Get High

The "12 Steps" to Mount Everest

You have taken everything there is to take. There is one high left on the list, it takes six seasons, and there is nobody on earth you can pay to do it for you.

Acclimatise
Snoop Dogg, head and shoulders, smiling slightly at the camera. He wears a black knitted beanie reading "Long Beach" in gold, has a goatee, and a patterned scarf at his neck. A wisp of smoke drifts in the left of the frame against a plain grey wall.

We know you've gotten high...

We've all gotten high... some of us have gotten higher than others.

You've got to always go back in time if you want to move forward. If the ride is more fly, then you must buy. If you stop at general math, you're only going to make general math money.

I'm curious...
A climber in a yellow down suit, red helmet and oxygen mask, one gloved hand raised, on a snow ridge high above a layer of cloud. Behind and below, a line of other climbers is strung out along the ridge. Snow peaks extend to the horizon.

So the next one is 8,849 metres high.

No speech. You have heard every pitch. After everything else you have done, this is the next line on the list. Of course it is.

The record that makes it the next line does not make the mountain kind. It has never heard of you and will not ask for your file. You are the kind of person this comes next for.

For reals...
Looking straight down between crampon points bitten into grey-blue glacier ice, a coiled rope and crevasses beyond.
The first time the ground stops being ground.

You've got everything. So what's your fucking problem?

  • 01

    “I’ll start Monday.”

    Your assistant has moved that Monday four hundred times and never once told you no. Money buys another Monday, not a shorter wait. Acclimatisation cannot be crammed. Your blood takes the weeks it takes. Miss this winter in Nepal and you are not standing on Everest — you are saying this sentence again to the same person, who will move it again.

  • 02

    “I’m not that bad.”

    You are right. You are not in a gutter. You are in a penthouse, and the gutter is the only ruler you have agreed to be measured with. You chose the ruler, so of course you pass. Nobody around you will say the word out loud, because you sign their cheques. So say it yourself, once, with nobody in the room. If it is not true, nothing happens.

  • 03

    “I’ve tried everything.”

    You have tried everything that could be delivered to you. Six facilities with thread counts. A specialist flown in. A sober companion. A programme built to fit around the schedule. You have never once tried the thing that does not care whether you come. Everything you have tried had a comment card at the end. A mountain does not.

  • 04

    “Nobody understands what it’s like to be me.”

    Correct. That is not your defence, it is your diagnosis. You built a life where no one is close enough to contradict you, and now you hold up the loneliness you engineered as proof you cannot be helped. Until the summit, somebody walks beside you who is not auditioning to stay. Nobody understands you. Somebody will be there anyway.

  • 05

    “I’m too busy.”

    You are not busy. You are booked. Booked is a structure you paid to have built so that no hour is ever quiet enough for this thought to finish itself. Somebody else keeps your calendar and fills every gap before you reach it. That is what the twelve days of silence are for. You will find out you were never too busy. You were afraid of the room.

  • 06

    “I can stop whenever I want.”

    Then stop. Not forever — thirty days, starting tonight. “Whenever” has never been tested. It may not exist. You already know what is about to happen: this month turns out to be unusual. It is always an unusual month. That is not bad luck. That is the thing talking in your own voice, using your own vocabulary, doing an impression of a decision.

  • 07

    “I’ve got too much to lose.”

    You are losing it. Quietly, on a schedule, in a way that will look sudden to everyone but you. Every person who lost the lot said this sentence first, with exactly your confidence. Now count what a mountain can take off you. Not the houses. Not the company. Your time, and the story that you were protecting something. The rest was never on the table.

  • 08

    “Too many people depend on me.”

    Thirty mortgages, and you hold them up like a shield. You know this at three in the morning: they do not depend on you. They depend on the version of you that turns up. Each month, that version is harder to find. You are not indispensable. You are unreplaced — so far. Unreplaced is not the same as needed. Time away tells you which one you are.

  • 09

    “I’ve earned this.”

    You have earned a great deal. Nobody earns this. You are not rewarding yourself, you are dosing yourself. You reach for the same thing on your best day and on your worst. Rewards do not work like that. Medicine does. There is one reward left that nobody can deliver to the house. It sits at 8,849 metres and it is walked to. That is the kind you earn.

  • 10

    “I already blew it.”

    You blew it on Tuesday. That is a fact, not a verdict, and you are the only person in the room working this hard to promote it. It feels like honesty. It is the cheapest excuse going. Nine days do not become zero because of one. You do not get to spend one failure as a licence for the next hundred. Start again this afternoon. Not Monday. This afternoon.

