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Light Snow In Pheriche
Pheriche - Tuesday, May 2, 2000

DISPATCHES

Berg

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Hey Mountain Zone, I'm calling you from Pheriche the afternoon of May 2nd. After I described that soft rain in Thyangboche yesterday afternoon we continued to enjoy that the rest of the evening. I fell asleep listening to rain on the tent last night, which always helps me sleep well. But sometime during the night that changed to snow and we woke up to a very white Thyangboche this morning.

Through the early part of our hike today on through Pangboche the clouds were actually beginning to break up on the South Face of Lhotse and even at the summit of Everest and we enjoyed views of the big peaks. But as we continued walking into Pheriche it was overall quite a gray day and I'm looking at light snow come down here in the afternoon here at Pheriche.

So it's pretty cold, we're enjoying the mountains at their more inclement state right now, but it's fun to be here at Pheriche at the Himalayan Hotel where we book our private rooms. It's warm in by the yak-dung fire and we've just settled in for a day of acclimatization, tomorrow, and rest. We'll probably go on a short hike someplace. I'd like to get up on the ridge above here over towards Dingboche and actually show people Makalu. If we can see Makalu we will have taken a look at four of the six highest peaks in the world on this trek, that would be Everest and Lhotse, of course, as well as Cho Oyu, and Makalu as the fifth highest. Maybe we'll get that done tomorrow, we'll just have to see what the weather does.

It's good to be this close to Base Camp, we're looking at the maps and if you look at the distance trekked from Lukla about 80 percent of it is behind us now. But the altitude is still the big factor, of course, and it'll be a number of days before we actually walk into Base Camp.

But the great thing about being here is you get news filtering down from Base Camp and I expect to be running across trekkers and probably climbing Sherpas who've dropped down from Base Camp soon. And unlike all of you we don't get to go on the Internet and see what Vern and Willi and others are telling us from Base Camp, so we need to hear word-of-mouth as people trek down the valley. And we're looking forward to hearing some news about friends that we hope to see in just a few days when we walk into Everest Base Camp.

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

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