Mera Peak 6476 meters/ 21,247′
Total Time: 11 days
Distance: 92.7 km/ 57.6 miles
Elevation Gain: 9510 meters/ 31,200′
Crux: F
Trailhead: Lukla, full services
Companions: Pasang Sherpa, Chhiri Sherpa, Blake Turner, Chhongba Sherpa
Every great story about hiking and climbing in the Everest region starts with the flight in to Lukla. For the past 20 years, it’s been known as the most dangerous airport in the world, and for good reason. Situated at 2800 meters, the runway is only 527 meters long and on a steep slope. This allows the Dornier 228 and Twin Otter aircraft that fly into Lukla to brake even faster before crashing into the cliff side, or for planes taking off, a means to get extra speed before dropping off the cliff into the valley below. In the past few decades, the airport seems to average a crash about every other year. The most recent was in May of 2017, when a small plane carrying only cargo came up short on the landing, clipping a tree on the slope below the runway and crashing, killing two of the three crew on board. Regardless of the difficult flying conditions in Lukla, the air safety record of the various airlines based in Nepal was appalling. In fact, the EU has banned all Nepal based airlines from flying in European airspace, restricting them to Asia. So in the months leading up to my climb of Mera, it wasn’t crevasse danger, frostbite or altitude sickness that kept me up at night, but the short 45 minute flight into Lukla that had me staring at the ceiling at one in the morning. Don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with small aircraft and have flown in four-seater prop planes and helicopters before. But Lukla is something different entirely.
I met my guide, Pasang Sherpa, when he picked me up in Kathmandu for our morning flight. He ushered me though the airport, forcing small talk with the person he would spend the next two weeks straight with. Given the number of accidents over the last few years, air traffic control has a low threshold for delaying or cancelling flights to and from Lukla, and we sat at the gates with dozens of others, the 7:30 departure on our ticket being more of a vague guideline than anything meaningful. The delay only fueled my anxiety about the upcoming flight, and after about an hour of delay, our flight number was called and we boarded an old bus to lead us to our small plane on the runway.
“Be sure to sit on the left side of the plane for a panoramic view of the Himalaya!” Pasang told me, as we unloaded off the bus towards the small Dornier-228 plane, seating roughly 10 people. There were at least 6 other planes of a similar size all headed to Lukla, likely taking advantage of a window of minimal clouds and good weather before things deteriorated in the afternoon. The engines revved when it was our turn to take off, the propellers starting one at a time before we quickly moved down the runway for takeoff. As we slowly left the ground, I spotted the wreckage of a similar sized aircraft just off the runway.
“This is supposed to be the safer airport,” I thought to myself as we rose above Kathmandu. But my fears subsided once we were airborne, and I indeed had the panoramic view of the great Himalaya that Pasang promised. I quickly recognized Lantang Peak and the Ganesh Himal from my excursion up Surya Peak, as well as Shishapangma to the east. Beyond that was a sea of white capped summits that I could only begin to guess. I had studied maps of the Everest region and figured I would spot Cho Oyo first, and could piece it together from there. The problem was, all the mountains were massive, beyond a scale I had ever seen, and figuring out which was 8000 meters was near impossible, at least for my first time. The plane kept low, shooting at most several hundred feet over ridgelines as we made our way to Lukla. As we crossed over the final gap before Lukla Valley, I could see to the northeast an unmistakeable black rock summit. I had seen enough pictures of Everest to recognize it from the air, the long black ridge of Nuptse extending to the west, and the summit of Lhotse to the southeast. I sat transfixed and in awe of the highest mountain on Earth when I was jolted back to reality by a lurch of the plane as we quickly dropped into clouds towards Lukla. I could see the town of Lukla as we came in fast and steep. With no handrest, I gripped the back of my seat pocket as the runway came up fast. The plane bobbled, one wheel touching, then all three, followed by a hard stop to prevent crashing into rock wall at the end of the runway. There was a collective sigh of relief from the passengers having survived the flight, the journey being old news to the crew and various guides on board. The checked luggage, basically all large backpacks, were simply piled behind the last row of seats, and airport crew piled aboard to unload them before we could deplane, throwing them on a cart that was sitting near the exit of the airport.
We found my pack wedged between two huge bags of garlic, and left the airport to meet my porter for the trip, Chhiri Sherpa. I had brought a second frame pack for him to be comfortable, as opposed to carrying a large duffel bag for two weeks.
