Mera Peak Climbing

Welcome to Nepal. 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.

Nothing is asked of you today beyond resting and letting the time difference settle. If you have the energy, Thamel's gear shops are two minutes from the door and stock most of what a climber discovers they left at home — down mitts and lithium batteries especially.

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

The full briefing at the hotel. Your guide covers the eighteen-day plan, the deliberate drop to Kothe and why it matters, the summit day hour by hour, and the honest statistics on who turns back and where.

Then the equipment check, which on Mera focuses hard on warmth. Boots are tried with crampons on, and if you have brought single boots your guide will say so and arrange doubles — high camp at 5,800 m is not the place to discover the difference. Harnesses are fitted over the layers you will actually climb in.

Our office lodges the NMA climbing permit and the Makalu Barun 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.

And then, almost immediately, the parting of the ways. While everyone else on the flight turns north up the Dudh Koshi toward Namche, our trail turns east, climbing through rhododendron and pine on a narrow path that within twenty minutes has nobody else on it.

Chutanga (3,050 m) is a handful of simple lodges in a forest clearing beneath the Zatrwa La. The afternoon is free to rest — tomorrow is an acclimatisation day, and the day after is the hardest walking of the trip. Around 3 to 4 hours. Overnight at Chutanga.

A day that looks generous on paper and earns itself tomorrow. We walk up the ridge toward the pass, gaining 500 to 600 m to around 3,600 m, and come back down to sleep — the same climb-high-sleep-low principle that Namche uses, applied to a valley with no Namche in it.

The path climbs through moss-hung rhododendron into open ground with a first view of the ridges you cross tomorrow, and of the Dudh Koshi valley falling away west.

Back at Chutanga by early afternoon. Your guide takes the first oxygen saturation readings this evening, and the crew repacks loads for the pass. Around 4 hours. Overnight at Chutanga.

The hardest day before the summit, and the one that decides how the rest of the trip feels. From Chutanga the trail climbs steadily for four to five hours on rough ground, through boulder fields and up a series of false crests, each of which looks like the pass and is not.

The Zatrwa La (4,610 m) is a narrow notch in the ridge, marked with cairns and prayer flags and often windy. In fresh snow it is a serious crossing and crampons come out; in clear weather it opens onto a view east across the whole Hinku valley with Mera itself somewhere behind the ridges ahead.

The descent is steep and loose to Thuli Kharka (4,300 m), a yak pasture with a couple of basic lodges. Seven to eight hours. Overnight at Thuli Kharka.

A descent of 700 m, and every metre of it is an investment. Losing height after a 4,610 m pass is exactly what your body needs, and this is the day people question the itinerary and later credit it.

The trail traverses the hillside and then drops steeply through rhododendron, birch and juniper into the valley floor, following the Hinku Khola upstream on a path that is often muddy and sometimes cut into the bank above the water.

Kothe (3,600 m) is a line of simple lodges on the riverbank with forest on both sides. It is warm, it is green, and it is the last thick air of the trip. Around 5 to 6 hours. Overnight at Kothe.

Back up, gently. The trail follows the Hinku Khola north through the last of the trees, past the small gompa and painted rock at Gondishung, where a 200-year-old shrine sits under an overhanging boulder.

The valley opens out as the forest thins, and the walls rise on both sides — Mera's south face ahead and the Kusum Kanguru ridge behind. This is the point at which the Hinku stops feeling like a forest walk and starts feeling like the Himalaya.

Thagnak (4,350 m) is a summer grazing settlement of stone huts and two or three lodges on the moraine. Around 4 to 5 hours. Overnight at Thagnak.

An acclimatisation day with somewhere worth going. We walk up the moraine to Sabai Tsho, a glacial lake at around 4,700 m held behind a wall of debris below the Hinku Nup glacier.

The lake burst its moraine dam in 1998, sending a flood down the valley that swept away bridges and pasture as far as Kothe — the scoured banks are still visible on the walk in, and the lake is now monitored. Standing above it is a plain lesson in what these valleys do.

Back down to Thagnak for the afternoon, with 350 m gained and lost. Rest, eat and drink four litres. Around 4 hours. Overnight at Thagnak.

A short day with a large altitude gain, taken slowly. The trail climbs the lateral moraine of the Dig glacier on loose rock, with the valley narrowing and the ice appearing on both sides.

Above the moraine crest the ground opens into a bowl and Mera Peak comes into full view for the first time — the broad white glacier of the standard route running up to a summit that from here looks deceptively close.

Khare (5,045 m) is a cluster of stone lodges on the moraine, the highest settlement in the valley and the base for the climb. It is cold at night and the air is thin enough that everyone is walking slowly. Around 4 hours. Overnight at Khare.

