Earlier this summer, three teams of Citrites climbed the U.K.’s three tallest peaks across three countries — England, Scotland, and Wales — to benefit East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices (EACH). At the summit of each peak, each team set up a network with our Citrix datacentres and competed in a multiplayer, 3D car racing game using Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops technology.

The adventure started long before the climb, though. The teams had already raised a large portion of their final fundraising goal, fought the organisational battle of getting more than 30 people available at the same time, and figured out how to get everyone to their assigned mountains. Before the kit buying and training commenced, two experienced climbers talked to the rest of the team about what to expect. The day before the hike, everybody travelled to their mountains using a combination of boats, planes, trains, and automobiles, and then checked the weather for climb day to decide when would be the best time to start the ascent.

The climb itself was long and difficult, with each team toiling with different sets of conditions: Team Scafell Pike (England) dealt with rain the whole way up and down whereas Team Ben Nevis (Scotland) hiked from warm sunlight at the base to snow at the summit. What got all of the teams through, though, was a sense of optimism and teamwork.

“My favourite part was probably after we had done our final major ascent and we could just about see the peak. That last stretch was much more challenging than any of us had imagined, with lots of scrambling up very steep rock faces. By that point, we had all worked really hard and pushed ourselves but also kept together as a team, and it felt rewarding to get there all together”

— Janki Shah, Software Engineer, Snowdon (Wales) Team Leader

“My favourite part was the hike down. A small group of us decided to take the CMD Arete route back, which is a slightly longer ridge line walk.”

— Harley Chapman, Network Engineer Apprentice, Ben Nevis:

“The hardest part of Ben Nevis was pulling my muscle near the start. It was so painful, but I was determined to get to the top.”

— Ben Davies, Principal Software Engineer, Ben Nevis:

“The best part of climbing Scafell Pike was the people I was with. We had laughs when things did not go well. We also had Luna the dog with us. She kept us going as we had to run after her to keep her away from the wild sheep.

“The hardest part of climbing Scafell Pike was going down the summit, there was so many wet stones, and I kept on losing my balance. Luckily I had my amazing team to help me get through the falls, and we laughed it all off”

— Kathryn Pyrah, Business Analyst Apprentice, Scafell Pike:

The plan was for the racing game to be run on virtual machines on a server in Citrix’s London datacentre. This allowed a LAN connection between each of the three desktop sessions, but there were unforeseen issues with the compatibility between the new hardware and the retro game that was used.

“The hardest part was the week before the climb, ensuring all the teams were ready and that the tech was properly tested”

— Sam Lock, Software Engineer, Ben Nevis Team Leader & challenge organsier:

To combat this, a server was set up as a host in our Cambridge office on which to run the virtual machines and games. Once the teams reached their summits, they connected the new VDAs through StoreFront and got ready to race.

The original plan was for all three teams to race against each other over the LAN. But due to organisational juggling and various weather conditions, the teams summited at different times, even with the support of a team in Cambridge rebooting the Virtual Machines and helping with connection to the sessions.

The pictures below show the three teams at the summits of Ben Nevis (blue), at Scafell Pike (orange), and at Snowden (green).

All the teams descended safely and got home without too many delays, feeling exhausted and fulfilled!

“What an amazing opportunity and experience to climb the tallest mountain in England. It was certainly no small feat and was definitely worth the challenge to raise money for EACH”.

— Dan Franklin, Cyber Security Apprentice, Scafell Pike:

This challenge raised a total of over £4000. Money raised will help EACH provide a range of physical, emotional social and spiritual support services. EACH support hundreds of families free of charge and fundraising goes a long way in supporting the charity to do this. The Cambridge office has previously fundraised for EACH with activities such as a Santa Run and 100-mile bike ride. To express their gratitude, EACH invited the fundraising team to visit their facilities near the Cambridge office.