“Is this pack okay?” I asked as we left the airport. He just gave a single nod in response. I wasn’t positive he actually understood, but I figured the pack would do, and contained pretty much only the gear I would need for the glacier: plastic boots, crampons and down mitts. Everything else: spare clothes, down jacket, hard shell, guide gloves, was in my pack. I was surprised by how touristy Lukla was, and we passed multiple shops hawking hats, patches and T-shirts for the Everest Base Camp treks. But despite the touristy strip, you knew you were in the Himalaya. Snow capped 6000 meter peaks towered over town to the west, and I could see my breath from the cold air as we hiked through town.
About halfway down the main street through Lukla, we stopped at the K2 lodge, curiously named for one of the few big summits NOT in the area. We sat down in the dining area and Pasang handed me a breakfast menu. Although I had eaten breakfast before leaving Kathmandu, it seemed I had expended a good amount of energy through my anxiety on the flight, and a second breakfast was called for. I ordered French toast and milk tea, and ate while staring at the enormous mountains out the window, in a bit of shock from the dramatic change from Kathmandu. It took a bit of time before we left, Chhiri reorganizing my pack to fit my glacier gear, some extra gear of Pasang’s, plus his own gear into the 65L Osprey pack. Perhaps a large duffel would have been easier after all….
When we were finally ready to go we headed back towards the airport through town where Pasang stopped into a permit office to show our permits for Mera Peak. I signed off on my permit (featuring my really horrible passport photo) before starting up the trail east behind town. The trail was in really great condition to start, wide enough for yaks to pass and virtually no rocks. Our goal for the night was a small tea house at 3500 meters, about 700 meters above Lukla. After taking a break near a small farm at the edge of town, we continued on, Chhiri now leading the way. We turned onto a rougher trail, Pasang having fallen back to take photos. When he caught up, he looked at the route disapprovingly.
“This is for the field people,” he said, trying to excuse the rougher route the Chhiri had taken us on. I certainly didn’t mind. Although a bit steeper and rockier, it was no worse than the majority of trails around Phoenix. We climbed on, the trail now a good deal steeper, and passed the first suspension bridge of the trip. While I had been envisioning bridges more like out of ‘Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom,’ this one was made of steel cables, four on each side, and seemed extremely sound.
“I thought these were usually covered in prayer flags, like for good luck or something,” I said, turning to Pasang.
“Ah, yes, not this one,” he responded. Obviously.
After crossing the anticlimactic bridge, the trail traversed into several more drainages, crossing small streams with more primitive plank bridges, usually three small logs with chopped wood or stones lying perpendicularly across. Up above, I could see a string of prayer flags extending from a tree high on the ridgeline.
“That is where we will spend the night,” said Pasang, pointing to the flags up above. It was closer than I had expected, and it looked like we would be done hiking for the day by 12:30- 1:00. Sure enough we rolled into the small town and checked into the small tea house named ‘Mera Lodge’ despite Mera Peak being in another valley to the east. This tea house no doubt catered exclusively to climbers heading to Mera Peak, off the normal path for Everest Base camp or any of the trekking routes traversing various passes. There were no other trekkers or climbers around as I sat down to order lunch, some beef mo mos (steamed dumplings) that were sadly served with ketchup instead of the usual chili sauce. They fired up a wood stove in the center of the room as the cold afternoon clouds moved in, and I changed into my warm and dry sleep clothes for the night.
I had brought Down Into the Great Unknown with me to read, the story of John Wesley Powell’s journey through the Grand Canyon, an interesting choice considering the daily cold. I started working through the first chapter while an old lady, one of the villagers, snored in a plastic chair across the stove from me. I quickly read the first three chapters, and worried that I had not brought enough reading material with me for this much down time. Then I heard a loud American voice from outside the tea house. A young guy walked into the tea house wearing only a cotton ‘Ama Dablam’ t-shirt as I sat there shivering in my down jacket near the fire.
“Hello,” I said, looking up from my book, making sure to also sound very American.
“Where in the US are you from?” he asked immediately. My plan to make a friend by just being American had worked.
We started talking, and he first sized me up by getting the low down on my climbing resume. His name was Blake, and he had just come off a successful attempt up Ama Dablam as well as an attempt on Kyajo Ri, with plans to end a long stint in Nepal by heading up Mera Peak.
“You can call me Tex though. Everyone on Ama Dablam called me Tex since I’m from Texas.” After giving him the highlights of my own climbing resume, we got to know eachother a bit more. He had quit in part due to an overbearing and zealous boss to pursue mountains in the Himalaya, and after Ama Dablam was planning to summit 3 different 8000 meter peaks in 2019- Cho Oyo, Broad Peak and Shishapangma. I wish I had the time off to be so ambitious!
“What do you want for dinner, Blackie?” his guide asked him, stepping into the dining area.
“Blackie?” I asked him, raising an eyebrow.
His guide, Chhongba, answered for him. “Yes, we called him Blackie because he wears all black.”
