Nepal's eighth-highest peak is having its busiest autumn on record. More than 400 foreign climbers have taken out permits for Manaslu this season, and they're joined by even more local staff — Sherpas, cooks, and kitchen crews — making Base Camp the second largest in the country after Everest's.
The good news for all those teams: the route is shaping up. A Sherpa rope-fixing team working on behalf of the Expedition Operators Association of Nepal has reached Camp 3, which means the trickiest section of the normal Northeast Ridge route — a serac zone between Camps 1 and 2 — is now secured. Expedition staff are busy moving gear, food, gas and oxygen up to the high camps so climbers can start their acclimatisation rotations.
Manaslu stands at 8,163m, which makes it one of the more approachable 8,000'ers. Because it sits roughly 700m below Everest, commercial climbers using supplementary oxygen can often get by with a single rotation above Camp 1 before heading for the summit — a big reason the peak has become the go-to first Himalayan giant for aspiring 8000er collectors. The standard route typically requires four high camps.
The catch right now is the weather. A week of precipitation has dumped heavy fresh snow on the upper mountain and caused serious flooding in the valleys below. It was even raining at Base Camp recently, and teams are hunkering down until conditions settle. Rope fixers are targeting September 19–20 to complete the line to the summit, so the first ascents of the season should follow shortly after, weather permitting.
There's some variety beyond the standard route this year, if not much. No major expeditions are tackling alternative lines, but at least one small team led by Luke Smithwick plans to ski from the summit — a rare ski descent on the peak.
Why should a traveller care? Even if you're never clipping into a rope at 8,000m, Manaslu is a story about Himalayan tourism shifting. Everest's quotas have pushed commercial mountaineering — and its legions of trekkers, porters and lodge owners — toward neighbouring peaks. The Manaslu Circuit, which loops around this very massif, has grown more popular in step, offering a quieter alternative to the Annapurna and Everest trails. A record crowd on the mountain means busier tea houses in the valleys, more logistics options for anyone planning a trek or a climb, and a good reminder that autumn trekking season in Nepal is now firmly in swing.
If a big-peak adventure is on your list, Manaslu's combination of a moderate (by 8,000er standards) route, growing operator support and the permit boom make it the current hot ticket — just plan around the weather, and remember the serac zone between Camps 1 and 2 is the part that separates this mountain from a long walk uphill.
Story reported by ExplorersWeb.