Home/The Twelve Steps/Step 06

A lone climber standing on a wide snow summit ridge at dawn, tiny against a horizon of 8,000-metre Himalayan peaks.

Mera Peak

Look at what you have already done

Country
NepalHinku Valley, Nepal
Duration
18–21 daysSeason Three
Grade
Technical 3CGet High scale
Max altitude
6,476 m21,247 ft
Daily activity
Approx 6–8 hours, 12 on summit day
Season
Oct–Nov, Apr–May
Skill required
Glacier travel, roped team
Months on the plan
Two monthsof 24 planned

Step 06Mera Peak6,476 m / 21,247 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 6, Mera Peak, 6,476 m / 21,247 ft.

This is the first day of your life where the evidence is on your side and there is no arguing with it.

What you are walking into

Nepal's highest trekking peak, in a valley remote enough that there is no comfortable way out of it. You cross the Zatrwa La to get in, and after that the Hinku has almost no infrastructure and no quick exit — which means that for three weeks, nobody is coming to sort anything out on your behalf.

The climbing is a long glacier plod with one short steep step below the summit. The payment is what you can see from it at first light, from under seven thousand metres: the entire back half of this list laid out in one line in front of you.

What it takes out of you

Everybody told you what you had thrown away. Nobody ever showed you the other column. This is the other column: six steps, and five of the world's highest mountains in your eyeline — every one of them now reachable from where you are standing.

Write the list here. The people, the years, the things you will have to go back and put right. You are not yet strong enough to do any of it. Willingness comes first; capability is the next six steps.

The logistics

Duration
18–21 days
Skill required
Glacier travel, roped team
Season
Oct–Nov, 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: Khare at 4,985 m to Mera North summit at 6,476 m, 1,491 metres of verticalA vertical elevation chart with no horizontal axis. The scale runs from 4,500 m at the foot to 7,000 m at the top. Khare is marked at 4,985 m and Mera North summit at 6,476 m, a difference of 1,491 metres. Between them, by elevation: High Camp at 5,800 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 Khare to Mera North 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%: Khare 55%; High Camp 50%; Mera North summit 46%. The bars shorten as the elevation rises.
Base camp
Khare, 4,985 msource
Summit
Mera North summit, 6,476 msource
Vertical, base camp to summit
1,491 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: High Camp 5,800 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.

Mera has three summits: Mera North 6,476 m, Mera Central 6,461 m and Mera South 6,065 m. 6,476 m is Mera North. No source we found states which summit a commercial ascent tops out on, so that is not claimed here. The 6,654 m figure on the official trekking-peak list is a known error — it belongs to Peak 41. Operators also disagree on what “base camp” means: Khare at 4,985–5,000 m, or a higher camp at 5,350 m.

The highest camp is High Camp, 5,800 m, where the air is 50% of what it is at sea level. The tent was carried up there. The air was not.

The part we will not lie about

The Hinku is remote enough that evacuation is slow and entirely weather-dependent. This is the first step where genuine self-sufficiency matters more than being fast, and where a helicopter is a hope rather than a plan.

A long shadow thrown across untouched summit snow with boots and a coiled rope at the bottom of the frame, distant peaks on the horizon.
The only picture of you up here is the one the sun takes.

Who you do it with

Long, cold and unphotogenic. Nothing about this one flatters you, which makes it the first honest reading of whether you are doing this or being carried up it.

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 white helicopter flying beneath a flat ceiling of cloud between dark forested valley walls.
Under the cloud base, in a valley with a lid on it.
An empty glaciated snow ridge with a curling cornice, above a sea of valley cloud at dawn.
Frost-rimed mountaineering boots with yellow gaiters standing in packed snow outside a tent door.

All twelve steps

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