Pokalde Island and Lobuche 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 twenty-six day plan, the acclimatisation profile, the order the peaks are climbed in and why, and what each summit day actually involves.

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

Our office lodges the climbing permits and the 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, landing on the sloping runway cut into the hillside.

You meet the porters over tea, sort loads, and start north through Chaurikharka and Ghat, past mani walls and water-driven prayer wheels with the Dudh Koshi loud below.

Phakding (2,610 m) lies lower than Lukla, which makes for an easy first night at altitude. Around 3 to 4 hours. Overnight at Phakding.

Five prayer-flagged suspension bridges carry the trail across the Dudh Koshi, climbing through blue pine to Monjo and the Sagarmatha National Park entrance.

Past Jorsalle the Hillary Bridge crosses high above the confluence, and beyond it the trail turns uphill for 600 m of steady work — the first honest effort of the trip, with a first view of Everest partway up on a clear morning.

Namche Bazaar (3,440 m) has bakeries, gear shops and an ATM. Around 6 hours. Overnight at Namche.

Climb high, sleep low. The morning walk goes up to the Everest View Hotel (3,880 m), whose terrace looks straight up the valley at Everest, Lhotse, Nuptse and Ama Dablam.

From there the path continues to Khumjung and Khunde beneath Khumbi Yul Lha, past the monastery with its disputed yeti scalp and the hospital built by Edmund Hillary's foundation in 1966.

The afternoon is free for the Sherpa Culture Museum and a coffee. Your guide takes the first oxygen saturation readings tonight. Around 4 hours. Overnight at Namche.

Two hours of near-level balcony trail out of Namche, high above the Dudh Koshi, with Ama Dablam ahead almost the whole way and Everest over your shoulder.

At Phunki Thenga the trail drops to the river and climbs 600 m through rhododendron and birch forest to the saddle — a long pull, and the altitude is beginning to tell.

Tengboche (3,860 m) holds the largest monastery in the Khumbu, and its afternoon prayer ceremony is open to visitors. Around 5 to 6 hours. Overnight at Tengboche.

Down through Deboche, across the Imja Khola on a bridge above a narrow gorge, and up to Pangboche (3,930 m), the oldest permanent Sherpa settlement in the Khumbu.

Above Pangboche the last trees give out and the valley opens into a wide grey trough of moraine and grazing land, walled by Ama Dablam, Lhotse and Taboche.

Dingboche (4,410 m) sits among stone-walled potato and barley fields at the junction of the Imja and Khumbu valleys. Around 5 hours. Overnight at Dingboche.

The most important day of the approach. We climb the ridge behind the village to Nangkartshang (5,083 m) — steep but non-technical, two to three hours on scree and rock.

Touching 5,000 m and sleeping 600 m lower is what makes the first summit possible. Makalu appears over the eastern ridge, with Lhotse, Ama Dablam, Island Peak and Taboche arranged around you.

Back for a late lunch and rest. Four litres of water, more food than you feel like, and an evening saturation check. Around 4 to 5 hours. Overnight at Dingboche.

A short and deliberately easy day east up the Imja valley on the moraine, climbing gently through grazing land with the 3,000 m south face of Lhotse filling the head of the valley.

After a summit day and a descent, an afternoon in a lodge with a stove and a menu is worth more to the second peak than any extra height gained.

Chhukung (4,730 m) is the last teahouse before Island Peak base camp. Your guide reviews the group's condition here and confirms who is going on. Around 3 to 4 hours. Overnight at Chhukung.

The trail leaves the Imja valley and climbs west into the wide, empty basin below the Kongma La, on rough moraine and boulder ground with almost nobody else on it.

It is a marked change from the Khumbu's main trail — no lodges, no yak trains and no queues at the bridges. The ground is rocky and the walking is slow, and the altitude does the rest.

Pokalde Base Camp (5,000 m) is a tented camp beside a small tarn under the peak's south ridge. The afternoon is a short session on rope, helmet and crampon work before tomorrow. Around 4 to 5 hours. Overnight at base camp.

