 Ed Viesturs' Quest for the 8,000 meter peaks |
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Friday, April 7, 2000
 Viesturs | |
 Hear Ed's Call from NepalLISTEN: [RealPlayer] [Windows Media] (Requires a FREE media player) |
Hi, it's Ed Viesturs reporting on the Mountain Zone. It's Friday evening, April 7 and we are one day away from Base Camp. We're now camped along the Miristi Khola river, down at an altitude of 11,000 feet. Last night we were camped at a little over 13,000 feet, and this morning we began our hike at around 7am, making a gradually rising traverse for a few hours to just over 14,000 feet and then we made a rapid, rapid descent for 3,000 feet to the floor of the river bed here, at just about 11,000 feet. So, it was a good day, we were a little bit disappointed that we lost that much altitude, but we're planning on regaining it tomorrow as we finish our trek and walk into Base Camp, which is situated at a little over 14,000 feet.
We had a pretty good day today, Veikka and I got here in about four and a half hours, the rest of the team was shortly behind us, we're all doing well. It's been a good six days of trekking up to now. Very routine, we get up at 5 or 5:30 in the morning, we have breakfast at around 6 and that's been consisting of mostly toast, and maybe a fried egg on top, and then some hot drinks and then our cook Dorje hands us each a sack lunch which usually consists of a couple of chappatis, a boiled egg, maybe some crackers and an apple and an orange and that gets us through the day, along with whatever we brought as far as energy bars and drinks and that type of thing.
And Dorje's been doing a really good job cooking on the way in, with the amount of time that he has every night. We have some sort of pasta dish, or Dal Bhat, along with some cauliflower or other type of vegetable and then usually some sort of dessert.
Last night we had what Veikka and I considered the worst dessert in the world. It was a huge bowl of maraschino cherries. Rather than just getting a little cup of fruit cocktail with maybe one or two or three maraschino cherries floating around which you could easily pick out, if you don't like them like we don't like them. Instead, we got this monster size bowl consisting entirely of maraschino cherries. So that's one of the items that we forgot to tell Dorje we don't like, along with cooked raisins and ginger. So, he knows better now, but he's doing an amazing job, everybody's happy, he's a great guy to have along with us. He was with us last year and he keeps us happy and cooks up some amazing meals for us.
So, we're looking forward to getting this trek over with and starting the climb. But, it's a beautiful walk in. Difficult terrain, but beautiful views around every corner and over every ridge. Probably not that this'll be as popular as the Khumbu trek will ever be, simply because it's such a difficult walk but an amazingly beautiful place of trekking in a great part of Nepal to visit.
So, we'll call tomorrow from Base Camp, thanks for tuning in. Ed Viesturs signing out from Nepal on the Mountain Zone.
— Ed Viesturs, MountainZone.com Correspondent
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