NEPAL SPRING SEASON 2026

Nepal Spring 2026 was the expedition everything beforehand had been building toward.

I arrived in Nepal after months of preparation and almost continuous climbing through South America. The goal had been to make myself as mountain-fit and acclimatized as possible, because what I wanted to attempt in the Himalayas was ambitious: climb multiple 8,000-metre mountains in a single spring season.

Annapurna was first.

On April 18, I stood on the summit at 8,091 metres. It was my first summit of the season and the beginning of what would become an extraordinary 40 days in the Himalayas. But Annapurna also delivered an immediate reminder that reaching the summit is only a small part of climbing these mountains. The descent was long and exhausting, and events unfolding high on the mountain afterward would stay with me long after we'd left Base Camp.

There wasn't much time to reflect.

Next was Makalu, the fifth-highest mountain in the world.

I arrived without doing the normal rotations on Makalu itself. The acclimatization I'd carried from Annapurna allowed me to move quickly, and on May 3 I reached the 8,485-metre summit.

Two 8,000ers down.

Now it was time for Everest.

By the time I reached the Khumbu, the previous months of climbing were paying off. I didn't need another conventional acclimatization program. The objective was to recover, wait for the right opportunity and move efficiently when the mountain allowed it.

On May 21, I stood on the 8,848-metre summit of Mount Everest.

It should have been the defining moment of the season.

Instead, what happened during the descent became one of the most serious situations I'd ever encountered in the mountains. At approximately 8,744 metres, we came across a climber in trouble high above the South Col. What followed turned an already enormous summit day into something much bigger than simply standing on top of Everest.

But the expedition still wasn't finished.

Lhotse was waiting.

Only six days after Everest, I headed back up the same mountain system I'd just descended. The plan was to finish the season on the fourth-highest mountain in the world.

Even that didn't go smoothly. Oxygen we'd cached for the attempt disappeared, delaying the climb and forcing us to reorganize before heading back up.

Eventually, by moonlight on May 27, I reached the 8,516-metre summit of Lhotse.

Annapurna. Makalu. Everest. Lhotse.

Four 8,000-metre summits in 40 days.

Looking back, the individual summits are only part of what defined that spring. There were enormous days, difficult descents, changing plans, exhaustion, setbacks and situations that demanded far more than simply being fit enough to climb.

The South American training had done its job. I had arrived in Nepal strong enough to recover between major mountains and keep moving through an incredibly demanding season.

More importantly, Nepal Spring 2026 changed my understanding of what I was capable of in the high mountains.

What began as an ambitious season had become something much bigger.

The 14 Peaks Project was underway.