  • 11

    “Once things settle down.”

    Things do not settle down. Things have never settled down. You have been saying this for eleven years and only the crisis in the middle of the sentence ever changes. You keep building the next thing, so the quiet never arrives. There is no quiet version of your life behind this one waiting to let you fix it. You do this in the noise or you do not do it.

  • 12

    “What if I fail anyway?”

    Then you will have failed at something real, outdoors, in front of people who were standing there — instead of succeeding at this, which is what you are doing now, and doing brilliantly. You are not afraid of failing. You are afraid of trying where it shows. The mountain gives you an honest answer. Name one other thing in your life that still does.

One client. You. Until the summit.

Everybody who works for you works for somebody else on Thursday. We take one client at a time. Until you summit, there is a person who is yours and nobody else's. The twelve steps below are what that person is for.

$100,000a month

On a card, the same date every month. The person starts the week you decide. The mountain waits for a season either way.

Who you get until the summitWhat it buys, itemised

Every one is higher than the last

Twelve steps, left to right, in the order you have to take them. The last two sit above 8,000 m in the death zone, and there is nobody you can pay to move them lower.

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.

The "12 Steps" to Mount Everest

Six seasons. Twelve real places, each one higher than the last. You can buy the permit, the guide, the bottled oxygen and the helicopter. Nobody has ever bought acclimatisation.

  • A lone figure wrapped in an orange shawl sits cross-legged on the floor of a bare whitewashed hall before dawn, lit by a single shaft of cold light falling from a high window.
    Rows of empty cushions on the worn wooden floor of a deserted monastery meditation hall at first light, a single butter lamp burning against the far wall.
    Worn leather sandals and canvas shoes left on a frosted stone step outside a closed wooden door, a folded saffron blanket beside them.

    Step 011,400 m / 4,593 ftSeason One

    12 Days of Silence

    Sit down and shut up

    You have not been alone in ten years. Someone in the car, someone in the next room, someone on the payroll whose actual job is to agree with you. Twelve days: no phone, no assistant, nobody laughing. You will want out by the third morning. Everybody does. Most of them go. Do not go.

    Read More

  • Two trekkers, small on a stone-stepped trail through misted rhododendron forest, dwarfed by the Annapurna wall above them; the guide has turned back mid-sentence to point out the line.
    The Annapurna Sanctuary at first light and empty of people: a grey moraine basin ringed by fluted ice walls, with sunrise reaching only the highest snow.
    Mud-caked leather trekking boots and the steel tip of a trekking pole on wet stone steps scattered with fallen rhododendron leaves.

    Step 024,130 m / 13,550 ftSeason Two

    Annapurna Base Camp

    Lose an argument you could have won

    You have never been told no by somebody you were paying. On day four your guide stops at one in the afternoon, on a day you feel superb and could give him another four hours. You will argue. You will be wrong. Losing that argument is worth more than the entire trek.

    Read More

  • Everest Base Camp at blue hour: hundreds of yellow tents across the Khumbu glacier, one lit from inside with a figure sitting up in it, and a climber in an orange jacket walking between them by head torch.
    The Khumbu Icefall at dawn, empty of people, its seracs and crevasses tumbling from the Western Cwm under a thin band of sunrise on the ridge above.
    A tent zip frozen shut under hoar frost, a plain carabiner and a knotted guy line clipped alongside it on yellow nylon.

    Step 035,364 m / 17,598 ftSeason Two

    Everest Base Camp

    Meet the man who has to climb the other nine

    Two weeks above five thousand metres and you will stop being charming, because there is not enough oxygen to run it. Whatever is left when the charm goes is the person who has to climb the other nine. Go and meet him. Most people never do.

    Read More

  • An instructor's gloved hand closes over a client's grip on the head of an ice axe, correcting it, with the glacier falling away out of focus behind.
    Yala Peak's wind-scoured summit ridge above the Langtang valley, with ranks of higher Himalayan peaks receding into blue haze.
    Crampon front points biting into hard blue glacial ice, chips of ice thrown around the steel and an orange strap just in frame.

    Step 045,520 m / 18,110 ftSeason Three

    Yala Peak

    Be graded honestly and say thank you

    Somebody is about to tell you your footwork is sloppy and your rope work would get you killed. He is thirty-four, he is unimpressed, and he does not know who you are. The only correct answer is thank you. If you cannot say it at 5,520 m you will not manage it at eight thousand, where it decides things.

