Manaslu Expedition Autumn 2026

Your expedition begins the moment you land at Tribhuvan International Airport. Our team receives you at the arrivals and transfers you directly to your hotel in Thamel. The rest of the day is yours to rest, settle in, and get your first feel for Kathmandu. In the evening, we sit together for a welcome dinner, you meet your lead guide, your Sherpa team leader, and your fellow climbers, and we walk through what the next 40 days will look like.

An early departure from Kathmandu heading northwest. The drive follows the Budi Gandaki valley road, passing through Arughat before reaching Jagat the gateway to the restricted Manaslu corridor. Your permits are checked at the checkpoint here and the real expedition begins. The road gets rougher and more remote as the city falls away behind you, and by the time you reach Jagat you are already deep in a Nepal that most visitors never see. Overnight in a tea house.

Your first full day on foot through the Budi Gandaki valley. The trail moves through dense forest, across suspension bridges, and along the churning river. The landscape is raw and largely untouched. The Tibetan cultural influence begins to appear in the villages you pass through, with prayer wheels and mani walls lining the trail. A steady, manageable day that eases you into the rhythm of expedition trekking. Overnight in a tea house.

The valley narrows, and the altitude begins to climb more noticeably today. Namrung sits at a higher elevation with wide open views of the surrounding peaks and marks your entry into the true high Himalayan zone. The trail passes through rhododendron and pine forest before opening up into the broader landscape above. The air is noticeably thinner here, and the pace naturally slows, which is exactly as it should be. Overnight in a tea house.

A shorter but meaningful day as the altitude continues to rise. The trail moves through increasingly dramatic terrain fewer trees, more rock, bigger sky. The Tibetan-influenced villages along this section have a timeless quality to them, with ancient monasteries sitting above the trail and the sound of prayer flags in the wind. Your body is working hard at this altitude even on a rest day, so the pace stays deliberate and unhurried. Overnight in a tea house.

One of the great days of the approach. As the trail rounds a ridge above Lho village, Manaslu comes into full view for the first time the entire Northeast Face rising above the valley in a way that stops people mid-step. It is a moment most climbers remember for the rest of their lives. From Lho the path descends into the wide open bowl of Sama Gaun, a Tibetan farming village that will serve as your final rest stop before base camp. Spend the evening slowly eat well, hydrate, and absorb where you are. Overnight in a lodge.

The final approach. The trail climbs steadily from Sama Gaun through increasingly barren and glaciated terrain, following the lateral moraine as the mountain grows larger with every step. Manaslu Base Camp sits at 4,750 metres on a rocky platform above the glacier your home for the weeks of climbing ahead. The afternoon is spent settling into camp and meeting the full team. The traditional Puja ceremony is held at base camp before any climbing begins a blessing from the mountain led by a local lama, and one of the most memorable moments of the entire expedition. Overnight at base camp.

This is the engine of the expedition the phase that determines whether you summit safely or not. Over these fifteen days, we run a structured series of rotation climbs progressively higher on the mountain, allowing your body to adapt to extreme altitude before the final push. The schedule follows a proven high-low-high pattern: climb high, sleep low, repeat. The first rotation takes you to Camp I at 5,700 m and back to base camp the same day your first time on the Manaslu Glacier, navigating crevasse fields on fixed ropes laid by our Sherpa team. The second rotation pushes to Camp II at 6,400 m, the most technically demanding section of the lower mountain, with a night spent above 6,000 metres for the first time. A third rotation may extend to Camp III at 6,800 m, depending on conditions and how your acclimatisation is progressing. Between rotations, you return to base camp to rest and recover. This is where acclimatisation actually consolidates not on the mountain, but in the recovery days below it. Meals are freshly prepared at base camp throughout, and our team monitors every climber's health and progress daily. Rest days are not optional. They are part of the plan. By Day 22 your body has been to altitude, returned to recover, and gone back up again. You are as ready as the mountain will allow you to be.

This is what everything has been building toward. The summit push is a seven-day window that begins with a final departure from base camp and ends if the weather and your body cooperate on the highest point in the Mansiri Himal. You move through the camps methodically: base camp to Camp I, Camp I to Camp II, Camp II to Camp III, Camp III to Camp IV at 7,400 m, your final resting point before the summit. Each move is made with a full kit, supplemental oxygen in use from the upper camps, and your dedicated Sherpa alongside you at every step. The section from Camp III to Camp IV involves the steepest and most physically demanding terrain of the entire climb, a sustained push on a 50 to 55 degree slope that brings you to the edge of the death zone. Summit day itself begins around 1:00 am from high camp. Six to ten hours of focused, deliberate climbing through the dark and then the dawn, up through the exposed ridges and final snow slopes of the Northeast Face. When the mountain gives way beneath you, and you are standing at 8,163 metres, the Himalaya spreads out in every direction: Himalchuli, Ngadi Chuli, the full Annapurna massif, the Tibetan plateau stretching north without end. Your Sherpa is beside you. Take a moment. Then we descend back through the camps and down to base camp, where the team is waiting. The seven-day window exists because the summit does not happen on a fixed schedule. Weather holds, weather breaks, windows open and close. We wait for the right conditions rather than force a timeline. Your safety and your summit chance depend on patience as much as fitness.

The mountain is behind you. The walk back down from base camp to Sama Gaun takes four to five hours and carries with it a particular kind of lightness the pressure of the expedition lifted, the altitude dropping with every step, the warmth of the valley rising to meet you. Sama Gaun feels like a different world after weeks on the glacier. Overnight in a lodge.

Rather than retracing the approach route south through the Budi Gandaki valley, the expedition exits via the Larkya La Pass a high mountain pass at 5,106 m that connects the Manaslu region to the Annapurna Circuit. It is a spectacular finale to the expedition. The crossing takes you through remote high-altitude terrain with sweeping views across the Himalaya before descending steeply to Bhimtang in the lush valley below. Three days of trekking through some of the finest mountain scenery in Nepal a reward that most expeditions ending in a drive back the same way never get to offer. Overnight in tea houses along the route.

From Bhimtang, the trail descends to Dharapani, where the road begins again. A vehicle meets the team here for the drive back to Kathmandu several hours on mountain roads that gradually give way to the valley highway and eventually the familiar chaos of the city. By evening you are back in Thamel, in a proper hotel, with a hot shower, a good meal, and 34 days of the Himalaya sitting quietly behind your eyes. Celebration dinner with the full team tonight. Overnight in Kathmandu hotel.

Your expedition ends. Our team transfers you to Tribhuvan International Airport for your onward flight home. You leave Nepal as a different climber than the one who arrived 40 days ago with an 8,000 metre summit in your legs, in your lungs, and permanently in your story.