Singu Chuli 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 twenty-one day plan, the acclimatisation profile, the summit day, 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 altitude.

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.

West out of the Kathmandu valley on the Prithvi Highway, following the Trishuli river through gorge country with a lunch stop at a riverside restaurant.

The drive covers roughly 200 km and takes most of the day. If you would rather not spend it on the road, the 25-minute flight is available as an add-on.

Pokhara (822 m) arrives in the late afternoon on the shore of Phewa Lake, with the Annapurnas and the fishtail summit of Machhapuchhre standing over it. The crew does the final load sort here. Overnight in Pokhara.

A two-hour drive north-west out of Pokhara through terraced farmland to the road head at Siwai, where the walking starts.

The trail climbs through rice terraces and bamboo into the Modi Khola valley, warm and green and full of birds — this side of the range is a world away from the dry Manang valley.

Ghandruk (1,940 m) is one of the largest Gurung villages in Nepal, a steep grid of slate-roofed stone houses with Annapurna South and Machhapuchhre filling the northern sky. Around 4 hours of walking. Overnight at Ghandruk.

A day of stone staircases. The trail drops steeply to the Kimrong Khola, crosses it, and climbs just as steeply up the far side through terraced fields and rhododendron.

Nepali hill trails do not contour; they go down to the river and back up, and this is the day that teaches you that.

Chomrong (2,170 m) is strung down a hillside at the entrance to the Modi Khola gorge and is the last real village before the Sanctuary — the last ATM, the last shops, and by common consent the best apple pie in the Annapurnas. Around 5 to 6 hours. Overnight at Chomrong.

Down the long stone staircase out of Chomrong to the Chomrong Khola, then up the other side to Sinuwa and into the gorge proper.

From here the valley closes in and the trail runs north between walls that rise a vertical kilometre on both sides. The forest is dense, wet and full of langur monkeys, and the light goes early.

Bamboo (2,310 m) is a handful of lodges in the bamboo thicket the place is named for. It is humid, green and about as unlike a climbing base camp as anywhere in Nepal. Around 5 hours. Overnight at Bamboo.

North up the gorge through Dovan and past the shrine at Himalaya, climbing steadily as the bamboo gives way to rhododendron and then to birch.

This section of the gorge is avalanche country in spring and after heavy snow, and there are two or three places where the guide will move the group across quickly and without stopping. It is the reason this trail closes some winters.

Deurali (3,200 m) sits where the gorge finally begins to open. Around 5 hours. Overnight at Deurali.

The gorge opens and the Annapurna Sanctuary reveals itself — a glacial amphitheatre ringed by Annapurna I, Annapurna South, Hiunchuli, Gangapurna, Tarke Kang and Machhapuchhre, with no gap in the wall anywhere except the gorge you walked up.

It is one of the great arrivals in Nepal, and it happens in about twenty minutes of walking.

Machhapuchhre Base Camp (3,700 m) sits at the gateway beneath the fishtail summit, which is closed to climbing and has never been officially summited. Around 3 hours. Overnight at MBC.

A short climb up the moraine into the heart of the Sanctuary, gaining 430 m in two to three hours on an easy trail.

Annapurna Base Camp (4,130 m) stands directly beneath the south face of Annapurna I — three thousand metres of it, the wall Bonington's team climbed in 1970 and one of the great faces in the Himalaya.

The afternoon is spent acclimatising and looking at it, and at sunrise the whole ring turns pink at once. There is a memorial here to climbers lost on the mountain, including Anatoli Boukreev. Around 3 hours. Overnight at Annapurna Base Camp.

A short day off the trekking trail and onto the moraine of the South Annapurna glacier, working north-west across boulder ground into the heart of the Sanctuary.

Singu Chuli Base Camp (4,300 m) is a tented camp with the mountain directly above and the south face of Annapurna I — three thousand metres of it — filling the northern wall of the amphitheatre.

The afternoon is spent reading the route with your guide: the glacier, the high camp shelf, and the fluted face above it that is the whole difficulty of this peak. Around 3 hours. Overnight at base camp.

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

Your guide is assessing efficiency under fatigue rather than best-case technique, because on flutings where protection is marginal the safety margin is made of speed.

Anyone the guide is not satisfied with is told today, at base camp. Meanwhile the Sherpas are above, fixing the glacier and the lower face. Overnight at base camp.