“I’ve told you, if you called me that in my country it would be really bad. It’s not a good thing to call people. You can call me Tex,” he responded, slightly annoyed.
“Okay, you got it Blackie.”
He ordered Dal Bhat, the traditional Nepali dish, while I had chow mein. We talked around the stove a bit more as the various porters and guides came in to warm themselves from the cold. It was only 7:00 when we finished dinner, but there wasn’t much more to do, so we all began to get ready for bed. The accommodations were thick single mattresses in a dirt floor room in what was essentially a long shed. I had low expectations and was told this would be the worst tea house of the entire trip. But a bed and roof over my head was still more luxurious than pitching a tent every night, and we settled into bed for the night, Pasang in the small bed next to me and Chhiri sleeping in another building with the rest of the porters.
I woke up early having gone to bed early, and went to the dining room to find the stove cold. I warmed up a bit with some milk tea but it was below freezing at even our first low elevation stop, my thermometer on my pack reading about -1C/ 30F. Today was going to be the first big day of hiking, climbing up and over Zartwa Pass at 4610 meters/ 15,120’ in order to drop into Hinku Valley. It is this rapid change in elevation that causes many people to fail early on this trip, particularly those living at sea level and trying to climb over 4600 meters in two days. In fact, many longer Mera trips go around this pass to the south, adding about 3 days of trekking but preventing most from getting altitude sickness early in the trip. But my time was limited, and I assumed that I was appropriately acclimated after my climb of Surya Peak at 5145 meters/ 16,879’. Still, with over 1000 meters/ ~3300’ of elevation gain, it would be a difficult day. After a yak cheese omelet for breakfast, we started up the steep trail.
The rhododendron forest was quickly replaced by moorland, moss hanging from the bare trees often stuck in cloud or fog. While the late morning/ early afternoon fog hadn’t moved in yet, we were still entirely in shade on the west side of the steep slope, keeping the temperatures below freezing. After a little over an hour, we reached a small town at 4000 meters/ ~13,120’, our first time crossing that threshold for the trip.
Most of the tea houses in the village were already closed for the season, with a single shop still open, and we stopped for a tea break. I would quickly learn that every village was a reason to stop for tea, the frequent breaks something I was quite unused to. I had already had a decent amount of tea in the morning before leaving, so I warmed up with some hot chocolate before we continued on. I could now see prayer flags at a notch high above, presumably the pass, and charged ahead up steep and rocky steps to the promise of sunshine and warmth on the other side of the ridgeline. We reached the ‘pass’ at 11:30 as clouds began to move in and overtake the villages we had just been in below. I had expected to see Mera Peak and other Himalayan giants at the pass, and was surprised to be looking out across mostly lower Himalayan foothills and Terai plains. Plus my GPS was about 100 meters short of the 4610 meter mark I was expecting. But the trail dropped steeply down from the notch and it seemed like the Zartwa Pass, so I was happy with our time.
We had a small snack of coconut cookies, yak cheese and juice boxes that they had packed from Kathmandu. They had even packed a glass for me to drink the juice from, and I was torn between taking it so Chhiri wouldn’t feel like he had carried it for nothing, versus not using it less they think I was high maintenance. I ultimately decided it would probably just result in a sticky glass rubbing against my sleeping bag and drank from the juice box like a normal person. After our short break, we descended about 100 feet from the notch then immediately started climbing again, the prayer flag adorned notch now clearly not the real pass. I lost the trail in a landslide but eventually was able to retrace it out, leading to an even high notch across a different ridgeline. This was the actual pass, explaining the discrepancy between my GPS elevation reading and the 4610 meters I was expecting. But it wasn’t too much more elevation gain and easy to manage after the long break, and we reached the true pass at 12:30. We were blasted by wind and did not linger long for pictures or a break until the wind speed eased.
A guide with two clients was headed in the other direction, and Pasang stopped him to talk. I heard them say ‘Mera’ rapid fire mixed in with Nepali words.
After a few minutes, he turned to me and said, “Mera Peak very bad now. Very high winds and cold, no one summiting.”
Before I could respond, he turned around with his two clients and continued up and over the pass out of sight. Of course this bad news made me a bit nervous, but I wasn’t projected to attempt to summit Mera Peak for another five days, plenty of time for the winds to change. From the pass the trail rather steeply descended a narrow ridgeline. Clouds had moved in on this side of the valley offering no views to the east, although I would find the next day there were still no big mountains in sight from within this side canyon. Our goal for the night was Thuli Kharka at 4300 meters/ ~14,100’, and the buildings of the town popped into view through the mist less than an hour from the pass.
