Thamserku 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 in Thamel.

Rest is the only item on the schedule. Unpack and lay out your technical equipment this evening — tomorrow's inspection is the most detailed we run, and a missing screwgate is easier to solve in Thamel than at 6,100 m.

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

A long and frank morning. Your leader takes the twenty-three day plan apart, and then talks about the face itself — the flutings, the snow quality problem, the cornices, and the honest probability that the mountain will not be in condition.

The equipment inspection covers tools, crampons, boots, harness, belay device, screwgates and helmet, and your leader will go through your climbing CV route by route. This is the conversation that determines what happens at base camp.

Our office lodges the NMA climbing permit and park paperwork with your passport and photographs, and takes copies of your alpinism insurance. 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.

The expedition barrels are weighed and distributed among the porters over tea, which takes a while: a self-fixing expedition carries a great deal of rope and hardware.

The trail drops north through Chaurikharka and Ghat to Phakding (2,610 m). Around 3 to 4 hours. Overnight at Phakding.

Five prayer-flagged suspension bridges across the Dudh Koshi, then a climb through blue pine to Monjo and the Sagarmatha National Park entrance.

Past Jorsalle the Hillary Bridge crosses high above the confluence, and the trail then climbs 600 m to Namche.

Arriving in Namche Bazaar (3,440 m), the enormous fluted wall to the east is Thamserku. It is the view from every lodge window in town, and studying it from here for two days is a useful part of the expedition. Around 6 hours. Overnight at Namche.

Climb high, sleep low. The morning goes up to the Everest View Hotel (3,880 m) and across to Khumjung and Khunde beneath Khumbi Yul Lha.

The height gained also gives the best reconnaissance of the trip. From the ridge the flutings are visible in detail through binoculars, and your leader spends time here reading their condition — how much snow is sitting on them, how well it looks bonded, and where the cornices are.

The afternoon is free. Your leader takes the first saturation readings tonight. Around 4 hours. Overnight at Namche.

East out of Namche on the Tengboche balcony trail as far as Kyangjuma, and then off it entirely, climbing south into the side valley below the massif.

The path is a yak track that fades quickly into open hillside and moraine, steep and trackless in places, with the wall rising directly overhead.

Camp goes up at around 4,200 m. From here the group is self-contained — tents, cook crew and every kilo of rope and hardware carried in. Around 5 hours. Overnight at the approach camp.

A short day onto the moraine below the glacier, gaining 400 m on boulder ground with the cirque closing in on three sides.

Thamserku Base Camp (4,600 m) is established properly today — mess, kitchen, storage and toilet tents alongside the sleeping tents — because it is home for the next twelve days.

The afternoon is spent reading the route from underneath, which always looks different from the reconnaissance at Namche. Your leader and the Sherpa team agree the line for the approach face and Camp 1. Around 3 to 4 hours. Overnight at base camp.

The day that determines the team. On steep ice near camp each climber is put through two-tool movement, screw placement on vertical ground, jumaring on a loaded line over an edge, and abseiling from a hanging stance.

Your leader is looking at speed and economy, not maximum grade. On flutings where the snow may be marginal, the climber who moves smoothly and places gear quickly is safe and the climber who is strong but slow is not.

Anyone the leader is not satisfied with is told today and does not go above Camp 1. Meanwhile the Sherpas start fixing the approach face. Overnight at base camp.

An easier day, split between acclimatisation and work. In the morning the team walks up the moraine to around 5,000 m and back, gaining and losing height on ground that asks nothing technical.

In the afternoon climbers carry a personal load part-way up the fixed approach face and cache it — useful acclimatisation, useful practice on the rope, and it lightens tomorrow.

The Sherpas continue fixing above. Your leader reviews the satellite forecast in the evening and confirms the rotation plan. Overnight at base camp.

The first serious climbing day. The approach face is fixed and steep, and it takes six to seven hours on the ropes with a personal load — glacier, then snow and ice at increasing angle.

Camp 1 (5,600 m) sits on cut platforms at the top of it, small and exposed, with the flutings rising directly above and the whole Dudh Koshi valley below.

The night here is the point. It also gives your leader a proper look at how each climber performs on the actual medium — steep fixed ice at altitude — before the team commits any higher. Overnight at Camp 1.

Down the fixed ropes by abseil in three to four hours, off the face before the sun has been on it long.

Descending to recover is deliberate: adaptation from last night's altitude consolidates far better at 4,600 m than it would higher, and a team that rests properly now is a faster team on the flutings later.

The Sherpas spend the day carrying loads and fixing into the flutings toward High Camp. Overnight at base camp.

A genuine rest day, worked at rather than enjoyed. Eating properly, four litres of fluid, an afternoon asleep, and keeping the legs still are all part of arriving at High Camp with reserves intact.

There is also equipment work: tools sharpened, crampons checked, screws sorted, and harnesses inspected for wear after the rotation.

