Pisang 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 eighteen-day plan, the acclimatisation profile, the summit day hour by hour, and the decisions that get made on the mountain and by whom.

Then the equipment check. Boots are tried with crampons on, harnesses fitted over the layers you will actually climb in, and anything unsuitable swapped for rental kit here rather than discovered at 5,300 m.

Our office lodges the climbing permit, the Annapurna Conservation Area permit and the TIMS card today, which needs your passport and photographs. The afternoon is free. Overnight in Kathmandu.

A long day on the road. The Prithvi Highway runs west out of the Kathmandu valley beside the Trishuli, and at Mugling the route turns north for Besisahar, the old start of the Annapurna Circuit.

From Besisahar the tarmac ends and a jeep takes over, grinding up the Marsyangdi gorge on a rough road cut into the valley wall — spectacular, slow and not for anyone who dislikes exposure on a road.

Dharapani (1,860 m) sits at the junction with the Dudh Khola, where the Manaslu Circuit comes in from the east. Around 9 to 10 hours in total. Overnight at Dharapani.

The walking starts. The trail climbs north-west up the Marsyangdi through Bagarchhap and Danaque, and the vegetation changes as it goes — subtropical scrub gives way to blue pine, and the air cools noticeably.

At Timang the valley opens and Manaslu shows behind you for the first time, an 8,000 m wall filling the eastern skyline.

Chame (2,670 m) is the district headquarters, with a bank, a police check post and hot springs beside the river. Around 5 to 6 hours. Overnight at Chame.

Through pine and fir up a steep narrowing valley to Bhratang, where an apple orchard sits improbably in the gorge, and then past the Paungda Danda — a 1,500 m curved rock slab that fills the whole southern side of the valley and looks like the wall of a stadium.

Above it the valley opens into the dry upper Marsyangdi, the trees thin out, and the character turns Tibetan.

Upper Pisang (3,300 m) is a village of flat-roofed stone houses on the hillside with a gompa above it and Annapurna II directly opposite. Around 5 to 6 hours. Overnight at Upper Pisang.

Straight up. The trail leaves Upper Pisang behind the gompa and climbs the hillside north on a yak path through juniper and grazing land, gaining a thousand metres in four hours.

It is the most accessible 6,000 m base camp in the Annapurna region — you can see the village below you the whole way, and the peak the whole way above.

Pisang Peak Base Camp (4,380 m) is a tented camp on a kharka with the south-west ridge rising directly overhead and Annapurna II filling the sky across the valley. Around 4 hours. Overnight at base camp.

A day that does two jobs, and on this itinerary both matter. The morning is the training session on the snow above camp: crampons, ice axe and self-arrest, ascending fixed line on a jumar, abseiling, and moving roped on an exposed ridge.

The jumar work gets the most repetition, because the crux of this peak is three hundred metres of sustained ascending on a fixed line and that is a specific kind of tiring.

In the afternoon we walk up toward 5,000 m and come back down — climb high, sleep low, and the most valuable acclimatisation on a trip with a fast approach. Your guide checks saturation this evening. Overnight at base camp.

A steep morning on the ridge, gaining a thousand metres on grass, then scree, then snow, in four to five hours with a moderate load while the crew moves the camp.

High camp (5,400 m) is a set of platforms on the crest of the ridge, fully exposed to the wind that funnels up the Marsyangdi every afternoon. There is no shelter of any kind.

The view down the valley to Pisang and across to Annapurna II is exceptional and the night is not. Early dinner, kit laid out, and your guide's weather call and turnaround time. Overnight at high camp.

Moving by three in the morning. The first two hours follow the snow ridge and then a broad slope at 30 to 35 degrees — straightforward walking in crampons, roped as a team, with headlamps and cold hands.

Then the mountain changes. The final 300 m runs at 45 to 50 degrees on fixed rope, sustained and unrelenting, and it is where the day is won or lost. There is no easing off and no place to rest; it is an hour or more of steady jumaring with the whole Marsyangdi valley dropping away below your boots.

Near the top the slope narrows into a short exposed ridge, taken one at a time. The summit (6,091 m) looks across at Annapurna II, III and IV, west to Gangapurna and Tilicho, east to Manaslu, and north over the Chulu group to the Tibetan plateau.

The descent abseils the steep section and reverses the ridge to high camp and then base camp. Nine to twelve hours. Overnight at base camp.

