The Dashain festivities are one of the longest celebrations in Nepal and traditionally, this shifting holiday marks the beginning of the fall commercial climbing season. This year, however, the activity on the 8,000m peaks is nearly over, after an intense summit week on Manaslu, Dhaulagiri, and Cho Oyu.
Manaslu, in particular, has seen a flood of summits. Excellent weather and good snow conditions at exactly the right time have resulted in one of the most efficient summit seasons we remember: no casualties, no serious accidents reported, two ski descents, and well over 600 summits in just eight days.
The summit area of Manaslu at dawn. photo: Sabin Bhattarai/AGA Adventures
Huge numbers of summits each day
This year didn’t feature an all-time high number of foreigners on Manaslu, but it might break the record for overall summits. Daily rates have been huge, and the weather window was exceptionally long. According to the latest update from Nepal’s Department of Tourism (September 23), they had issued a total of 374 permits for Manaslu, compared to 407 permits in 2022.
However, since the rope-fixing team opened the trail to the summit (and everyone now goes to the true summit, since Jackson Groves’ revealing 2021 drone images), group after group of climbers of climbers have followed. Imagine Nepal — a medium-sized team — has put over 40 clients on top, and the number of Nepalese guides is probably even higher.
Crowds during the summit push. Photo: Prakash Gurung
Good timing
Nature and logistics combined to provide nearly perfect timing. The rope fixers did their work in rough weather during the last days of the monsoon and summited just as an extraordinarily long weather window opened. Teams had a whole week of blue skies, little wind, and excellent, safe snow conditions.
However, the great conditions prompted everybody to go up at almost the same time, creating queues in the technical sections and the summit area, as the videos below reveal:
