and its moraine for the last time on the way up, and quickly — three to four hours on ground the team now knows step by step.

Loads are light: everything above is already stocked, so climbers carry personal equipment only.

Advance base camp (5,700 m) by late morning, with the rest of the day to lie down, drink and eat. From here the expedition moves upward every day until it summits or turns back. Overnight at advance base camp.

A long day on the fixed ropes, climbing past Camp 1 (6,400 m) without stopping and continuing to Camp 2 — six to eight hours in total, and the day that most often determines whether a party is on schedule.

The mixed sections above Camp 1 are climbed in crampons on rock, and by now the technique is familiar from the rotation.

Camp 2 (6,700 m) in the afternoon. Melt snow, force fluid and food, and sleep as well as an exposed platform allows. Overnight at Camp 2.

On oxygen from partway up. The route climbs snow and ice slopes to gain the Makalu La (7,400 m), the col between Makalu and Kangchungtse, in five to seven hours.

The col is a notorious place. It funnels wind from both sides and has destroyed tents in a night, and the schedule is built to minimise the time spent on it — arrive, rest, and move on.

Nobody sleeps well at 7,400 m in a gale. The team rests on oxygen, melts snow and forces fluid, and your leader watches the wind as much as the clock. Overnight at Camp 3.

A short day, on oxygen throughout. The route leaves the col and climbs the shoulder above it to Camp 4 (7,800 m), three to four hours on fixed line, arriving by late morning so the team has the day lying down.

You are deep in the Death Zone, where the body cannot acclimatise and simply degrades. Nobody sleeps. The routine is oxygen, melted snow, forced fluid and waiting.

Directly overhead is the summit pyramid — the steep mixed rock and ice that makes Makalu what it is — and it is the last thing anyone sees before the headlamps go on. Overnight at Camp 4.

Leaving Camp 4 between eight and eleven at night, on oxygen, at around -30°C. The first hours climb steepening snow and ice on fixed rope toward the base of the pyramid, and the cold at this altitude is a physical presence rather than a temperature.

Then the summit pyramid: several hundred metres of steep mixed rock and ice, with a section of genuine climbing at around 8,400 m taken in a down suit, in mitts, on an ascender. It is the hardest ground on any of Nepal's 8,000 m normal routes, and it is where most turn-backs happen.

Above it a short ridge leads to the summit (8,485 m) — a small point, sometimes a corniced blade of snow, looking north into Tibet, west across the Barun to Everest and Lhotse, and east to Kanchenjunga on the horizon.

The descent abseils and down-climbs the pyramid and then the ropes below it, which on a tired party is the most dangerous part of the expedition. Back to Camp 4, then Camp 3, and on to Camp 2 if the reserves allow. Sixteen to twenty hours of movement. Overnight at Camp 2.

Down the fixed ropes past Camp 1 to advance base camp, and then down the glacier and moraine to base camp — six to eight hours on legs that have very little left.

The team goes carefully. More people are hurt coming down a mountain than going up it, and after a twenty-hour summit day the margin for error is thin.

Base camp (4,870 m), and the moment of walking off the moraine into camp at the end of a summit push is one that most Makalu climbers remember more clearly than the summit itself. Overnight at base camp.

The first of five reserve days, and on Makalu they are not padding. This mountain turns back more parties than it lets through, and a team with five days in hand has a second attempt where a team with one does not.

If a second push is on, the Sherpa team re-stocks Camp 4 and the climbers rest here today. Your leader assesses each climber honestly — a second summit push after a turned-back first one is only offered to people who came down with something in reserve.

If the mountain has been climbed, the day is for eating and sleeping and beginning to feel normal. Most climbers lose eight to twelve kilograms on a Makalu expedition. Overnight at base camp.

The second reserve day. If a second attempt is running, the team is at advance base camp or Camp 2 tonight rather than here.

If the mountain has been climbed, the camps above begin to come down. Camp 4, Camp 3 and Camp 2 are stripped by the Sherpa team, and every bottle, tent and rope comes off the mountain.

That clear-up is not optional. Makalu sees few expeditions and what is left on it stays for decades, and the Department of Tourism deposit is refunded against what comes down. Overnight at base camp.

