Home/The Twelve Steps/Step 07

A tent pitched on a narrow ledge beneath Ama Dablam's summit spire and hanging glacier, a climber in a red jacket coiling rope at the door.

Ama Dablam

Go back and do the work you owe

Country
NepalKhumbu Valley, Nepal
Duration
26–30 daysSeason Four
Grade
Serious 4AGet High scale
Max altitude
6,812 m22,349 ft
Daily activity
Approx 7–10 hours, 14 on summit day
Season
Oct–Nov
Skill required
Technical rock and ice at altitude
Months on the plan
Two monthsof 24 planned

Step 07Ama Dablam6,812 m / 22,349 ft

Altitude profile: 12 steps, 1,400 m to 8,849 m at Mount EverestA line chart of every step in order. Step 1, 12 Days of Silence, is the lowest at 1,400 m / 4,593 ft, Kathmandu Valley, Nepal. Every step is higher than the one before it, up to step 12, Mount Everest, 8,849 m / 29,032 ft. Everything above 8,000 m is the death zone, marked in red: step 11, Cho Oyu; step 12, Mount Everest. Each point is a link to that step. You are on step 7, Ama Dablam, 6,812 m / 22,349 ft.

Everything up to here you could have talked your way through. You cannot talk your way up this, and that is precisely why it is the one worth having.

What you are walking into

The southwest ridge is a proper alpine route — granite slabs, the Yellow Tower, the Grey Tower, a mushroom ridge of unconsolidated snow, and Camp 2 pitched on a shelf you would not park a motorbike on.

The dablam is the hanging glacier below the summit, the pendant that gives the mountain its name and the objective hazard that decides the season for everyone on it, regardless of who they are or what they paid.

What it takes out of you

By now there are people at home who have heard you promise things before. They are politely waiting to see whether this is the same as last time, and you cannot fix that with a phone call or a cheque.

You fix it by actually being able to climb — because you did the four peaks below this one, in order, and learned something on each. Amends are not an apology. They are the evidence. This mountain is the first piece of it anyone will believe.

The logistics

Duration
26–30 days
Skill required
Technical rock and ice at altitude
Season
Oct–Nov

The climb profile

Left, elevation only: no horizontal axis, so its width means nothing. Right, air: bar length is the one thing here that does.

Climb profile: Base Camp at 4,600 m to Summit at 6,812 m, 2,212 metres of verticalA vertical elevation chart with no horizontal axis. The scale runs from 4,000 m at the foot to 7,500 m at the top. Base Camp is marked at 4,600 m and Summit at 6,812 m, a difference of 2,212 metres. Between them, by elevation: Camp 1 at 5,700 m; Camp 2 at 6,080 m. Each is drawn as a rule straight across the chart, because where it sits along the route is not sourced. The elevation part of the chart has no horizontal axis because the horizontal distance from Base Camp to Summit is not published by any source we could find. Its width carries no meaning. Cumulative ascent over the route is not sourced and is not shown. To the right, a bar hangs off each of those elevations and its length is that altitude's share of the air at sea level, which a dashed bar across the full track marks as 100%: Base Camp 58%; Camp 1 51%; Camp 2 48%; Summit 44%. The bars shorten as the elevation rises.
Base camp
Base Camp, 4,600 msource
Summit
Summit, 6,812 msource
Vertical, base camp to summit
2,212 mthe difference of the two elevations above, nothing more
Horizontal distance
Not yet sourcedNo operator route description, alpine club record or mountaineering reference we could find states it for this route. It is not estimated here.
Cumulative ascent
Not yet sourcedThe up-and-down of the whole route, which is more than the vertical above. Nobody publishes it for any of the twelve.

Camps, by elevation: Camp 1 5,700 m source · Camp 2 6,080 m source. Where each one sits along the route is not sourced, so each is drawn as a rule across the chart rather than placed on it.

The base camp figure is the weakest on the ladder: 4,529 m, 4,600 m and 4,750 m are all in operator use, a 220 m spread. Treat 4,600 m as approximate. The summit is also disputed — 6,812 m is the surveyed figure, but 6,856 m is stubbornly common in operator copy, including on the page cited above for the base camp. Camp elevations differ by about 100 m between operators.

The highest camp is Camp 2, 6,080 m, where the air is 48% of what it is at sea level. The tent was carried up there. The air was not.

The part we will not lie about

A serious mountain with a serious fatality record, much of it from serac collapse that no amount of skill or budget prevents. Competent, well-funded teams turn around here every single season, and going home is the correct decision far more often than it is made.

Boots crossed at the edge of a tent platform, and beyond, a thousand metres of air above cloud and a distant valley floor.
The tent is on a ledge. That is the whole of the ledge.

Who you do it with

Steep enough that competence stops being optional. The gap between what you can actually do and what you have paid for closes on this step, and somebody has to be willing to tell you where you really are on that.

What the word means, and where it came from

$2,400,000 at the plan's pace — $100,000 a month, charged monthly, for as long as it takes. All twelve steps. One client at a time.

Request a call
A small white helicopter crossing below an overhanging blue ice cliff on a sharply pointed fluted peak.
Beneath the hanging glacier, on a peak whose ridges fall away on both sides.
Ama Dablam's sharp summit spire and the hanging glacier beneath it, seen from the valley floor at dawn.
A frozen figure-eight knot and rime-covered carabiners on a rock anchor above a Himalayan drop.

All twelve steps

Request a call