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The Corner Room
Namche Bazaar - Thursday, April 27, 2000

DISPATCHES

Berg

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Mountain Zone, I'm calling you from Namche Bazaar. We all walked in here between 1:30 and 2:00, arrived at the Panorama Lodge and I'm calling you from that top corner room that's mine and Peter Potterfield's favorite room. We like it up here because — I don't know if I told you... mentioned this — but we like it up here because you can point the satellite phone out the window and it's perfectly aimed at the Indian Ocean satellite; so really easy to do our dispatches, also easy to look out on the beautiful and familiar scene of Namche Bazaar.

It looks much more familiar to me today than when I was here with the last group because that afternoon mist and fog is definitely here. We had exceptionally clear weather around here on the last visit, both on our way up and on our way back. A little more normal with the misty clouds having risen very early in the day as we walked up from Phakding. In fact, this group has yet to see these high snow peaks that they came to see — Thamserku and Kwangde, especially, are really visible from right here around Namche.

First thing in the morning when we get our morning wake-up call, we'll walk up, about 6am, we'll walk up to the park viewpoint and hopefully see Ama Dablam and Everest as we did with the last group.

It's great to be in Namche regardless of the weather though. Cherub Zombu greeted me as we walked in and with a surprised expression and said, 'Oh, this group is very fast.' In fact I didn't think we'd be up here until 3:00 or 4:00, but this group walked steadily and slowly up the Namche Hill and looked great as they all came in.

The staff is busy working, getting things set up. It's great to be with all these guys, all these folks again, the same crew essentially that were with us last time. And I might mention that Kami, the yak driver that had that really close call with that yak horn scraping against his eye on the last trip, is looking fine. He's absolutely recovered from that, no damage whatsoever to his eye and even the abrasion on the outside along his face is cleared up. So good news there. The whole staff looks good. It's great to be back together; it's fun to watch this group of folks get to know them.

And we're back in Namche once again, having timed this perfectly because tomorrow's Friday. We're going to get to know the town a little bit, wander around, see some old friends. Saturday morning you know what happens: market day, and we'll be down there bright and early. Namche market day is really rocking by 7am because everyone has to get their trading done and get back on the trail. We'll do just that; we'll go down to the Namche market on Saturday morning, check it out and then we'll be off down the trail to Thame.

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

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