Last Friday (20 April) ten intrepid explorers dressed in CGE&Y-branded clothing left Kathmandu for Besi Shahar, the first leg of a unique attempt to scale the 7,126 meter peak of Himlung Himal in the Himalayas. They hope to break a few records and show that our Network Infrastructure Solutions goes higher than the competition.

To be honest, only one of the climbers is actually an employee of CGE&Y, but our NIS Service Line is sponsoring the expedition, hence the heavy branding which is being co-ordinated by Sophie Darrigues, People Relationship Manager for NIS. We are financing shared equipment, food and some of the individual equipment as well.

Olivier Soudieux is our guy, the youngest of the team members who are all French with the exception of one Swede. Olivier has been preparing this event for a year, project managing it from A to Z according to Alexandre Steiner, our NIS leader in France. "I'm very impressed by Olivier's strength and audacity," says Alexandre, "that led him to plan this project."

Olivier is an avid skier, rock climber, ice climber and coach who has been a frequent climber in the French Alps. He is taking a few months off from his work as project manager responsible for the implementation of the NIS France intranet site.

The Himlung Himal is located on the edge of the Mustang on the border between Nepal and Tibet. The climbers will follow the eastern part of the Annapurna Trek and then the Nar Valley. The summit was first reached in 1992 by the Academic alpine Club of Hikkaido, Japan. This is the first ever try by Europeans.

The climbers will face extreme weather conditions, altitude, body acclimatisation, crevasses, seracs and icefalls during the eight-week challenge. The medical crew composed of one doctor, one nurse and a pharmacist lend the team support in case of emergency. No external support will be available once they reach the base camp at 4850 meters.

If they reach the top, the intent is to make the world's first attempt to discover a neighbouring summit that has never been scaled. One of the party, Swede Eskil Eriksson will attempt to ski downhill non-stop to the bottom.

NIS is supporting the climb as a way to communicate its services. Alexandre Steiner says "I like unusual initiatives, and an expedition project at this level does not occur every day. A project leading a team to the summit is a perfect opportunity to accentuate our team spirit within NIS."

Olivier Dagallier, Skill Centre Manager for NIS, says that this adventure is a good example of bringing project objectives to successful conclusions. "It involves team spirit and willingness to be the very best," says Olivier. "This adventure shows our team members and other professionals within NIS the importance to have projects outside work."

The arduous trip requires the team to travel light. It would have been nice if they could carry networking equipment to link with satellites to beam webcam videos of their journey to a CGE&Y website and spread the NIS message to the world. But not this time.

We'll have to wait until June to find out how well they have done. How old fashioned.

More information can be seen on the NIS website at http://globalnis.se.cgey.com/