An acclimatisation walk up the moraine toward 4,800 m and back, on ground that asks nothing technical.

The Sanctuary from up here is the whole point of the place: Annapurna I, Annapurna South, Hiunchuli, Gangapurna, Tarke Kang and Machhapuchhre in a complete ring, with the Modi Khola gorge as the only gap in it.

The afternoon is rest and packing. The Sherpas report on the condition of the flutings, which is the information the summit plan actually rests on. Overnight at base camp.

A serious carry. The route crosses the glacier roped and then climbs fixed line onto the shelf above it, gaining a thousand metres in five to six hours with a moderate load.

High camp (5,300 m) is a handful of platforms cut into the shelf, exposed and cold, with the fluted face rising directly overhead — close enough to see how the snow is lying on it, which is what everyone spends the afternoon doing.

Early dinner, kit laid out, rope pairs set, and your guide's weather call and a hard turnaround time. Overnight at high camp.

Moving by midnight, because the flutings have to be climbed and descended while they are frozen. The route goes onto the face within the hour and stays on it.

The flutings are the climb: ice and snow at 50 to 60 degrees with short steeper steps, climbed on fixed rope with two tools for hours. Where the snow is firm it is superb; where it is sugary it takes neither tools nor screws well and progress becomes careful and slow.

Above the face a corniced summit ridge is followed one at a time with the Sherpas probing ahead. From the summit (6,501 m): Annapurna I across the Sanctuary at close range, Annapurna South and Hiunchuli below you, Machhapuchhre's fishtail to the east, and the Pokhara valley visible eight thousand metres below to the south.

The descent is a long sequence of abseils down the flutings and the fixed line to high camp, then base camp. Fourteen to eighteen hours. Overnight at base camp.

The first of two reserve days, and on this peak they are used more often than not. The Sanctuary catches more weather than the Manang side, and the flutings need cold to be climbable at all.

If the summit was missed, the team rests today and goes back up tomorrow with the ropes still fixed. Your guide weighs the party's remaining reserves as heavily as the forecast — a second push on grade D ice needs climbers who have genuinely recovered.

If the summit went to plan, the day is rest at base camp with the whole Annapurna amphitheatre to look at. Overnight at base camp.

The second reserve day and the end of the trip's margin. Two of them exist because a single day is frequently not enough on a face this condition-dependent.

If a second attempt is running, the team is at high camp tonight rather than here.

If the climb is finished, base camp comes down today. Everything the group carried into the Sanctuary goes back out with it, and the site is cleared — the Sanctuary is a conservation area and one of the most visited places in Nepal, and what expeditions leave in it stays. Overnight at base camp.

Off the moraine and back onto the trekking trail at Annapurna Base Camp, then down through Machhapuchhre Base Camp and into the gorge.

The descent is long and fast — nearly two thousand metres — and the vegetation comes back in stages: grass, then rhododendron, then birch, then bamboo, with the air thickening and warming all the way.

Bamboo (2,310 m) is humid, green and loud with the river, and after a fortnight above the treeline it feels tropical. Around 7 to 8 hours. Overnight at Bamboo.

Out of the gorge to Sinuwa and up the long stone staircase to Chomrong, which is the sting in the tail of every Sanctuary walk out — five hundred steps up after two thousand metres down yesterday.

Chomrong has the apple pie, the ATM and the first proper shops in ten days, and most groups take longer over lunch than they intend to.

Then down to the Kimrong Khola and up the far side to Ghandruk (1,940 m), with Annapurna South and Machhapuchhre behind you for the last time. Around 7 hours. Overnight at Ghandruk.

A short descent through rice terraces and bamboo to the road head at Siwai, where the jeeps are waiting.

The two-hour drive back to Pokhara (822 m) runs through terraced farmland and villages, and the transition from a glacier basin to a lakeside town in a single morning is one of the pleasures of the Sanctuary.

The afternoon is free: a hot shower, a proper meal and an hour by Phewa Lake, where on a clear evening the peak you climbed is visible over the ridge. Overnight in Pokhara.

A morning by the lake before the road, with the Annapurnas and Machhapuchhre reflected in it on a clear day.

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 — climbers who get up Singu Chuli are generally ready for Tilicho Peak or Ama Dablam, and we would be glad to talk about either.