The day held in reserve. On Pisang the usual reason to need it is wind on the exposed upper slope, or a member who needs another day at base camp before going high — which on a fast-approach itinerary is not unusual.

If yesterday failed, the group returns to high camp today and climbs tomorrow, with the ropes already fixed.

If the summit went to plan, camp comes down and the group descends to Pisang and along the valley toward Manang, banking a day for the Thorong La later. Overnight at base camp or Pisang.

Camp comes down after breakfast and the group descends to Upper Pisang, then takes the high route west past Ghyaru and Ngawal — the balcony trail, with the whole Annapurna range across a valley two kilometres deep.

It is the best walking day on the Circuit and it is a great deal more enjoyable with a summit behind you than it would have been on the way in.

Manang (3,540 m) is a substantial Tibetan-style town with bakeries, gear shops, ATMs and a cinema showing mountaineering films every afternoon. Around 7 hours. Overnight at Manang.

A rest day in the best village on the Circuit, and a useful one — the Thorong La is three days away and the legs have just done a summit.

The morning walk goes up to the Gangapurna glacier lake and the viewpoint above it, an hour of climbing for a full view of Gangapurna's ice fall and the Annapurna wall behind it. Those who would rather do nothing are under no obligation.

The Himalayan Rescue Association clinic gives a free altitude talk each afternoon in season, which is worth attending before the pass. Bakeries, a hot shower and a film in the evening. Overnight at Manang.

North-west out of Manang and up the Jarsang valley, leaving the Marsyangdi behind and climbing gently through the last of the juniper into open grazing country.

The valley is dry, brown and wide, with blue sheep frequently visible on the slopes above the trail and lammergeiers working the thermals.

Yak Kharka (4,050 m) is a handful of lodges among grazing land. It is a short day by design — the Thorong La is two days away and the point is to arrive at it rested. Around 3 to 4 hours. Overnight at Yak Kharka.

A short, cautious day. The trail climbs to Ledar and then contours across a steep and eroded hillside above the Jarsang Khola, on ground where rockfall is a genuine consideration and the path is narrow.

Thorong Phedi (4,540 m) — the name simply means the foot of Thorong — is two lodges wedged into a gorge at the base of the pass.

Everyone eats early and sleeps early, because the pass is crossed in the dark to beat the wind that gets up on the top by mid-morning. Around 3 to 4 hours. Overnight at Thorong Phedi.

Away by four in the morning by headlamp, straight into the steep climb above the lodges. The trail zigzags up scree and snow for three to four hours through a series of false summits, each one looking like the pass.

The Thorong La (5,416 m) is a broad saddle buried in prayer flags, with a teahouse that sells the highest cup of tea on the Circuit. After a 6,419 m summit it is a comfortable morning rather than the ordeal it is for most trekkers.

Then the descent — 1,600 m of it, long and hard on the knees, into the Kali Gandaki with Dhaulagiri filling the view ahead. Muktinath (3,800 m) is a temple complex sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists, with 108 water spouts and an eternal flame burning over a spring. Seven to nine hours. Overnight at Muktinath.

Down to Kagbeni and then south along the broad grey riverbed of the Kali Gandaki — the deepest gorge on earth, measured between Dhaulagiri and Annapurna — into the wind that funnels up this valley every day of the year.

Jomsom (2,720 m) is the district headquarters, and the flight to Pokhara leaves in the early morning before the wind makes it impossible. Where the group arrives too late or the flight is grounded, a jeep down the Kali Gandaki is the alternative and is included.

Pokhara (822 m) arrives in the afternoon: lakeside, warm, green, and about 5,600 m below where you stood four days ago. Overnight in Pokhara.

A morning by Phewa Lake before the road, with the Annapurnas and Machhapuchhre reflected in it on a clear day — including, if you know where to look, the Chulu group behind them.

The drive to Kathmandu takes most of the day on the Prithvi Highway, following the Trishuli east through gorge country with a lunch stop at a riverside restaurant. The 25-minute flight is available as an add-on if you would rather not spend the day on the road.

Back in Kathmandu in the evening. Your summit certificate is presented over dinner. 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, Lumbini or a Kathmandu valley tour. Safe travels — Chulu West and Chulu East are the two our returning Pisang Peak climbers most often ask about, and both are a natural next step from here.