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A figure in a faded orange jacket standing in a mess tent doorway at base camp in bad weather, both hands round a mug.

Himlung Himal

Tell the truth about your own condition

Country
NepalPeri Himal, Manaslu region, Nepal
Duration
28–32 daysSeason Four
Grade
Serious 4BGet High scale
Max altitude
7,126 m23,379 ft
Daily activity
Approx 6–10 hours, 14 on summit day
Season
Sep–Oct, Apr–May
Skill required
Expedition rotations at altitude
Months on the plan
Two monthsof 24 planned

Step 08Himlung Himal7,126 m / 23,379 ft

Altitude profile: 12 steps, 1,400 m to 8,849 m at Mount EverestA line chart of every step in order. Step 1, 12 Days of Silence, is the lowest at 1,400 m / 4,593 ft, Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Every step is higher than the one before it, up to step 12, Mount Everest, 8,849 m / 29,032 ft. Everything above 8,000 m is the death zone, marked in red: step 11, Cho Oyu; step 12, Mount Everest. Each point is a link to that step. You are on step 8, Himlung Himal, 7,126 m / 23,379 ft.

Summit fever is not courage. It is a man declining to give an accurate account of his own condition, which is a habit you have had for a very long time.

What you are walking into

Himlung sits north of Manaslu near the Tibetan border, reached through the Nar Phu valleys and some of the least-visited villages in the country. The route is a moderate glaciated line with three camps — exactly what a first 7,000er ought to be.

What is new is the duration. Up to Camp 2, back down, three days of nothing at all, up again. The mountain is climbed by whichever version of you can run that cycle for a month without losing patience or condition.

What it takes out of you

Every expedition doctor runs the same checks: pulse, saturation, appetite, sleep, cough, honesty. Only the last one cannot be measured and it is the one that kills people.

You will want to under-report a headache because you have come a long way and it is expensive and you have told everyone you are doing this. That instinct — hide the symptom, protect the story — is the exact instinct that put you in a clinic. Here it has a body count.

The logistics

Duration
28–32 days
Skill required
Expedition rotations at altitude
Season
Sep–Oct, Apr–May

The climb profile

Left, elevation only: no horizontal axis, so its width means nothing. Right, air: bar length is the one thing here that does.

Climb profile: Base Camp at 4,800 m to Summit at 7,126 m, 2,326 metres of verticalA vertical elevation chart with no horizontal axis. The scale runs from 4,500 m at the foot to 7,500 m at the top. Base Camp is marked at 4,800 m and Summit at 7,126 m, a difference of 2,326 metres. Between them, by elevation: Camp 1 at 5,400 m; Camp 2 at 6,000 m; Camp 3 at 6,300 m. Each is drawn as a rule straight across the chart, because where it sits along the route is not sourced. The elevation part of the chart has no horizontal axis because the horizontal distance from Base Camp to Summit is not published by any source we could find. Its width carries no meaning. Cumulative ascent over the route is not sourced and is not shown. To the right, a bar hangs off each of those elevations and its length is that altitude's share of the air at sea level, which a dashed bar across the full track marks as 100%: Base Camp 57%; Camp 1 53%; Camp 2 49%; Camp 3 47%; Summit 42%. The bars shorten as the elevation rises.
Base camp
Base Camp, 4,800 msource
Summit
Summit, 7,126 msource
Vertical, base camp to summit
2,326 mthe difference of the two elevations above, nothing more
Horizontal distance
Not yet sourcedNo operator route description, alpine club record or mountaineering reference we could find states it for this route. It is not estimated here.
Cumulative ascent
Not yet sourcedThe up-and-down of the whole route, which is more than the vertical above. Nobody publishes it for any of the twelve.

Camps, by elevation: Camp 1 5,400 m source · Camp 2 6,000 m source · Camp 3 6,300 m source. Where each one sits along the route is not sourced, so each is drawn as a rule across the chart rather than placed on it.

The 7,140 m figure that circulates for Himlung is not a rival survey of this mountain — it belongs to Nemjung, about 4 km north, after the Nepalese government moved the traditional name. 7,126 m is correct. Base camp is quoted at 4,800 m and 4,842 m; camps 1 and 3 vary by 50 m between operators.

The highest camp is Camp 3, 6,300 m, where the air is 47% of what it is at sea level. The tent was carried up there. The air was not.

The part we will not lie about

At 7,000 m your judgement degrades before you can notice it degrading. That is physiology rather than character, and the only real defence is a team with standing permission to overrule you and the willingness to use it.

The fur-trimmed edge of a hood framing the view, gloved hands on trekking poles, a tent and a guy-line dim in grey cloud.
Seven thousand metres of nothing to look at.

Who you do it with

Seven thousand metres, remote, and dull. The novelty has gone and the summit is still four steps away. This is the month people quit — not on a mountain, in an airport, with a good reason.

What the word means, and where it came from

$2,400,000 at the plan's pace — $100,000 a month, charged monthly, for as long as it takes. All twelve steps. One client at a time.

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A small white helicopter standing far off on a bare brown high-desert plateau below a single white glaciated peak.
The rain shadow behind the main range: brown ground, white peak, and the machine nearly lost in it.
An empty high-altitude expedition base camp on grey glacial moraine, the ridges behind swallowed by cloud.
A gloved hand straining at a tent zip frozen solid with rime ice.

All twelve steps

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