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Auspicious Start in Soft Rain
Phakding - Wednesday, April 26, 2000

DISPATCHES

Berg

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Mountain Zone, our flight to Lukla this morning went really well — a very auspicious beginning to our trip. Things went on time; smooth trip out to Lukla; impressive landing as always. We just kind of, I just had people...let them kind of wander around Lukla for a while as the staff, who I hadn't seen in more than 12 days of course, began to organize the loads, get them onto the porters and get under way.

People wandered around. I ran into Gary Weaver a little later and he said 'you know, the group of us were just talking, we feel like we're the luckiest people in the world just to be out here,' and that's true. I mean, it's great to get out and get under way like this.

I'm calling you right now during the midst of a soft rain down at Phakding, which you'll remember is on the Dudh Kosi river. Evening is setting in here; Pemba and his crew, the kitchen crew, are fixing a meal. The roar of the Dudh Kosi river is behind and, as it begins to get dark, I'm anticipating a great night's sleep. I always sleep so well when I finally get back out here and I think the still slightly jet lagged and very much overwhelmed and awed group of us, the trekkers on this trip, will sleep well also.

So when we get to Namche tomorrow I'll give you call. Once again, really smooth. Having been at Lukla many, many times over the years, and knowing many of you have been in and out of here, I've got to comment on how well this place is beginning to run. This Yeti airlines that we use — a fairly new airline — they have some Twin Otters, they operate really efficiently.

As a matter of fact, I lost $50 to Giban Jhimari who was with the last group because he told me he was going to get my entire group on one Yeti airplane and I said, 'There's no way they're going to do that. They never do it that way — the pilot's going to put his brother on or somebody's going to pull something, so that we get split up and our bags will be on a bunch of different planes.'

I lost 50 bucks out of that deal, and sure enough today, all 16 of us flew out here together and Tseten came behind on the next Yeti flight, which was, just as scheduled, was 10 minutes behind the first one. And it's really nice to see that kind of efficiency and I hate to use the words schedule and Lukla in the same sentence, but it actually went that way.

So anyway, enough about airplanes. I'm back to being thrilled to be...happy to be, in the soft, gentle rain here. Beautiful evening coming down on Phakding here, and I'm going to call you from Namche Bazaar and let you know how that big climb up the Namche hill went tomorrow.

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

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