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Surprised by Snow
Pheriche - Monday, April 10, 2000

DISPATCHES

Berg

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Good morning Mountain Zone. Wow, what a morning here. I got up very early in Pheriche, this is April 10th. And Joel Check and Keith were out on the street here in Pheriche ahead of me and the light was just amazing. It snowed overnight, a little bit of a surprise — quite a bit of new snow — and in the early morning from here in Pheriche the only sunlit peaks will be Kantega and Cho Oyu. It was just gorgeous as we were out taking photographs this morning and wandering around.

We are headed for Namche today, everyone's doing great the thick air as always helps. Kami's eye looks much better. We're pulling out of the Himalayan Hotel here in Pheriche. We run this trip really with a sort of a series of home bases. I talk about the Yak & Yeti. I talk about the Panorama Lodge run by Sherib Jangbu in Namche. I'll talk a lot about Ang Kati place or the Himalayan Lodge here in Pheriche. We spend three nights here total, two on the way to Base Camp and one on the way back and I made reservations for rooms here for our next trip; they'll be expecting us here when we return May 2nd. It's nice to have these home bases in the Khumbu as we trek through the area and as we watch people come and go to Base Camp.

We should have a great walk back today. I'm going to keep you posted about how the whole thing goes. I know Dick Nichols is going to be having a good day because he watches for the Himalayan Tahr. Dick's an enthusiast, who has been into mountain sheep — wild sheep — around the world and he was excited to see the tahr. He and the Sherpas found a lot of them on the way out to Thame about a week or so ago, also saw some coming this direction from Namche — I got a feeling Dick will see some more today as well. We'll give you a report from Namche, as we move down the valley.

One more thing that's likely to happen, that we're all sort of anticipating, is our crossing paths with the Alpine Ascents' expedition, I got a feeling that's going to take place sometime this morning. So they've probably been reporting to you and we'll certainly be excited to run across and get the news that Mountain Zone may already have about how these folks have been doing as they approach Base Camp.

— Wally Berg, Alpine Ascents Guide and MountainZone.com Correspondent

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