The Sherpa team is on the face above, extending the fixed line into the flutings. Their reports on the snow quality up there are the most important information the expedition receives. Overnight at base camp.

The last day before the push, spent on the plan rather than on the hill. Personal kit is split into what goes up and what stays, rope pairs are fixed, radios are tested, and your leader briefs the three-day sequence stage by stage with timings.

The Sherpas return from the flutings in the afternoon with the report that matters: how the snow is taking gear, where the cornices sit, and whether the upper face is climbable at all.

The satellite forecast arrives in the evening, and the go or no-go decision is taken on the two together. If the answer is no, the reserve days at the end of the itinerary are what the expedition falls back on. Overnight at base camp.

The summit push begins. The same fixed approach face as the rotation, and it goes noticeably faster the second time — five hours rather than six or seven, on ropes that are now familiar.

That improvement is the return on the rotation and the two rest days, and it is worth registering as it happens.

Camp 1 (5,600 m) is reoccupied in the early afternoon. An easy evening, as much fluid as anyone can manage, and an early night. Overnight at Camp 1.

The day the route becomes what it is known for. Above Camp 1 the face steepens into the flutings — snow and ice at 55 to 70 degrees with short steeper steps, climbed on fixed line with two tools for five to seven hours.

Snow quality is the whole story here. Where it is firm the climbing is superb; where it is sugary it takes neither tools nor screws well, and progress slows to something careful and unglamorous.

High Camp (6,100 m) is whatever platform the Sherpas have been able to cut. It is small, steep-sided and comfortless. Dinner is minimal, kit is laid out, and your leader gives a hard turnaround time for the morning. Overnight at High Camp.

Moving by midnight, because the upper snow has to be climbed and descended while it is frozen. The route continues up the flutings on fixed line, steeper again above High Camp, in the coldest hours of the night.

Above them the corniced summit ridge begins — heavily corniced on the Namche side, narrow, and climbed one at a time on rope, with the Sherpas probing the crest ahead. It is the section that most often stops parties, and it is not hurried.

The summit (6,623 m) looks north across to Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse, east to Makalu, and straight down onto Namche Bazaar and the trail where several hundred people are, at that moment, taking a photograph of the mountain you are standing on.

The descent is a long sequence of abseils down the flutings, and it is the most demanding part of the expedition for a tired team. Fourteen to eighteen hours round trip. Overnight at High Camp.

Camp comes down and the whole route is abseiled — the flutings, Camp 1, and the approach face — with the fixed rope stripped as the team descends.

Stripping is slow and it is not optional. Rope left on a face like this becomes a hazard for the next party and a permanent piece of litter on the mountain, and clearing it properly costs the team several hours.

Base camp (4,600 m) in the afternoon, with thick air, a hot meal, a wash and the first unbroken sleep in four days. Seven to nine hours. Overnight at base camp.

The first of two reserve days, and on this expedition they are part of the plan rather than an afterthought. Thamserku is condition-dependent to an unusual degree, and a face that is unclimbable on Tuesday can be excellent on Thursday.

If the summit was missed, this day and the next are the second attempt: back to Camp 1 today, High Camp tomorrow. Your leader weighs the team's remaining reserves as heavily as the forecast, because a second push on a TD- route needs a team that is genuinely recovered.

If the summit went to plan, this is rest — eating, sleeping and letting the accumulated fatigue of two weeks at altitude drain away. Overnight at base camp.

The second reserve day, held for the same reasons and used in the same way. Two of them exist because one is often not enough on a peak with this narrow a window.

If a second summit push is underway, the team is at High Camp tonight rather than here. If the mountain has been climbed, or if the leader has judged the face unclimbable for the season, the day is spent breaking down base camp and loading the yaks.

Either way it is the last night in the cirque. Whatever the outcome, the team has spent twelve days under one of the least-visited faces in the Khumbu, which is not a small thing in itself. Overnight at base camp.

Base camp goes onto the yaks and the team walks out — down the moraine, across the open hillside and back onto the Tengboche balcony trail at Kyangjuma.

From there it is an easy contour west to Namche, and the whole way you are walking away from a mountain you have just spent two weeks underneath and, with luck, on top of.

Namche Bazaar (3,440 m) in the afternoon means hot water, a bakery, a beer, and the peculiar experience of sitting in a lodge window looking straight at your own route. Around 6 to 7 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), always longer than it looks on the last day.

The evening is the end-of-expedition dinner with the leader, the climbing Sherpas, the cook crew and the porters, and the point at which the summit bonus and tips are given. This crew fixed and stripped a TD- face; the thanks should be specific. Around 6 to 7 hours. Overnight at Lukla.

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

Delays are routine rather than exceptional and can run to a full day, 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 certificate is 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 — 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 — and if the face was not in condition this season, we would be glad to have you back for it next year.