Mount Makalu

Mount Makalu, at 8,485 metres, is the fifth-highest mountain in the world — a colossal four-sided pyramid of rock and ice standing apart from its neighbours above the Barun valley of eastern Nepal, roughly 19 kilometres southeast of Everest.

Where is Mount Makalu?

Makalu rises in the Mahalangur Himal of eastern Nepal, squarely on the Nepal–Tibet border, at about 27.89° N, 87.09° E. Its nearest giant neighbours are Everest and Lhotse, only some 19 kilometres to the northwest, yet the mountain feels like a different world: no trail connects the two massifs directly at valley level, and Makalu's Nepali side drains into its own deep valley, the Barun, inside Makalu Barun National Park in Sankhuwasabha district. There is no road anywhere near the mountain. Visitors fly to the small airstrip at Tumlingtar in the Arun valley and then walk for days up through the hills — remoteness that keeps Makalu one of the least-visited of Nepal's 8,000-metre mountains.

The four-sided pyramid

What sets Makalu apart is its shape. Where most Himalayan giants sprawl into ridges and shoulders, Makalu is a clean, isolated four-sided pyramid, its steep faces often blown bare of snow so the dark rock shows through — one reason its name is often traced to Maha Kala, "the great black one", an epithet of Shiva. Two satellite summits, Kangchungtse (also called Makalu II) and Chomo Lonzo, continue the ridge north toward Tibet, but the main summit stands alone, which is why the peak is so recognisable from far away across the eastern Himalaya.

First ascent: the 1955 French expedition

Makalu was first climbed on 15 May 1955 by Jean Couzy and Lionel Terray, members of a French expedition led by Jean Franco. The team climbed via the north side and the saddle of the Makalu La, essentially the line that later became the standard route. What made the expedition famous was what happened next: over the following two days virtually every member of the team, Franco and Gyalzen Norbu Sherpa among them, also reached the summit — an almost unheard-of clean sweep in the 1950s, when expeditions usually exhausted themselves putting two climbers on top.

How hard is Makalu?

Makalu is widely regarded as one of the harder eight-thousanders. The final summit pyramid demands steep, technical climbing on mixed rock and ice at extreme altitude, the ridges are sharp and exposed, and the mountain catches ferocious wind. Just getting to base camp is a small expedition in itself, and there is nothing like the fixed-rope infrastructure or rescue cover of the Everest scene next door. Ascents remain relatively few, and commercial expeditions treat it as a serious step up from more trafficked peaks. For most travellers, of course, none of this matters — Makalu is a mountain to be looked at, not laboured up.

Makalu Barun National Park and the Barun valley

The mountain gives its name to Makalu Barun National Park, established in 1992, which protects an extraordinary sweep of country — from steamy subtropical forest low in the Arun watershed all the way up to the summit glaciers, one of the greatest continuous vertical ranges of any protected area on Earth. Its heart is the Barun valley, the deep, waterfall-laced glacial valley directly beneath Makalu's south side, famous for cloud forest, rhododendrons and wildlife that includes red panda and snow leopard. Our Makalu destination guide covers the park, the villages of the approach and where to stay.

How to see Mount Makalu

• The Makalu Base Camp trek is the close-up: two to three demanding, wonderful weeks from Tumlingtar through the national park to the foot of the great pyramid. Start with our Makalu Base Camp trek guide and the stage-by-stage route description.
• From the Everest region, Makalu's pyramid marks the eastern horizon from high viewpoints such as Gokyo Ri and the passes of the Everest Three Passes trek — many trekkers see it this way without ever entering its valley.
• From the air, the Everest mountain flight from Kathmandu cruises past the whole Khumbu–Barun skyline, Makalu included, in under an hour.

The best seasons are the usual ones — autumn and spring — when the high Himalaya is clearest. For the peak one valley further east, continue to Kanchenjunga, the world's third-highest.

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