    Read More

  • A climber in an orange down jacket ascending fixed ropes on a steep blue-ice headwall before dawn, lit only by their own head torch.
    The snow and ice summit pyramid of Island Peak rising above its crevassed glacier basin at first light.
    Crampon front points bitten into blue glacial ice beside the frayed sheath of a fixed rope.

    Step 056,189 m / 20,305 ftSeason Three

    Island Peak

    Be terrified and go anyway

    At four in the morning, halfway up a wall of ice, a ladder over a crevasse behind you and nothing whatsoever under your left boot, you will be more frightened than you have ever been sober. Then you will keep going. That is the first genuinely brave thing you will have done in years and there is no photograph of it.

    Read More

  • A lone climber standing on a wide snow summit ridge at dawn, tiny against a horizon of 8,000-metre Himalayan peaks.
    An empty glaciated snow ridge with a curling cornice, above a sea of valley cloud at dawn.
    Frost-rimed mountaineering boots with yellow gaiters standing in packed snow outside a tent door.

    Step 066,476 m / 21,247 ftSeason Three

    Mera Peak

    Look at what you have already done

    From the top: Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu and Kangchenjunga on one horizon — five of the six highest mountains on earth in a single glance. There was a time you could not get up a flight of stairs without lying about why. Look at the horizon. Then look at what you did to get here.

    Read More

  • 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'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.

    Step 076,812 m / 22,349 ftSeason Four

    Ama Dablam

    Go back and do the work you owe

    Enthusiasm got you six steps. Money got you the flights. Neither one gets you up the Yellow Tower, which is a rock pitch at six thousand metres in double boots with a thousand metres of air under the ledge you slept on. This is where the list stops being generous.

    Read More

  • A figure in a faded orange jacket standing in a mess tent doorway at base camp in bad weather, both hands round a mug.
    An empty high-altitude expedition base camp on grey glacial moraine, the ridges behind swallowed by cloud.
    A gloved hand straining at a tent zip frozen solid with rime ice.

    Step 087,126 m / 23,379 ftSeason Four

    Himlung Himal

    Tell the truth about your own condition

    A month of rotations, load carries and sitting in a tent waiting on weather. There is no audience, no schedule you control, and nothing to do but report honestly on how you slept and what you ate. You have lied about both of those things every day for years. Up here it is how people die.

    Read More

  • A lone climber in an orange down suit far out along the corniced summit ridge of Baruntse, a single line of footprints behind them in flat grey light
    The wind-scoured corniced ridge of Baruntse under low cloud, empty of people
    Crampon front points biting into wind-hardened snow on a ridge crest, an orange gaiter strap just in frame

    Step 097,129 m / 23,389 ftSeason Five

    Baruntse

    Do it again when nobody is impressed

    Three metres higher than the last one. Nobody can tell the difference, nobody has heard of it, and telling people you climbed it gets you a polite nod and a change of subject. Climb it anyway. This is the step where you find out whether any of it was ever for you.

    Read More

  • A rope team of two crossing the moraine high above the frozen cobalt ice of Tilicho Lake, tiny against the rock bowl
    Tilicho Lake frozen in its bowl of dark shattered rock beneath cloud-covered walls
    A figure-of-eight knot furred with frost, tied into a frozen rope and clipped to a steel locking carabiner

    Step 107,134 m / 23,406 ftSeason Five

    Tilicho Peak

    Come back to where you started and go over the top

    You walked into the Annapurnas at step two as a tourist who could not be told what time to stop. Eight steps later you come back to the same range and climb straight over the top of it. Stand at the lake and remember the man who argued with his guide.

    Read More

  • A climber on oxygen high on Cho Oyu, frost on the regulator hose and the snow slope reflected in their goggles
    The broad summit dome of Cho Oyu with spindrift streaming off the crest, empty of people
    High-altitude boots with crampons still strapped on, standing in the snow at the door of a tent at high camp

    Step 118,188 m / 26,864 ftSeason Six

    Cho Oyu

    Spend the one thing you cannot replace

    The sixth-highest mountain on earth and your first time in the death zone — an altitude at which your body is actively dying and the only available cure is to leave. You have been here before, chemically, for years. This time it is honest about what it is doing to you.

    Read More

  • A single climber standing on the summit of Everest at sunrise beside a string of prayer flags, a sea of cloud below
    The summit pyramid of Everest above a sea of cloud at first light, its snow plume streaming east
    A gloved hand gripping a rope ascender clamped to a frost-covered fixed line on a steep snow slope

    Step 128,849 m / 29,032 ftSeason Six

    Mount Everest

    Get down, go home, pick up the phone

    There was a time you were the punchline in somebody else's monologue. Now there is a photograph of you at 8,849 metres that nobody bought, nobody arranged, and nobody can take off you. Then comes the only part that counts: getting down, going home, and answering the phone to somebody on day three of their twelve days.

