Snow Lion is essentially a marketing company. The organization of our trip worked something like this:
Snow Lion scheduled the Kailash trip for the indicated dates, and advertised it on their website. In addition, Dick Zody published a notice on the HEC website as well. In order for the trip to go, they needed at least 4 people to sign up. By committing early, I got a discount.
The main problem with being a marketing company is that their people in Salt Lake City have no direct experience of Tibet or Kailash. Thus, it was difficult to get explicit advice on conditions, expected weather, camp life, etc. I imagine that for a trek in Nepal, the quality of information would be better.
In Kathmandu, the trip's guide is the only Snow Lion employee. All of the rest of the Nepali crew are supplied by a local company, after being vetted by the Snow Lion guide. The local company also takes care of arrangements in KTM, such as dealing with hotel, airport pickup, reconfirming departure flights, etc. The man who was our contact is named Kirun, and he was excellent in all respects. This rep also keeps your return tickets while you are on the trek, and makes sure that the return flights are confirmed, since you may not get back to KTM until the day before departure. In my case, I had reserved on Singapore Air assuming that we might be delayed on the return from Simikot; since we returned on the earliest possible date, Kirun took me to the Singapore/Delta ticket office, and I was able to rebook for the following day.
The guide is the boss on the trek. Ours was Jamyang Lodoe, a most interesting man. Jamyang is a Tibetan who lives in KTM. He speaks excellent English as well as Nepali and Tibetan. Before becoming a guide for Snow Lion, he has worked as a fashion photographer in Denmark and as a chef in a restaurant. Having travelled in several dozen countries, including the USA, Jamyang estimates that he may be the best-travelled Tibetan, possibly excepting the Dalai Lama. Jamyang had been to Kailash two times before, and was just back from guiding two other treks in succession. After ours was over, he was due for a well-deserved vacation.
After the guide, the sirdar is the most important crew member. This individual is responsible for all of the other crew, the camp, equipment, food, etc. Once the sirdar has been hired, he and the guide select the others from lists of candidates available in KTM. In our case, there were five other sherpas who would be with us for the duration. Most of the sherpas spoke at least some English, although not as well as Jamyang. In Tibet, the crew would be supplemented by six people selected by the Chinese Tourist agency; Snow Lion has no control over the selection of these men, and so pot luck is inevitable. We were reasonably lucky with our Tibet crew, although only one of them (the office guide) spoke any English.
One of the sherpas undertook this job to make the pilgrimage to kailash while getting paid. After passing the Dolma La pass, he said that he had made a vow to give up drinking and gambling. It would be interesting to interview him to see if he's managed to keep those vows.
Phoning to the states is expensive and haphazard. You can direct dial from the hotel room, but it often takes multiple tries to get through. Once you do, the cost is about $7/minute. There are many shop fronts in town that offer telephone service; however, I never tried this to see what the relative costs would be. Since the satellite-based Iridium network is now operational, I would expect that service using Iridium phones would be useful in this part of the world. In addition, carrying such a phone would allow outside communication while trekking in Tibet or elsewhere in the Himalayas.
The hotel restaurant is quiet good and sanitary, with excellent service. There are several types of beer available, all served in large liter bottles. Breakfast is buffet style, with a cook preparing egg dishes. Being in a predominantly Hindu country, serving beef is forbidden. However, chicken and pork are readily available. No meals at the Shangri-La are included in the package. The restaurant is situated next to a large lawn at the rear of the hotel. It is quite peaceful to sit at a table on the lawn under a large umbrella sipping a beer.
Snow Lion provided a tour of KTM, the day before our departure, as part of the package. This tour consisted of a guide and a minibus with driver; we visited the Buddhanath Stupa and the Pushnipatinath Temple, both of which I had seen previously during my homestay.
Normally you would plan to pack one suitcase/duffel for time in KTM and enroute, apart from your trek duffel. Everything that you will not take on the trek is checked into the luggage room at the hotel awaiting your return.
There is a card to be filled out, which is registered with the American Embassy. It just informs them of your trek itinerary. I'm not sure what good such a card would do in event of any difficulties, but it's probably worthwhile. The trek leaders pass these out the night before leaving; I had already filled one out at the American Express office earlier.
Money is an interesting subject here. It is easy to get Nepali Rupees for dollars, but practically impossible to change them back. The hotel will change dollars at a rate that is not as bad as hotel rates are elsewhere in the world. The best plan is to use all of your remaining rupees to pay hotel charges when leaving, retaining enough to pay the exit visa charge at the airport. Similarly, you will need to change some money into Chinese yuan at the Tibet border. There is not much to buy in Tibet, and you cannot change the yuan back to dollars. I changed $50 and probably spent less that $20 in yuan, and used the remainder as tips for the guides.