We passed several small tea houses and went into the largest near the bottom of town. This one was a huge improvement from the tea house the night before, with the double rooms in the same building as the dining room, although with pit toilets still outside. The dining room was empty, but by the time I changed into my warm sleeping clothes both Tex and a team of two older South Korean women were milling around downstairs. Tex had a deck of cards with him, and we started playing card games in what would become our nightly ritual, killing time before dinner. We invited the guides and porters to play with us, but they seemed to prefer either watching or borrowing the deck to perform a magic trick or two before giving it back. It was unclear if they thought our card game was too close to gambling for them. Shortly before dinner, a large group from Ian Taylor Trekking came in, a mix of Americans and Europeans. None of them had summited Mera Peak, and they painted a rather grim picture. They said they were nearly blown off the mountain from the high winds, which they estimated to be at least 150 km/hr. The winds were so bad, that every single tent up at high camp was either blown off the mountain or tattered to shreds. They also said they had heard that of the people attempting the summit the day after them, and three suffered severe frostbite from the windchill, two of which were evacuated by helicopter. This made me far more nervous than the message from the lone guide earlier that day. Although there was still time for the weather to change, Pasang was only my trekking guide and I had a separate mountain guide for my days on the glacier. If this mountain guide’s high camp supplies had blown away, he might just write off the rest of the season and be unwilling to attempt the summit after a spell of such bad weather. This early in the trip, I was wondering if it was worth pushing on for another 10 days for what was already looking like a low chance of success.
After a dinner of fried macaroni and cheese and garlic soup, I headed to bed, unable to sleep from the worry of winds and cold ruining my chance of summitting.
I woke up early and willed myself to get out of my sleeping bag and into the cold. Despite the high elevation, we were above the morning clouds and the sun was shining on us with Thuli Kharka on an east facing slope. I could see huge rock spires on the ridgeline above that had been partially hidden in clouds that day before.
Our goal today was the town of Kote, which the Ian Taylor Trekking group had called ‘Paradise.’ The meant a descent from 4300 meters/ 14,100’ all the way down to 3600 meters/ ~11,800’ at the bottom of the Hinku Valley. Despite knowing full well all elevation lost would have to be regained for Mera Peak, the steep and fast descent for most of the way to Kote would make for an easier day. So imagine my surprise when we left Thuli Kharka and traversed a boulder field only to start ascending along the rock slope. It was by no means a steep ascent, but when you’re mentally prepared for downhill, an uphill climb at elevation seems annoying, The reason for our ascent was to traverse multiple sub-ridges falling off the main north-south ridge above. There was little thought to the ultimate destination in the trail design, and it seemed to aim for the most convenient notches along the sub ridges with little regard to how high above or below the destination it was. I passed the two older South Korean women in this stretch, one complaining she had a bad headache from the alititude. I would not see them in Kote that night. The trail undulated quite a bit before we reached one final notch covered in prayer flags, almost acting like finish lines flags for the real descent to actually begin. It was at this notch that I saw Mera Peak for the first time.
Its south and western faces were impressive, with large and fractured glacier spilling into Hinku Valley. It looked intimidating but doable, and I was excited to at least try for the summit. We didn’t get to enjoy Mera for long, as clouds moved in quickly as we descended back below treeline, quickly dropping below 4000 meters. We stopped at Mera View Lodge for an early lunch, ironically with no views of Mera thanks to the thick clouds. The clouds made it feel even colder, and I tried to warm up with ginger-lemon-honey tea and Sherpa Stew. While it helped a little, we eventually all migrated to the kitchen to try and keep warm over the only fire (stove) burning in the village. We continued on shortly after 11 AM and descended into a forest of small bamboo and thick moss over huge gnarled trees.
We could finally start to hear the roar of the Hinku River below, and I was very much enjoying the hike, although mentally dreading reascending the steep trail on the way out. We reached a closed up shack at 11:30 indicating we were entering Makalu-Barun National Park, the main checkpoint in Kote being the only one still open this late in the season. We took a short break here and spied a wild goat high on the ridgeline above. The clouds were actually beginning to lift, and we continued along the trail to the river in a mix of clouds and sun.
The trail hits the river downstream of Kote, and we now had to hike uphill to town. While this should have been an easy gentle ascent, the trail builders made no effort to stick to the river. We would quickly climb 100 meters straight up above the river only to drop back down immediately. It was exhausting and a bit unexpected, adding several hundred meters of elevation gain at the end of our hiking day. At last Kote came into sight, easily being the largest town we had been through so far with probably 8 tea houses. We settled into the last one ‘Sherpa Lodge,’ complete with a warm stove in the middle of the dining room and electric lighting in every bedroom.