    Read More

Twelve places, drawn to one scale. The first stands a sixth as high as the last. Each figure is the step's objective, not the highest ground you touch getting to it — on step three you stand on Kala Patthar at 5,644 m on the way to a base camp that sits lower. You still have to take them in order.

Production schedule

Six seasons. 12 locations.

Read it the way you would read a shooting schedule, because that is what it is. 287–331 days on the ground in Nepal across six seasons, and each season gets only the weather window its own steps allow. Every window is the one the mountain gives you, not the one that suits the schedule — and there is no second unit, no stand-in, no weather cover and no reshoot. The window closes whether or not you were ready for it.

Seasons
6
Locations
12
Days on the ground
287–331
Window
304
Reshoots
0
  1. Season One: Sep. 12 days needed, 30 days open.
  2. Season Two: Oct–Nov. 26 days needed, 61 days open.
  3. Season Three: Apr–May. 54 days needed, 61 days open.
  4. Season Four: Sep–Nov. 62 days needed, 91 days open.
  5. Season Five: Oct–Nov. 67 days needed, 61 days open.
  6. Season Six: Apr–May. 110 days needed, 61 days open.
Season Four and Season Five want the same 2 months. Season Six asks for 110 days inside a 61-day window. On a production you would move the date. Here the date is the only thing that cannot move.

  1. Season One

    Sep

    12 days. 30 days of window. 40%.

    Locations

    1. 0112 Days of Silence12 days

  2. Season Two

    Oct–Nov

    22–26 days. 61 days of window. 43%.

    Locations

    1. 02Annapurna Base Camp10–12 days
    2. 03Everest Base Camp12–14 days

  3. Season Three

    Apr–May

    46–54 days. 61 days of window. 89%.

    Locations

    1. 04Yala Peak12–14 days incl. course
    2. 05Island Peak16–19 days
    3. 06Mera Peak18–21 days

  4. Season Four

    Sep–Nov

    54–62 days. 91 days of window. 68%.

    Locations

    1. 07Ama Dablam26–30 days
    2. 08Himlung Himal28–32 days

  5. Season Five

    Oct–Nov

    58–67 days. 61 days of window. 110%.

    Locations

    1. 09Baruntse30–35 days
    2. 10Tilicho Peak28–32 days

  6. Season Six

    Apr–May

    95–110 days. 61 days of window. 180%.

    Locations

    1. 11Cho Oyu40–45 days
    2. 12Mount Everest55–65 days

Fits the windowMore days than the window has

Where all of this happens

The route crosses the country four times before it lets you near Everest. The order is fixed, and none of it is a detour.

Where the twelve steps happen: a map of NepalA stylised outline of Nepal with the Himalayan range running along the northern border. Twelve numbered markers show where each step of the programme takes place, and a line joins them in order from one to twelve. Step 1 is the Kathmandu Valley in the centre. Steps 2 and 10 are in the Annapurna range in the west. Step 8 is in the Manaslu region between Annapurna and Langtang. Step 4 is in Langtang, north of Kathmandu. The remaining seven — steps 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11 and 12 — are all in the Khumbu in the east, so their markers are drawn out on short leader lines from the places themselves. The route crosses the country from east to west and back four times.010203040506070809101112
Twelve real places in one small country. The programme does not go in a straight line. Hover a pin, or tab through them.
  1. 0112 Days of Silence1,400 m
  2. 02Annapurna Base Camp4,130 m
  3. 03Everest Base Camp5,364 m
  4. 04Yala Peak5,520 m
  5. 05Island Peak6,189 m
  6. 06Mera Peak6,476 m
  7. 07Ama Dablam6,812 m
  8. 08Himlung Himal7,126 m
  9. 09Baruntse7,129 m
  10. 10Tilicho Peak7,134 m
  11. 11Cho Oyu8,188 m
  12. 12Mount Everest8,849 m
A single-engine helicopter on a short shelf airstrip cut into a mountainside, rotor turning and dust lifting, the ground dropping away into a deep valley beyond the apron edge and an enormous wall of snow and rock rising behind.
The airstrip most of this begins from. The apron is a shelf cut into a spur, and the ground ends where the tarmac does.

Partners

  • Elite Exped
  • Himalayan Trust
  • Red Bull
Request a call