Day by Day
Days 1 to 2 Kathmandu Sacred Sites and the Briefing
Arrive at Tribhuvan International Airport and transfer to your hotel with a traditional Sherpa welcome. Two days in the Kathmandu Valley. Swayambhunath on its hilltop with the painted eyes of the Buddha watching over the city. Pashupatinath on the Bagmati River, where the cremation ghats have operated continuously for centuries. Boudhanath, the great stupa at the center of the Tibetan Buddhist community in Nepal. The pre-expedition briefing covers the route, altitude progression, gear requirements, and the acclimatization protocol for the high passes. This is a serious expedition and the briefing reflects that.
Stay: Kathmandu Hotel
Day 3 Kathmandu to Tumlingtar The Flight East
The flight from Kathmandu to Tumlingtar is one of the finest mountain flights in Nepal, tracking east along the Himalayan range with the Khumbu peaks visible to the north and, on clear days, the distinctive pyramidal summit of Makalu rising above the surrounding ridges well before the aircraft begins its descent. The airfield at Tumlingtar sits in a subtropical valley at roughly 500 meters elevation, warm and lush and completely unlike the high terrain that follows. Begin the first day of trekking from the airstrip, moving through the green hills toward the first camp.
Stay: Professional Tented Camp
Days 4 to 8 Mane Bhanjyang to Tashi Gaun The Arun Gorge
The approach through the Arun Valley is one of the most ecologically varied sections of any major trek in Nepal, dropping from subtropical ridge forest to a river gorge that descends below 700 meters before climbing back to the high country. The Newari market town of Khandbari is the last significant settlement of the lower approach, a busy bazaar serving the farming communities of the eastern hills. The ridge paths above the town offer views of fold after fold of forested ridgelines receding into the eastern haze, a landscape that looks nothing like the high Himalaya and everything like the world that exists below it.
The descent to the Arun River is steep through dense deciduous forest, the trail dropping through oak and rhododendron to the river at 690 meters where the gorge walls close in and the sound of the water fills the valley. The Arun here is one of the most powerful rivers in Nepal: enormous, cold, and running fast from its source in Tibet through the deepest gorge in the country. The climb from the river back to the high country passes through banana groves and terraced fields before arriving at Tashi Gaun, the Lucky Village, at roughly 2,050 meters. This is the last permanent settlement on the route. Above here, the landscape belongs to yak herders and expeditions.
The transition to Buddhist culture is visible in the approach to Tashi Gaun: mani walls carved with the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum appear beside the trail, prayer flags stretch between trees on the ridgelines above, and the architectural style of the houses shifts from the tiled roofs of the Hindu lower hills to the flat-topped stone construction of the Buddhist high country. The cultural shift is gradual and real.
Stay: Professional Tented Camp
Days 9 to 13 Shipton La to Shershong Into the Barun Valley
The Shipton La at approximately 4,230 meters is named for Eric Shipton, the British mountaineer and explorer who surveyed this section of the eastern Himalaya in the 1950s and whose expeditions provided the first detailed maps of the Makalu-Barun region. The climb to the pass through cloud forest, where the rhododendrons are enormous and the branches are draped in old-man's-beard lichen, is one of the finest forest sections of the entire route. The pass itself opens onto a view of the Barun Valley below and the first clear sightlines to Makalu's east ridge.
The descent from the Shipton La into the Barun Valley crosses the Keke La at 4,230 meters and the Tutu La at 4,185 meters in quick succession, each pass offering a different angle on the enclosing ranges. The Barun Valley floor is reached in the afternoon of the second day on this section, and from the valley the scale of what surrounds it becomes apparent: walls of ice and rock on every side, waterfalls dropping hundreds of meters from the cliff faces above, the Barun Khola running cold and clear through an alpine meadow that sees almost no human traffic outside of expedition season.
The high camp at Shershong sits in the upper Barun on a grassy plateau above the last treeline, with the north wall of Makalu's east ridge rising directly ahead at sunset. The mountain at this distance is already enormous. The light on the upper face in the last hour before dark is the kind of sight that experienced Himalayan trekkers describe as the best camp they have ever stayed in.
Stay: Professional Tented Camp
Days 14 to 15 Makalu Base Camp The Throne Room
Makalu Base Camp at 4,705 meters. The mountain from this position occupies a different category from any other Himalayan view available on a trekking route. At 8,475 meters Makalu is the world's fifth-highest peak, and its four ridges converge at the summit in a shape that is closer to geometric perfection than any other mountain of this size: a pyramid so clean and so steep that no two faces look alike and every angle reveals a different set of technical challenges. Mountaineers who have seen all fourteen 8,000-meter peaks consistently rank Makalu among the most impressive from base camp. The base camp itself sits in a broad glacial bowl with the mountain filling the entire northern view.
The hike to the plateau above base camp on the second day extends the panorama west. The Kangshung Face of Everest appears above the intervening ridges: the mountain's eastern side, a near-vertical wall of ice and rock roughly 3,000 meters from base to summit, the least visited face of the highest mountain on earth. It is visible from very few accessible points and this plateau is one of them. The view from here takes in Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, and the encircling peaks of the Barun all at once. There is no comparable 360-degree panorama of the high eastern Himalaya accessible without technical climbing.
Stay: Professional Tented Camp
Days 16 to 19 The Homeward Passes Barun to Arun
The return crosses the Tutu La, Keke La, and Shipton La in reverse, with the sunset camp on the pass itself on the final high night. The Shipton La at sunset, with the Barun Valley below to the east and the descending ridges of the Arun basin to the west, is one of the finer camp positions on the entire route. The descent through the cloud forest the following morning, with the expedition behind you and Tashi Gaun ahead, has a specific quality that every long trek produces on the homeward section: the landscape is familiar now but the way you move through it is different.
Stay: Professional Tented Camp
Days 20 to 22 Return to Kathmandu
Complete the descent through the Arun Valley to Tumlingtar and the morning flight back to Kathmandu. The return flight tracks the same Himalayan profile as the outbound, with Makalu recognizable now from the aircraft window in a way it was not three weeks ago. Final day in Kathmandu: rest, Thamel, the last walk through the market. International departure on Day 22 or the following morning depending on your outbound connection.
Stay: Kathmandu Hotel then International Departure