Pasang asked if I was okay sleeping by myself that night since “Chhiri was feeling lonely,” which broke my heart. I was more than happy to have my own room for the night. After changing into my sleep clothes I headed to the dining room where Tex was treating himself to some birthday beers. I had promised myself no alcohol until after the summit attempt, but certainly helped myself to his birthday cake provided by the Sherpas.
A large British team arrived slightly before dinner. They too were unable to summit Mera due to the winds. In fact, they got up to high camp and found it ‘blown off the map,’ and simply returned to Khare without trying for the summit. More bad news. I used the mountain WiFi in Kote to look up the weather for Mera Peak. It was Monday, and it indeed looked like high winds the rest of the week until Friday, which would be the day we push for high camp. The weather improved Saturday and Sunday, which were my projected summit day and reserve day, respectively. I showed the data to Pasang, suggesting we shift the high camp day to Saturday and go for the summit on Sunday. He seemed unconcerned, and said we could recheck the weather in Khare, but that it could work. The real thing would be to convince the Mera mountain guide, which was still the big unknown. Everyone headed to bed early, and I used the lighting in my room to read a bit before heading to bed, sleeping excellent at the lower elevation after a long day of hiking.
Day four was projected to be one of the easiest days of hiking. We would be going from Kote to Thagnok at 4300 meters, basically fully regaining all the elevation lost since Thuli Kharka. On the map it looked close and like the trail gently followed the river. The key would be the amount of useless up and downs around boulders and trees. We had to wait for the National Park checkpoint to open to show them our climbing permits before continuing north out of town.
Although Kote was still in shade, we soon hit sun higher up in the valley and the temperature swung from 30F to 50F right at the sun/shade line. My fears about the useless up and down seemed to be unfounded, and the trail stuck to a ledge over the river the entire way. With the sun shining, it was the warmest day of hiking we had so far, and we stopped at an isolated tea house about 1.5 hours from Kote for milk tea.
By now my group and Tex’s group had essentially joined into one, the six of us leaving at the same time to enjoy one another’s company as we hiked. It was warm enough to be only in our long sleeved tea shirts, and we took a very long break enjoying the nice weather with 6000 meter peaks in view at the head of the valley. Mera Peak was now directly above us to the east, but the main summit was out of sight by smaller false summits covered in ice. At the head of the valley was Kyashar at nearly 6800 meters, with the smaller Kanguru forming the valley wall to our left. Mera Peak was hidden above to the east, with subpeaks off the summit in view above.
After our long break, we continued north higher into Hinku Valley, the trail now starting to cross small tributaries of the Hinku River over small three log bridges, the main river growing smaller and smaller high in the valley.
Pasang had fallen back with the two porters, and Tex’s guide Chhongba lead both of us up a side trail to a small Buddhist monastery built around a cave in the cliff side. Tex had hoped for a Puja, a Buddhist ceremony often performed for climbers before attempting to summit a big peak. But the monks weren’t around, and I tried not to read into this too much as we left for Thagnok.
From the monastery, it was less than an hour to the town of Thangnak, slightly above the river where the Hinku Valley begins to abruptly hook to the east, which had run south the entire length until this town. We checked into the Oxygen Lodge, which seemed to be in the process of being built and much newer than other of the other lodges in town.
With almost no one around this late in the season, the proprietor allowed us to charge our phones for free, which we all took advantage of by playing music. I used the free juice to read a bit more from my Kindle, and spent the next several hours in the warm dining room learning about the Anheuser- Busch dynasty, admittedly another bizarre reading choice considering my sobriety until after summit day. Tex and I played cards next to the stove for a while and I had a dinner of ‘chili yak and chips,’ which was almost certainly not yak considering the goat I spotted hanging in the kitchen and the fact that yaks are far too valuable alive to kill for meat. The owner kindly threw in some free heavy yak blankets for us, and we settled into bed for what was looking like the coldest night yet.
The hike from Thagnok to Khare was expected to be another short day, but would bring us to the 5000 meter/ 16,400’ threshold for the first time all trip. There was no point in leaving too early given the cold. It was so cold that the ground surrounding the indoor squat toilet was a sheet of ice, and we joked that we needed to wear our crampons to do our morning business. We eventually left town shortly around 9:30AM, and reached the warming sunlight within 30 minutes. We were now hiking due east, with Mera La (Pass) directly ahead, Mera Glacier spilling over the pass and down into the valley. Below Mera La would be where we climb on to the glacier to reach high camp, and hopefully the summit.
The trail steeply climbed through a moraine field but we all felt good and spirits were high despite the cold temperatures. I had heard Khare was a decent sized town, similar in size to Kote, and I was a bit surprised to see a single tea house sitting at the head of the valley. It turns out that this was an outlier still 45 minutes from town, and we stopped for a tea break.
