Day by Day
Days 1 to 3 Kathmandu Cultural Foundation
Arrive at Tribhuvan International Airport and transfer to the luxury boutique hotel with a traditional Sherpa welcome ceremony. The first evening is for rest and the expedition briefing: the full twenty-four day itinerary, the altitude profile from Charikot to the Tashi Lapcha and Pachermo summit, the technical gear requirements, the acclimatization strategy, and the practical arrangements for permits, transport, and logistics.
Day 2 covers the Buddhist sites of the valley. Swayambhunath, the self-existent stupa on the hilltop above the western edge of the city, has been a centre of Buddhist practice for over two thousand years: the approach up the eastern staircase, the prayer wheels and stone carvings worn smooth from centuries of contact, and the view across the valley from the summit are the first encounter with the Himalayan Buddhist world that the expedition will enter in full above Bedding. Patan Durbar Square in the afternoon is the finest of the three medieval royal courts for the concentration and quality of its temple architecture. The optional Everest Mountain Flight on the morning of Day 2 follows the Himalayan chain east from Kathmandu at sunrise in a small aircraft, the peaks from Everest to Kanchenjunga visible through the cabin windows in a forty-minute aerial traverse.
Day 3 covers the Hindu sacred sites and Bhaktapur. Pashupatinath on the Bagmati river is the most sacred Hindu site in Nepal and one of the most significant Shiva temples in the world: the cremation ghats, the sadhus in their ochre robes, and the continuous religious activity of the site are visible from the eastern bank and are not staged for tourists. Bhaktapur, the most intact of the three medieval Newari cities, provides the Golden Gate at the entrance to the Palace of Fifty-Five Windows, the most celebrated single example of gilt repousse metalwork in Nepal, and the Fifty-Five Windowed Palace facade behind it. The lanes within the old town are car-free and the Newari architecture is preserved in a concentration found nowhere else in the valley. The final evening in Kathmandu before the drive to Charikot.
Stay: Luxury Boutique Hotel in Kathmandu
Days 4 to 7 Charikot to Bedding Into the Rolwaling
The drive from Kathmandu to Charikot on the Lamosangu-Jiri Highway takes five to six hours through the middle hills of the Dolakha district. Charikot at 1,980 metres is the last town with road access before the Rolwaling trail begins: the market town has lodges, provisions, and the logistical infrastructure of a regional centre. The trail from Charikot descends to the Tama Koshi river and then climbs steeply through the Tamang villages of the lower Rolwaling approach, communities whose culture and religious tradition is distinct from both the Sherpa settlements above and the Newari cities of the valley below. The prayer flags, the carved mani stones, and the whitewashed gompas of the Tamang trail are the first markers of the Tibetan Buddhist world that increases in density the higher the expedition climbs.
The rhododendron forest above the lower villages blooms spectacularly in the spring months and is dense and mossy through the rest of the year. The trail through this section follows the Rolwaling Khola upstream, the river audible below through the forest canopy and crossing it on successive suspension bridges at the valley floor. The Tamang villages along the approach, with their stone houses, their weaving traditions, and their gompas whose interior murals follow the Tibetan iconographic programme, provide a cultural depth to the approach that the higher terrain does not offer in the same form. Gauri Shankar at 7,145 metres becomes progressively more visible as the trail gains altitude: the mountain was considered among the most sacred in the Himalaya by the Sherpa and Tamang communities below it, and the profile of its twin summits above the valley, seen at close range from a trail that very few trekkers use, is one of the most memorable mountain views in Nepal.
Stay: Best Available Tea Houses and Lodges en Route
Days 8 to 10 Bedding and Na Rolwaling Acclimatization
Bedding at 3,695 metres is the main permanent Sherpa settlement in the Rolwaling, a community of stone houses and a gompa whose isolation from the road network has preserved its character in a way that the more accessible Sherpa villages of the Khumbu cannot claim. The expedition’s acclimatization rest day at Bedding is physiologically essential: the altitude gain from Charikot has been significant, and the days above Bedding will add further altitude rapidly. The acclimatization walk above the village to the summer pastures at 4,200 metres or above provides the high-day low-night stimulus that the body requires without the stress of a night at the higher point.
Na at 4,100 metres, a short distance above Bedding, is the highest permanent settlement in the Rolwaling and the last inhabited point before the trail enters the purely alpine terrain of the upper valley. The community maintains the high pastures above for summer grazing, and the yak herders visible here in the summer months are the same community whose ancestors established the trade route over the Tashi Lapcha between the Rolwaling and the Khumbu that the expedition will follow. The view of the Rolwaling Himal from Na, with Chamlang, Ramdung, and the glaciated peaks above the upper valley visible from the village, is the first encounter with the terrain the expedition will be moving through in the days above.
Stay: Best Available Lodges in Bedding and Na
Days 11 to 13 Tsho Rolpa and the Trakarding Glacier The Glacial World
The trail from Na follows the Rolwaling Khola upstream to the terminal moraine of the Trakarding Glacier and then to the glacial lake of Tsho Rolpa at 4,580 metres. Tsho Rolpa is one of the most significant glacial lakes in Nepal, both for its visual quality and for its scientific context: the lake has grown substantially as the Trakarding Glacier retreats, and the moraine dam at its lower end has been the subject of engineering work to reduce the risk of a glacial lake outburst flood. The turquoise water held against the moraine, with the peaks of the Rolwaling Himal reflected on its surface, is one of the finest glacial lake views in the country.
