I left the UK on my birthday, 02/10/2010, to take on KE Adventure’s Everest the Hard Way trek. Flew Air India from Heathrow T3 via Delhi departed about 2130. Plane was surprisingly empty given the Commonwealth Games were starting the same day. Quite a number of competitors on the flight.

Sunday 03/10

Arrived Delhi at about 0530 BST, 0945 local. The new terminal built to coincide with the games was modern and clean, however their system for those transiting straight through was a joke. They insisted on taking our boarding cards for the connecting flight off us as we entered the transit area only to walk ten yards further on before having to queue in an area too small for the number of passengers to be issued a new card. Lucky had several hours before connection left. Made it on to Kathmandu flight only to be sat on the scorching hot runway for 1.5 hours with no info from the captain or crew.

Once in the air, glimpses of the Himalayas above the clouds soon banished the stress and tiredness. Landed Kathmandu about 1245 BST, 1730 local. Piled on the minibus for transfer to Hotel Shanker. Late afternoon traffic was bumper to bumper so took about 45 minutes to get to hotel.

After arriving at the hotel we had a first group meeting, sorted out trekking permit cards and details for flight the next day. Group consisted of:

Leaders – Rob, Kathy

Punters – Siobhan, Martin, Pete, Kevin, Katie, Sharon, Jon, Ken and me.

The formalities out the way, we went to bed early. Eager for the fun stuff to get underway…

Brought my saddle closer to the handlebars to reduce how far I was reaching. Seems to have worked somewhat because neck not quite as sore as last week.

1. Install tftpd and related packages.

$ sudo apt-get install xinetd tftpd tftp

2. Create /etc/xinetd.d/tftp and put this entry:

service tftp
{
protocol        = udp
port            = 69
socket_type     = dgram
wait            = yes
user            = nobody
server          = /usr/sbin/in.tftpd
server_args     = /tftpboot
disable         = no
}

3. Make /tftpboot directory

$ sudo mkdir /tftpboot
$ sudo chmod -R 777 /tftpboot
$ sudo chown -R nobody /tftpboot

4. Start tftpd through xinetd

$ sudo /etc/init.d/xinetd start

… smooth!

Notes: used 170 skis all week even though looking back at last years notes I thought 175s may not have been long enough. Didn’t really have any problems though. Tooks some cereal bars in the case which was good given the weak pound meant food was very expensive.

Crystal seemed to have been skimping on the amounts of food available to hosts for cooking, again possibly due to weak exchange rate.

Given runs were quite hard this year wondered whether how conditions might be earlier in the season.

Home time :'(

Final couple of drinks in Le Mine after dinner to cap off great holiday.

Plagne Villages from nr. Le Dou Du Praz Restaurant

Action shot

TC, Plagne 1800

Plagne 1800

Made it all in one piece

JA, JB, HE, JW felt the need for a beer or five in Le Mine – others too tired.

Lovely lunch spot, Les Arcs 2000

Everyone actually made it on...

The Vanoise Express lines from Les Arcs side