Booking terms

A deposit of 30 per cent of the trip price holds your place. It is due within seven days of our written confirmation, and it is not refundable once the booking is confirmed — it is what lets us commit guides, permits and flights to your dates.

A booking is confirmed when we hold the deposit and these documents: the signed terms, a signed waiver for each rider, a clear copy of each passport, each rider's insurance certificate, an emergency contact, and any health condition the guides should know about.

The balance is due two months before departure. Where that timing is hard, tell us — the schedule can be agreed differently in writing. A balance that has not arrived by its date can cost the booking.

Payment is by bank transfer to El Yak Pvt. Ltd. in Kathmandu; the account details come with your confirmation, with a reference that identifies your booking. Bank charges at either end are yours. Nothing is paid through this website, and no card is ever asked for here.

Cancel in writing; the date we receive it is the date that counts.

Before the balance is paid, you lose the deposit and nothing more.

After the balance is paid, Nepal's banking rules do not let us send money back to an overseas account, so what is returned comes as credit towards a future El Yak trip, as Nepali rupees collected in person in Kathmandu, or as a mix of the two:

• 30 to 60 days before departure — half of the balance.
• Fewer than 30 days before departure — a quarter of the balance.

Credit is good for 24 months from your original trip date, at the price of the trip you choose then. Cash in Kathmandu is arranged in advance and collected in person.

When something serious happens close to the date — illness, family, the unforeseeable — write to us anyway. We will work with you to find what is fair and possible, and give you the papers your insurer needs for a claim. These limits are exactly why we ask every rider to carry cancellation cover.

Insurance is a condition of riding with us. Each rider's policy must cover mountain biking at the altitudes on the route, helicopter evacuation and rescue, medical treatment and hospital, and trip cancellation and delay. We check every certificate before departure; without one, a rider cannot join. The cost of any rescue, evacuation or treatment is the rider's and their insurer's — our guides arrange it, the policy pays for it.

These are high-altitude rides with long days and carried sections. Tell us honestly about your riding and your health before a place is confirmed, and about any condition or medication that matters at altitude; it is kept confidential and shared only with rescuers or doctors in an emergency. Bring your own medication with its prescription.

You need a passport valid for six months beyond your trip and a Nepal visa (available on arrival). We arrange every permit the route needs, and your guide carries them. Your own riding kit and clothing are yours to bring; a bike is yours too, or hired from us, as agreed with your booking.

Our guides decide on safety, and their decision is final. They may change the day, the route or the order of the trip for weather, conditions, a rider's health or anything that makes the planned line unsafe — and on these routes they sometimes will. Please follow their instructions on the trail and in the villages.

Ride and travel by Leave No Trace, keep to the rules of the national parks and conservation areas we pass through, and respect local custom — including where photographs are not welcome.

Weather, landslides, closed passes, cancelled flights, strikes, government restrictions and medical emergencies can change a trip. When they do, we work to put alternatives in place; extra costs they cause are the rider's, and services not used because of them are not refunded.

Mountain biking in the Himalaya carries real risk — altitude illness, severe weather, hard ground, mechanical failure, remoteness, injury and, at worst, death — and every rider takes part accepting it, and signs a waiver to that effect. We arrange flights, hotels and other services as an agent for their providers and are not responsible for their failures. To the fullest extent the law allows, our liability is limited to the price of the trip paid. These terms are governed by the law of Nepal; any disagreement we cannot settle between us is resolved there.

El Yak Adventures is El Yak Pvt. Ltd., registered in Nepal (company registration 109/24/069/070), and holds tourism licence 1587. We are based in Thamel, Kathmandu. These terms change only in writing, and any change is told to you before it applies.