Manaslu (8163m) and Dhaulagiri (8167m)

From Base Camp to Jomson Saturday, May 8, 1999 — 7:38am (PST) Viesturs Hear Ed's Call from Nepal Click for  [RealAudio]  [Windows Media] (Requires FREE RealPlayer or Windows Media)

Veikka and I hiked yesterday for nine hours from Base Camp to where we are now in the village of Marpha, which is at about 10,000 feet. The first four-and-a-half hours of our trek from Base Camp unfortunately were uphill. I don't think printable words can describe how much Veikka and I enjoyed that first four-and-a-half hours of climbing uphill out of Base Camp, so that we could then finally start going downhill. And, of course, as a result of our climbing high altitude without oxygen, one of the lasting residual benefits of that is a, is a dry, hacking cough. And all day yesterday, as Veikka and I were hiking out, we were plagued by coughing continuously all day and at one point when we crested a ridge both of us had severe coughing fits and, as a result, both of us we were wracked onto the ground. So the...[satellite transmission fails].

Hi this is Ed again to finish. So we spent the night, last night, May 7th, here in Marpha and it was a very nice, quaint lodge and today, this morning, we met with an agent that works for our trekking agent here and we spent all morning with them to get our tickets for tomorrow. On Sunday we will fly from Jomson to Kathmandu. And we will actually be flying a day ahead of our gear. Our loads are still coming out from the mountain and from porters — and head for Kathmandu on Monday. So tomorrow morning, it is still an hour or so to go to the village of Jomson where the airport is and so the person here that is helping us has arranged for us to ride horses into Jomson. And Veikka and I are pretty excited about that. Rather than walking for an hour, we get to sit in saddle and ride into town and jump on a plane and then fly to Kathmandu.

So if the weather is good, we'll be flying tomorrow. Right now, it's been raining a lot, thunder showers and all that, but typically clears up at night. And so it is a very pleasant place to hang right now. It's warm, there is a lot of oxygen and we're sleeping in beds.

That is it for now, things are going well we look forward to being in Kathmandu tomorrow and we could be reporting from there — as about what we have done and how things happened here in Nepal. Spring season has been phenomenal, weather-wise, conditions in the mountain have been perfect. It hasn't snowed all winter and so therefore the snow conditions have been excellent — have been very dry, very safe in the mountains and climbing conditions have been phenominable also.

— Ed Viesturs, Mountain Zone Correspondent

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