The approach to the Tashi Lapcha from Tsho Rolpa crosses the Trakarding Glacier, a journey through a landscape of ice pinnacles, seracs, crevasse fields, and moraine debris that is unlike any terrain on the standard trekking routes. The glacier is in active retreat and its surface is a complex of melting ice forms and rubble that requires careful route-finding and the technical equipment carried from Kathmandu. The high camp on the glacier below the Tashi Lapcha is established at approximately 5,200 metres: the tented camp at this altitude, in the silence of the high glacier with the peaks of the Rolwaling Himal above, is one of the expedition’s most distinctive overnight experiences. The final approach to the pass from this camp is an alpine start.
Stay: Professional Tented Camp
Days 14 to 16 Tashi Lapcha Pass and High Camp The Technical Crossing
The Tashi Lapcha Pass at 5,755 metres is the high point of the expedition and the geographical gateway between the Rolwaling and the Khumbu. The final approach from the glacier camp involves an alpine start in the early morning hours, the headlamps of the team visible on the glacier in the dark below the stars and the peaks. The fixed-rope section on the steep snow and ice below the pass is the most technically demanding terrain of the crossing, requiring crampon and ice axe technique and careful movement on the rope. The view from the pass, when reached, is one of the most complete in the Himalaya: the Rolwaling valley stretching west below, the Khumbu opening east, and the great peaks of both ranges visible simultaneously.
The descent from the pass into the Khumbu is steep and involves downclimbing on fixed ropes before the angle eases to the meadows of Teng below. The contrast between the two sides of the Tashi Lapcha is immediate and dramatic: the Rolwaling side is remote, glaciated, and rarely visited; the Khumbu side is the valley system that has produced the most famous trekking route in the world. The high camp for Pachermo at 5,550 metres is established on the Khumbu side above the pass, on the moraine below the north-west ridge of the peak. The afternoon at high camp covers the final technical briefing for the summit push: the route, the timing, the conditions to expect, and the contingency decisions.
Stay: Professional High-Altitude Tented Camp
Day 17 Pachermo Peak 6,145m The Summit
Summit day begins at 3am. The glacier approach from high camp in the first hours is by headlamp, the terrain in darkness, the stars above, the headlamps of the team the only light on the mountain below the pale glow of the peaks in the dark sky. The north-west ridge route from the glacier to the summit at 6,145 metres follows mixed terrain on snow, ice, and rock, the ridge well-defined and the route marked by the passage of previous expeditions. The upper section of the ridge, where the exposure on both sides is significant, requires careful crampon work and a steady pace. The summit arrives after the patience and the cold and the altitude, and delivers a view that the twenty-four days of approach have earned: Everest and Lhotse to the east, Cho Oyu and Gyachung Kang to the north, Menlungtse and Gauri Shankar above the Rolwaling behind, and the full arc of the Khumbu Himal to the south.
The descent from the summit returns to high camp by mid-afternoon, the standard ten to twelve hours of total climbing for summit day on Pachermo. The descent from high camp to the Thame valley completes the transition from the expedition’s technical section to the descent through the Sherpa heartland below.
Stay: Professional High-Altitude Tented Camp then Lodges
Days 18 to 21 Thame and Namche Bazaar The Khumbu Descent
The descent from the Pachermo high camp into the Khumbu follows the valley to Thame at 3,820 metres, a village whose significance in the history of Himalayan mountaineering is disproportionate to its size. Tenzing Norgay, who made the first ascent of Everest with Edmund Hillary in 1953, grew up in Thame. Apa Sherpa, who holds the record for the greatest number of Everest summits at twenty-one, was born here. The community that has produced these figures, and the dozens of other Sherpas who have made significant first ascents and high-altitude achievements, is visible in the village: the houses, the tea houses, and the monastery above.
The Nyingmapa monastery of Thame, founded in the sixteenth century and built into the cliff above the village, is one of the oldest in the Khumbu and the active centre of the community’s religious life. The view from the monastery over the Bhote Kosi valley and the peaks above it is the view that the community has lived within for centuries. The trail from Thame to Namche Bazaar follows the Bhote Kosi downstream through the gorge, the valley widening as it descends, the familiar landscape of the Khumbu’s lower reaches appearing in contrast to the remote terrain of the Rolwaling above. Namche at 3,440 metres, with its market, its bakeries, and its gear shops, provides the final town experience before the trail to Lukla.
Stay: Best Available Mountain Lodges
Days 22 to 24 Lukla to Kathmandu The Return and Farewell
The trail from Namche to Lukla follows the Dudh Kosi downstream through the gorge, the suspension bridges and the porter traffic of the world’s most famous trekking route visible in their familiar sequence on the way back to the airstrip. The final night in Lukla before the Kathmandu flight is the expedition’s penultimate celebration: the tea houses on the main street, the Sherpa team gathered, the acknowledgement of what has been accomplished in the twenty-four days above. The flight from Lukla to Kathmandu returns the group to the capital in forty minutes.
The farewell dinner in Kathmandu on the final evening, with traditional Nepali food and the folk dance programme at one of the cultural restaurants of the old city, closes the expedition with the appropriate ceremony. The Sherpa guides, the climbing staff, the high-altitude porters, and the expedition cook and crew who have supported every member of the team through twenty-four days in the Rolwaling and the Khumbu are the people most responsible for what was achieved. The farewell dinner is the right occasion to recognise that. Departure from Tribhuvan International Airport on Day 24 completes the journey.
Stay: Luxury Boutique Hotel in Kathmandu
