One day left at work now! It's all getting very close and all the last minute bits and pieces need sorted. I had a bit of a dry run trying to cut down on kit to ensure that we'll manage the 20kg limit. It sounds as though it should be easy but when you have plastic climbing boots, ice axe, harness and equipment along with 5 season sleeping bag, down jacket, sleeping mat - all these things add up to quite some weight! The sacrifice is the clothing - sure, you need the fleece, waterproofs and so forth but honestly, how many - for which read few - socks and underwear can you get away with?! Tell you what, I'll run a sweepstake and whoever emails me with the closest answer I'll bring a pressie back from Kathmandu!

Anyway, the point of this post is to show you where we're heading to...... after we have a couple of days in Kathmandu seeing some of the sights and soaking up the hustle and bustle, along with the dirt :) we'll head by plane on a short hop to Pokhara where we stay a night before setting off on the trek. If I have time, I'll try and post up a vague itinerary so you can follow where we'll be when. Meantime, here are a couple of maps, firstly of the wider Annapurna region

and here is a more detailed map of our objective right in the centre of Annapurna sanctuary and Machapuchare

our trek in which will take about six days will lead us first to Machapuchare base camp and from there to Annapurna base camp at 4100m from where we will have two further camps as we climb TC.

This is an area steeped in history. Annapurna was the very first of the 14 8000m peaks to be climbed - before Everest - by a French team in 1950. It was not to be without some controversy however and the official book by the expedition leader Maurice Herzog is an interesting read although bettered by the great prose of one of the two who submitted that June 1950 day, Lionel Terray, who's book Conquistadors of the Useless is one of my all time favourite climbing reads. A bit more can be gleaned here