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Mera Peak and Island Peak > Expedition Overview

Highlights
- Trek through the Sherpa Villages of the Everest area
- Summiting two of Nepal’s highest Trekking Peaks
- Mera Glacier and the isolated Hongu Valley
- Climb the Amphu Labtse.
- Magnificent wilderness and wonderful people of the Hinku valley.

Overview
Mera Peak and Island Peak represent two of the most challenging “trekkable peaks” in Nepal. While alone, neither mountain is of any technical significance, combined and with the added remoteness and technical nature of the Amphu Ladtsa, the Mera Peak and Island Peak combined expedition is one of the most challenging, spectacular and rewarding journeys available. Mera Peak provides awesome remote trekking and unsurpassed views of some of the great Himalaya peaks.  The journey over Mera La up the Hongku Glacier is rarely undertaken and provides the adventurous with great glacial challenges.  The Hongku ends abruptly at the Amphu Labtsa, where our climbing guide will assist you in this technical ascent and descent down to the Imja valley.  From there we will head for base camp of Island Peak.  Sufficiently acclimatized, we ascend one of Nepal’s most beautiful peaks for awesome views of some of the highest mountains in the world.

North Face Glacier from Mera La
The base camp can be set up at 5,300m near Mera La on the Hongu side in the moraine below the ice. From here a high camp is set at 5,800m near a rocky outcrop on the Mera Glacier. The high camp proves to be one to the most glorious viewpoints in Nepal offering the panoramic views of Kanchanjunga, Chamlang, Makalu and Baruntse sweeping around from the east and Amadablam, Cho Oyu and Kangtega to the west. The giant faces of Everest, Lhotse and Nuptse appear in the north. There are three main summits which are climbable without much difficulty. The south summit (6,065m) is the most accessible with the Northern Summit (6,476m), the highest, which can be reached by skirting the Central Summit (6,461m) to the north and following snow ridge to its top. Climbing the middle summit requires ascent up on steep snow and is more technical. Mera North is straight-forward to climb.

Amphu Labtsa Pass
Return trek through the upper Hongu valley and then over the high pass of Amphu Laptsa to come out at Chukung in the upper Imja river valley near Island Peak. From here a visit can be made to Everest Base camp and return to Lukla. This is a very high altitude trek through glaciated valleys with possibilities of being stranded in adverse weather condition. Only strong, well equipped, groups should attempt this route.

Island Peak
Normally, the base camp is set at Pareshaya Gyab (5,087m), between Imja Tse and the lateral moraine of the Imja Glacier. It should not be forgotten that the place is more likely for avalanche in the event of heavy snow fall. From the base camp, a well acclimatised party in good conditions can make the summit and return to the base camp in a day. However, most of the climbers prefer establishing a High-Camp which helps a safe ascent. From the base camp the route skirts south east around and base of Imja Tse and climbs steep grassy slopes and small rocky steps. We scramble up on open gully which leads between two ridges to the site of high camp on the left-hand ridge below and to the right of a small hanging glacier (5,280m). From the high camp, the left hand ridge scramble across the broad open gully. After crossing a gully, a steep snow and ice ramp leads upward for nearly 100 meters to the summit ridge. Climbing near the summit is a little difficult due to steep climbing. In recent times the snow slopes below the summit has developed some large crevasses making the final ascent to the top difficult.