I was surprised to find the two South Korean women also having tea at this small tea house before Khare, having not seen them for three days since the one was complaining of a headache at Zartwa Pass. They said they were both feeling well, and left early every morning, explaining why we never saw them. After climbing a steep hill out of a basin below Mera Peak’s North Face, Khare came in to view, a collection of small building along a steep frozen stream.
Pasang and I checked into Mera Refuge at the front of town, easily the nicest tea house of the trip with heating pads in all the beds, free charging, a full bar, German bakery and café, and warm dining room. Sadly, Tex and Chhongba were at Mountain View Lodge with cold rooms, walls that didn’t reach the ceiling, and a stove in the dining area that stayed cold. When we entered town there was a team of about 10 Europeans that had pushed for the summit that day. They said two were able to fight through the winds to the top, and knew of four others in the past week that were able to summit. This was better than the 0% success rate I had in mind, but still not great. At least some people were making it to the top. I had a small mushroom pizza for lunch, then decided it would be in my best interest to try and hike a bit higher out of town to acclimate. My climbing guide was in the middle of a rescue (snow blindness I was told) and was unable to meet, so I thought I would follow a use trail to some prayer flags on a ridgeline north of town. The trail felt even steeper at the high altitude and I was about halfway to the flag when I heard a huge crack behind me. A large piece of the north part of the Mera glacier broke off, thundering down a narrow canyon and sending a plume of snow and ice into the air. I was nowhere near it, but just the sight sent my heart racing. I reached the prayer flags within 30 minutes, and heard another avalanche from the same spot behind me. I sat down just before the flags and watched the snow and ice from the second avalanche settle.
Upon reaching the prayer flags, I had expected this spot to be at a small subpeak. Instead, the flags were just at some random point along the ridgeline, with the trail and cairns continuing on above. Since elevation was the name of the game to acclimate, I continued on slowly with incredible views of huge 6000 meter peaks surrounding me. I reached a flat area of the ridgeline and checked my GPS, reading ~5200 meters/ 17,060’, officially the highest I had ever been solo. I could see much of Mera Glacier from this angle, and it looked very doable, giving me a bit more confidence.
The ridgeline slightly dipped then continued even higher, and I followed it to a large cairn built beneath some loose talus and the end of the use trail. I briefly considered scrambling up the talus to get even higher, but the sound of rockfall above signaled it was probably time to head back down into Khare. I zipped down the ridgeline, getting back to town in about an hour. After changing into my warmer night clothes, I found Tex downstairs waiting for me with a deck of cards. Mera Refuge had the best bar of any tea house we had passed on the trip, and Tex took advantage by buying a bottle of wine after a rather comical negotiation with the owner. I only had a tiny glass trying to stick with my ‘no alcohol before the summit’ policy, and he left for his own lodge with half the bottle remaining for dinner around 5:30. I took advantage of the German themed menu and had a dinner of Weiner Schnitzel while keeping warm around the fire. With a rest day the next day, I went to bed fairly late, reading on my Kindle app and enjoying the free charging before heading to bed.
One of the nicest parts about the Mera Refuge in Khare is the heating pads built into every bed. I cranked the heat before going to sleep, and barely needed any layers despite sleeping at 5000 meters. That is, until the power went out around 3 AM when the river froze overnight, effectively stopping the small amount of hydroelectric power the town receives. I threw on my fleece and down jacket and was able to stay warm enough until morning with the residual heat from the pad. I didn’t really have a plan for the rest day since I didn’t know when I would be meeting my mountain guide. When I met Pasang at breakfast, I found out that I would be meeting my guide Phura at lunch, as he was still sleeping after being involved in the rescue at high camp the night before. I pressed a bit for details about the rescue, and it sounded like a case of snowblindness, although I couldn’t get much more in the way of details. I left Mera Refuge with plans to be back by noon, and decided to head up towards Mera La to see what was in store for the climbing ahead. A trail left town on a ridgeline to the east, and I slowly climbed above Khare, the north face of Mera looming across the valley.
After hitting a shallow notch, the trail began traversing a talus slope across the southern face of Peak 41. The route often disappeared into the boulders, but was fairly easy to follow overall. I had hoped to find a way to scramble on to Mera La without needing crampons, but as I drew closer, it looked like heading up ice would be the only option. Since I hadn’t dragged anything up with me for the short acclimatization hike, my options were limited when I neared the base of the glacier. There was a small subpeak above me labeled 5297 on my map, and I decided to scramble up the small peaklet along the trail. There were a few cairns leading up to the unnamed summit, which offered an incredible view of not only the north face of Mera Peak, but virtually the entire route up the glacier to the summit. I felt pretty good looking at the route, and from my angle, the whole thing seemed quite doable.