A civilised start — tea at four, walking by five, with the sky already lightening. The route climbs the boulder slope above camp to the south ridge and follows it, hands out of pockets on the steeper steps, in a helmet the whole way because the rock is loose.

Near the top comes the only technical ground: a short section of fixed rope on a rock step, and above it a narrow crest of rock and snow, exposed on both sides and climbed one at a time.

The summit (5,806 m) carries prayer flags and one of the finest views in the Khumbu — Everest, Lhotse, Nuptse, Makalu, Ama Dablam and the whole Khumbu glacier — and it is the first of your three. Five to seven hours in total. Overnight at base camp.

The hardest walking day of the trip, and the link between the first peak and the second. The climb to the Kongma La (5,535 m) takes two to three hours on boulder and scree from camp, past frozen tarns, to a cairn buried in prayer flags.

It is the highest and least walked of the three Khumbu passes, and the view back over the Imja valley to Ama Dablam is worth the effort on its own.

The far side is the serious part: a steep, loose descent onto the Khumbu glacier, then an hour picking a line across its rubble-covered ice following cairns, before climbing the far moraine to Lobuche East Base Camp (4,950 m). Seven to nine hours. Overnight at base camp.

The full training day, and it covers both peaks rather than just this one. On the ice below camp you work through crampon technique, ice axe use and self-arrest, ascending fixed line on a jumar, abseiling, and moving as a roped team.

Because Lobuche has a long exposed ridge, extra time goes on short-roping and on what to do when the fixed line ends and the team moves together. That is also the technique Island Peak's summit arête needs in ten days' time.

In the afternoon we walk part-way up the route to high camp and back — 300 m gained and lost. The Sherpas are above, fixing the buttress and the ice slope. Overnight at base camp.

A short but steep morning: moraine and then a rock shoulder on loose ground, gaining 450 m in three to four hours with a moderate load while the crew moves the camp.

High camp (5,400 m) is a set of tent platforms cut into the shoulder, exposed to the wind and with no shelter of any kind. It is not comfortable and it is not meant to be.

The view compensates a little — Everest, Nuptse, Pumori and the whole sweep of the Khumbu glacier below. Early dinner, kit laid out, asleep by seven. Overnight at high camp.

Moving by one in the morning. An hour of loose rock and scree by headlamp leads to the glacier edge, where crampons go on and the group ropes up in the dark.

Then the long work: snow and ice at 40 to 50 degrees on fixed line for several hours, leading onto the summit ridge — narrow, corniced on the east side, and followed one at a time with the drop to the Khumbu glacier on your left.

The false summit at about 5,970 m comes first. Beyond it the ridge dips into a notch and rises again, and that final hour is what separates a true ascent from the common one. From the true summit (6,119 m): Everest, Nuptse, Lhotse, Ama Dablam, Cholatse and Pumori.

Down by abseil and fixed line to high camp, then base camp. Ten to fourteen hours. Overnight at base camp.

The reserve day for the first peak. Wind on the exposed ridge is the usual reason a Lobuche attempt is turned back, and a second chance is worth more here than any amount of equipment.

If yesterday failed on conditions, 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 walks back down the moraine toward Dingboche, resting properly in a lodge before the second peak. Overnight at base camp or Dingboche.

A long link day between the second peak and the third. Camp comes down and the group descends the moraine past the Thukla memorial chortens and down into the Pheriche valley.

From there the trail contours east to Dingboche and up the Imja valley on the moraine, with the Lhotse south face filling the head of the valley ahead.

Chhukung (4,730 m) in the late afternoon means a lodge, a stove and a menu after two summits. Your guide reviews the group's condition here and confirms who is going on to Island Peak. Around 7 to 8 hours. Overnight at Chhukung.

A half day of walking. The trail leaves Chhukung south-east, crosses a stream on planks, and follows the moraine of the Imja and Lhotse glaciers up a broad, stony valley.

