Develop altitude experience, and build a foundation for big mountains, and ultimate goal to summit Island Peak.
Challenging walk over Cho-La Pass (5,330m)
Climbing on Gokyo-RI (5,360m)
Snow Lake ”Gokyo Lake”
Travelers should have a high level of physical fitness. Most of our trekking peaks are over 6,000m; therefore we count it as a tough trip. Your tough level of fitness is really important for this trek. So we strongly suggest preparing yourself for good physical fitness level. You do not need to be an athlete but a good level of overall fitness is essential. Being fit will certainly improve your chances of reaching your chosen summit. As an indication, you should be able to walk 8 km / 5 miles with a maximum height gain of 800m / 2,000ft with a 10kg rucksack in 5 hours or less. In order to get ready for this challenge, you need to be trained at least for about 4 to 6 months to prepare yourself as a strong candidate. You can go to the fitness center every morning for about 2 hours, do hiking every weekend with increasing weights on your pack (i.e. 7kg, 10kg, 13 kg, 16kg and up to 20kg). Manage some time for cycling for a couple of hours for 3 or 4 times a week. However, during climbing, there might be little symptoms of altitude illness like mild headache, fatigue, etc. but take it as normal and just drink a lot of water (4 – 5 liters) every day. On this trek, you need to be able to hike 6 – 10 hours over hilly terrain up to 6,000m of altitude with a daypack.