It was about 11 AM and I dropped off the small summit to head back down to Khare for lunch. When I reached the trail, I found a climber slouched over on a rock taking a break. It was not the body posture of someone coming off a successful summit attempt.
“Are you okay, do you need any water?” I asked. He seemed startled by my presence, unaware of me until I had reached him.
“No, I have enough to get me to Khare,” he responded weakly. With a little prodding, he dove into his story. He was a solo climber from Switzerland, and had been doing well until High Camp.
“It was the rotten garlic!”
Some bad Dal Bhat at high camp resulted in cramping overnight, and he had turned back one hour into his summit attempt from GI illness. Add that to the growing list of reasons for people with unsuccessful summit attempts, now including high winds, frostbite and snowblindness. He declined my offer of Ciprofloxacin, and once his guide and porter appeared, I left him to head back down to Khare, getting back to town at noon. Pasang and my mountain guide were nowhere to be found, but appeared as I finished my lunch of a veggie egg roll and tea shortly before 1 PM. I met my mountaineering guide Phuri, who quickly ran through my gear to make sure I was properly equipped. He seemed most interested in my alpine mitts and boots, both of which were more than adequate for the climb. He quickly began to discussing the itinerary for the next two days, climbing up the glacier to High Camp with a summit attempt early the following morning. I weakly made a case to push off our summit attempt one day to allow the winds to die. While the weather looked good for summit day as well as the day after, the forecast called for high winds heading up to high camp, and I worried we would reach camp only for it to be too windy to pitch a tent. My concerns were quickly dismissed. I was promised we could burn a day in high camp if the winds were bad and we could try the next morning. The plan made sense as long as we could get a tent up in the wind, and pushing off the summit day wasn’t without risk. The weather window could shift while we were waiting, and we could lose our chance all together. Additionally it was one more days worth of food to potentially get sick on, with ingredients being less and less fresh the further we were from Lukla.
After agreeing on meeting times in the morning, we parted ways at 1:30, with plenty of daylight to acclimate a bit more before dinner. There were only a few use trails out of Khare and I didn’t want to risk injury on off-trail talus. So I started up the ridgeline towards the prayer flags as I had the day before. I made it to the prayer flags much faster the second time up, definitely feeling a bit more acclimated to the high altitude. Interestingly, I again heard the crack of a large avalanche behind me when I hit the flags, and turned around to see a third avalanche breaking off from the same point on the north face. By the time I reached the flatter section of the ridgeline, it was only 2:30 with plenty of daylight still remaining. Despite hearing rockfall above the day before, I continued past the final cairn and scrambled up the talus and scree towards a southern sub-peak of Peak 41. The rock was quite solid, and only felt a bit shifty when I reached about 5333 meters, again topping a personal best for solo height.
The ridge began to taper to looser rock and dead ended at a fifth class gendarme barring further progress. It seemed like a reasonable place to stop, and I sat down to breathe in the thin air as long as I could before heading down. As I sat there admiring the North Face of Mera Peak, I heard an unfamiliar mechanical whir. It took me a moment to realize it was the sound of a helicopter, which soon came into view flying up Hinku Valley. The helicopter landed out of sight in Khare and took off about 10 minutes later, never once cutting the engine. Curious as to who needed the emergency ride out, I started back down into town, quickly dropping down the ridgeline. About halfway between the prayer flags and the town, I passed a Sherpa, his client about 100 meters behind. The client was a solo traveler from Canada that I had met over lunch. I was a bit surprised to see him as I seemed to be struggling when he came into Khare earlier, and didn’t seem to be doing much better now. He had talked to the evacuated climber as he waited for the helicopter, the overnight rescue from ‘snow blindness.’ But as he gave the details, it sounded much more severe. Not only could he not see, but he was falling over every few steps, unable to keep his balance or self evacuate. Ataxia at high altitude is pretty much diagnostic for High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE), deadly without prompt evacuation. It was definitely the right call to get him lower as quickly as possible.
Getting back into town I went to the inferior Mountain View Lodge to find Tex and tell him about the plans for the next few days. I think we were all hoping to summit together, and I wanted to see if he was game to head up to High Camp tomorrow. He seemed a bit surprised that we weren’t waiting out the weather one more day, but was game to give it a go. After a few rounds of cards, I left him for dinner. Since it was the end of the climbing season, there were very few climbers heading up, and I was allowed to leave my gear in the room while I was in high camp, saving me from bringing up a good amount of unnecessary weight. After packing gear, I came downstairs for a rather pathetic Thanksgiving dinner of stir fried noodles, then headed to bed.