Island Peak Base Camp (5,087 m) stands on sandy flats between the moraine walls, and the cook crew has camp up before you arrive.

The afternoon is a refresher session on the glacier ice, focused specifically on the headwall — jumaring on a steep fixed line and abseiling back down it — and then rest. Around 3 to 4 hours. Overnight at base camp.

A short move up the rock shoulder above base camp, two to three hours with a light load while the crew carries the camp.

High camp (5,600 m) shortens tomorrow considerably and gets the group onto the headwall before the sun softens the snow. After Lobuche's high camp at 5,400 m, this one feels almost familiar.

An early dinner, boots and harness laid out ready, and sleep by seven. Your guide gives the timings and the turnaround. Overnight at high camp.

Up at one, moving by two. The first section is a steep gully of loose rock by headlamp, leading onto the ridge and up to the glacier at around 5,900 m, where crampons go on and the group ropes up.

The glacier weaves between crevasses to the foot of the headwall — around 100 m of ice at 45 to 50 degrees on fixed rope, usually with the sun arriving partway up. After Lobuche's ridge it reads as familiar ground rather than a leap.

The wall tops out on a corniced summit arête followed one at a time. From Island Peak (6,189 m) the Lhotse wall stands directly opposite, with Makalu, Baruntse, Ama Dablam and Nuptse around it — and Lobuche East, which you climbed eight days ago, clearly visible to the north-west.

Then abseil the headwall and reverse everything to base camp. Twelve to fifteen hours. Overnight at base camp.

The reserve day for the second peak, and the reason this itinerary is twenty-three days rather than twenty-one. A single reserve day shared between two summits means the first bad window costs you the second peak.

If yesterday was turned back by wind, fresh snow or a member's condition, this is the second attempt, and your guide makes that call at base camp on the evidence rather than the schedule.

If the summit went to plan, camp comes down and the group starts the walk out early, banking a spare day against a cancelled Lukla flight. Overnight at base camp or Chhukung.

Camp comes down after breakfast and the long descent begins. The route retraces the moraine to Chhukung and then down the Imja valley to Dingboche, and the difference in how you feel is immediate — thick air, warmth, and legs that suddenly work again.

Below Dingboche the trail contours across the hillside to Pangboche (3,930 m), avoiding the climb back over the Tengboche ridge. Juniper and birch reappear, and with them the first bird noise in a fortnight.

The monastery above the village is the oldest in the Khumbu and worth the short walk up. Around 6 to 7 hours. Overnight at Pangboche.

Down through Deboche and up the short climb to Tengboche, where it is worth stopping at the monastery again — the view from the saddle reads differently once you have been up two of the peaks in it.

The steep descent to Phunki Thenga is hard on tired knees, and then the balcony trail contours back around the hillside toward Namche, high above the Dudh Koshi.

Namche Bazaar (3,440 m) in the afternoon means a hot shower, a bakery and a beer, all of which land differently after three weeks. Around 6 hours. Overnight at Namche.

The last walking day. Steeply down from Namche to the Hillary Bridge, then along the Dudh Koshi through Jorsalle and Monjo, where you check out of the national park.

Through Phakding and past the mani walls, then the final climb to Lukla (2,840 m), which always feels longer than it looks on the last day.

The evening is the end-of-trip dinner with the guide, Sherpas, cook crew and porters, and the point at which tips are given. Around 6 to 7 hours. Overnight at Lukla.

Lukla flights leave early, before the wind builds in the valley. Thirty-five minutes to Kathmandu, or a landing at Manthali with a road transfer onward in peak season.

Delays are routine rather than exceptional, which is why no international departure is scheduled for today. If Lukla closes entirely, a helicopter seat can usually be arranged at your own cost.

The afternoon is free for a long shower and Thamel. Your summit certificates — one for each peak — are 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 finish this trip usually ask about Kyajo Ri or Ama Dablam next, and both are the right step from here.