The training day, and it is a full one. The morning is spent on the glacier ice above Khare: fitting crampons and walking in them on flat and angled ice, ice axe technique including self-arrest, moving as a roped team with correct spacing, ascending fixed line on a jumar, and abseiling.

Rope-team travel gets the most attention here, because the Mera glacier is crevassed and the summit route is climbed roped rather than on fixed line for most of its length. Your guide watches each climber individually and works with anyone who needs it.

The afternoon is rest and a final gear sort — what goes to high camp and what stays in Khare. Everyone eats early and sleeps. Around 4 hours of training. Overnight at Khare.

Crampons on within an hour of leaving Khare. The route climbs steeply onto the glacier and up to the Mera La (5,415 m), the broad snow col between the Hinku and Hongu valleys, moving roped as a team from here on.

From the col the route traverses the glacier north-east and climbs to a rock shelf at 5,800 m, where the tents go up on the only flat ground for some distance. Four to five hours in total with a moderate load.

The camp is exceptional and uncomfortable in equal measure. It faces east directly at Makalu, with Everest and Lhotse to the north and Kanchenjunga on the horizon, and it is cold enough that dinner is eaten in a down jacket at four in the afternoon. Everyone is in a sleeping bag by six. Overnight at high camp.

Tea at one, moving by two, and cold in a way that is hard to describe until you have done it. The group ropes up outside the tents and starts up the glacier by headlamp on a broad slope of 25 to 30 degrees — never steep, never technical, and utterly relentless.

You climb through the coldest hours before dawn, and then the sun arrives somewhere around 6,100 m and changes everything. The last obstacle is a short steep step of 40 to 45 degrees below the central summit, fixed by our Sherpas the day before and climbed on a jumar.

From the summit (6,476 m) the view is what the whole trip was for: Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu and Kanchenjunga — five of the six highest mountains on earth — with Baruntse, Chamlang and Ama Dablam filling the space between them.

Then down, all the way: high camp, the Mera La, the glacier, and off the ice to Khare in the afternoon. Nine to twelve hours in total. Overnight at Khare.

The day held in reserve, and on Mera it is used more often than on any other trekking peak we run — high camp is exposed and the summit slope is entirely at the mercy of wind.

If yesterday was turned back, the group returns to high camp today and climbs tomorrow. Your guide makes that call at Khare on the forecast, the state of the party and the snow, not on the calendar.

If the summit went to plan, this becomes a genuine rest day at Khare before the long walk out, or the group starts down to Kothe early and banks a spare day against the Lukla flights. Overnight at Khare or Kothe.

A long descent and an easy one, losing nearly 1,500 m down the valley you climbed over four days. The moraine below Khare gives way to the open bowl at Thagnak, and then the trail drops steadily along the Hinku Khola.

The change is physical and immediate. Somewhere below Thagnak the air thickens, the first juniper appears, and legs that felt heavy at 5,000 m start working properly again.

By Kothe (3,600 m) you are back among rhododendron and birch with the river loud outside the lodge. It is warm, and after a night at 5,800 m that registers as luxury. Around 6 to 7 hours. Overnight at Kothe.

The last climb of the trip, back up out of the valley floor toward the pass. The trail leaves the river and works up through the forest, steep in places, regaining the 700 m lost on the way in.

It is a day that feels harder than its numbers because the summit is behind you and the body has decided the trip is over. It is not — the Zatrwa La still has to be crossed.

Thuli Kharka (4,300 m) gives a last evening looking back east over the Hinku, with Mera visible at the head of the valley and the route you climbed now legible from bottom to top. Around 5 to 6 hours. Overnight at Thuli Kharka.

An early start for the pass. The climb from Thuli Kharka to the Zatrwa La (4,610 m) takes two to three hours on rough ground, and the crossing is usually easier westbound than east because you are fitter and better acclimatised than you were two weeks ago.

From the notch there is a last look back at the Hinku, and then a very long descent — 1,800 m down through boulder fields, then rhododendron forest, then farmland, to Chutanga and on to Lukla.

Lukla (2,840 m) arrives in the afternoon with a hot shower and a menu that runs to more than dal bhat. The evening is the end-of-trip dinner with the guide, Sherpas and porters, and the point at which tips are given. Seven to eight hours. Overnight at Lukla.

Lukla flights go early, before the valley wind builds. The flight to Kathmandu takes thirty-five minutes, or lands 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 in poor weather, which is why we never schedule an international departure for today. If Lukla closes entirely, a helicopter seat can usually be arranged at your own cost and your guide handles it.

The afternoon in Kathmandu is free — a long shower, and Thamel for whatever you have been thinking about since Khare. 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 with the Himalaya somewhere behind the haze.

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 are glad to arrange Chitwan, Pokhara, Lumbini or a Kathmandu valley tour. Safe travels — and if 6,476 m has left you curious rather than satisfied, Baruntse and Ama Dablam are the peaks our returning Mera climbers ask about.