Although I knew the next two days would by physically demanding, we were in no rush to leave early. The mornings were bitterly cold, so it was reasonable to give the sun a chance to reach the valley floor to warm up. Plus the winds were projected to die in the afternoon, so there was no reason to get to high camp too early. After an 8 AM breakfast, we left town fairly late, probably around 9:30, towards high camp. We reached the base of the glacier in about 1 hour, and Phuri stopped in one of the tents to pick up gear he had stashed earlier.
We scrambled to a large rock at the base of a fixed rope that looked anything but climbing grade and put on our harnesses and crampons. I was prepared to carry everything to high camp myself, but was told Chhiri would still be carrying my pack up, and got my boots and crampons out of the pack he was carrying. Although Pasang was only my guide for trekking, I found out he would be joining me all the way to the summit as he was able to borrow some gear in Khare. He hoped to be a mountain guide himself one day, and Mera Peak would be the highest he himself had climbed and would be a great addition to his resume. Plus, the more people with a stake in getting to the top, the better our chance of success.
Phuri and I were ready before the others, and we headed up the fairly steep slope. This lower section of glacier was bullet proof blue ice and frankly the most dangerous section of the entire climb. There was thin layer of granular ice over the solid glacial ice, and each step sounded like we were breaking a dozen wine glasses.
We avoided using the worn fixed rope and quickly reached a rock fall area that at least provided some extra traction with the various embedded rocks. A path appeared in the ice and the route became much more easy to follow and we were soon on Mera La (Pass) proper, looking down a step ice shelf to the east. With the steep and hard ice behind us, we unroped and started up the low angled glacier towards high camp.
The views improved as we climbed higher, and we stopped 1/3 of the way for him to point out the views. To the far west was Cho Oyo, the 6th highest mountain in the world. We could just see the tip of Ama Dablam, an iconic Himalayan summit that Tex had climbed at the start of his Nepal trip. Everest and Lhotse were now in view, and I would steal glances of them the rest of the day. Makalu was perfectly framed to the northeast, looking like a perfectly imperfect pyramid and largely devoid of snow. And through a gap in the mountains to the far, far east, we could see Kangchenjunga, the highest mountain in India and third highest in the world. It was a panorama I’m unlikely to beat.
We stopped for lunch inside of a crevasse filled in with ice in order to get out of the wind, and Tex and Chhongba caught up to us while we rested.
“You missed the shit show down there!” Tex yelled up to me.
“What do you mean?” I yelled back.
“Your porter only had microspikes and no crampons. He was going to die on that ice. Pasang has your pack!” Sure enough, a struggling Pasang soon popped into view, carrying both my pack and his. When he reached me, I quickly consolidated as much as I could into my nearly empty pack. It wasn’t ideal, but we made it work.
The group reunited in the icy crevasse, we finished our small lunch and continued up the glacier, with one steeper pitch between us and high camp. The path for the summit and high camp split near some large rocky cliffs, and we crossed an icy saddle to reach the small camp perched high on a cliff several hundred meters above the glacier below.
Phuri was already struggling to pitch my tent, and large, stiff wires wrapped around rocks served as anchors to keep the tent from being blown off the mountain. There were about 6 tents in total, with me and Pasang in one, Tex and Chhonga in another, Phuri and the camp cook in a third, the South Korean women and their team (who had left before us) in the fourth and fifth and a large mess tent tucked into a shallow cave up above. After ensuring the tent was not going to fly off the cliff, I climbed in to change into warmer clothes for the night, warming myself with a cup of tea. I headed to the mess tent for a bowl of soup to supplement lunch, then took pictures of the small but impressive camp and enjoyed two fat Himalayan snowcocks (birds) until an early dinner.
Dinner was Dal Bhat, and I couldn’t help but worry about the rotten garlic the Swiss climber had warned me about the day before. It certainly tasted good, but I couldn’t help but take a Cipro after dinner, just to be sure. I didn’t come all this way just to blow it, pun intended. I decided to check out the pit toilets just in case I needed them in an emergency. Now I’ve squatted over some pretty horrible holes in mountains all over the world, but these were probably the worst I’ve ever seen, with frozen shit on nearly every surface possible. I took an Imodium to be extra safe.
The sun set shortly after 5 PM and I crawled into my sleeping bag to try and keep warm. I read for a bit before trying to go to sleep at 7 PM, with an occasional groan and pop from the moving glacier overhead to jolt me with a surge of adrenaline as I tried to sleep for a 3 AM wake up.
What an incredible trip, Chris! Photos are outstanding, too!
Glad you enjoyed! Hard to take bad photos out there!
Amazing trip report! You’re a great storyteller. A group of us are headed up to this area next month.
Thank you and good luck! Such an amazing place!