The third reserve day, and in a season with a late window this is often the summit day itself — Makalu's windows have arrived as late as the final week of May.

If a second push is underway, the team is high on the mountain and base camp is a radio watch.

If not, the day is spent at base camp in the peculiar limbo of an expedition that is finished but not yet over: eating, sleeping, and waiting for the last two days of margin to run out. Overnight at base camp.

The fourth reserve day. By now the season's arithmetic is clear, and your leader will say plainly whether there is anything left to attempt.

A leader who keeps a tired team on Makalu past the last honest window is the most dangerous thing on the mountain, and this is the day that judgement gets made.

The waste management is completed today. Human waste from base camp is carried out in barrels, oxygen bottles are counted back in, and the site is cleared to the condition it was found in. Overnight at base camp.

The last reserve day and the end of the expedition's margin. Base camp comes down today: tents struck, barrels packed and weighed, and the loads made up for the porters and pack animals that will carry six weeks of expedition back down the Barun.

It is a long day of unglamorous work, and it is when the team says goodbye to the base camp crew who have run the place since early April.

The chorten from the puja stays, with its prayer flags. A last look at the south-east face, which by now looks entirely different from the way it did on the day you first walked up the moraine. Overnight at base camp.

Off the moraine and down the Barun through Langmale Kharka, losing height fast and watching the vegetation come back — grass, then juniper, then birch and fir.

By the afternoon there are trees, a river loud enough to talk over, and air that after six weeks feels almost solid.

Yangle Kharka (3,600 m), and the last camp with the mountain still visible behind you. Around 6 hours. Overnight at Yangle Kharka.

Down the valley floor and then the long steep climb back onto the ridge — the last real ascent of the expedition and, on legs that have finished with mountains, an unwelcome one.

The forest on this side is dense and old, and in late May it is warm and full of birds after two months above the treeline.

Dobato (3,800 m) gives a final view back up the Barun to Makalu, which from here is a small white pyramid at the head of a very long valley. Around 6 to 7 hours. Overnight at Dobato.

Over the Shipton La (4,220 m) for the last time, past the lakes, and then the enormous descent — 2,100 m down the rhododendron staircase to Tashigaon.

It is brutal on the knees and glorious in every other respect: the forest gets warmer and greener with every hundred metres, and somewhere on the way down you pass the last of the cold.

Tashigaon (2,100 m) is the first permanent village in six weeks, with houses, fields, buffalo and children. Seven to eight hours. Overnight at Tashigaon.

A gentle day down through farmland and forest, past millet terraces and cardamom gardens, in heat that after Makalu base camp feels frankly tropical. The trail runs through working country — buffalo on the path, cardamom drying on racks, and children walking to school — which after two months of moraine takes some adjusting to.

The expedition checks out of the Makalu Barun National Park at Seduwa, and the waste-management paperwork is signed off here against the barrels the porters have carried down.

Seduwa (1,540 m) in the afternoon, with one hard day left. Most of the crew are from villages within a day's walk of here, and a good number of them will be home tomorrow. Around 4 to 5 hours. Overnight at Seduwa.

The last walking day, and it is the Arun gorge in reverse: eight hundred metres down to the river, across the suspension bridge, and eight hundred back up the other side to Num.

It is a hard finish to a long expedition and it is over by early afternoon, when the jeeps are waiting at the road head.

The drive down to Tumlingtar (405 m) takes four to five hours through the terraces. There is a hotel, a shower, a cold drink and a bed, and the whole team eats together. Overnight at Tumlingtar.

A forty-five minute flight west to Kathmandu, over the ridges the expedition walked across two months ago.

The Tumlingtar service is more reliable than Lukla's but is still weather-dependent, which is why no international departure is scheduled for today.

The afternoon is free. The expedition reports to the Department of Tourism, the waste deposit is reconciled, and the summit certificate is issued and 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, though most people at this point want a chair and a coffee more than a temple.

Our representative collects you from the hotel and drives you to Tribhuvan International Airport about three hours before departure. Any equipment being shipped home is handled by our office.

Safe travels. Makalu is a mountain that takes a great deal and gives it back in a currency that is hard to explain to anyone who has not been up the Barun. We would be glad to see you again.