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The Hillary School
Namche - Saturday, April 8, 2000
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Tejas

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Good morning Mountain Zone, this is Vernon Tejas with Alpine Ascents' Everest Expedition 2000. Hey gang, it's a beautiful, sunny day and we're going to move up the hill. We're currently in Namche Bazaar where we've had a great time acclimatizing and, as a matter of fact, yesterday we climbed up to the city of Khumjung which is just above Namche, about 1000 feet above, and we visited the Hillary School — right there in downtown Khumjung — a gift from Hillary who owes the local Sherpas so much that he's given back to them many, many times over. As a matter of fact, he visited the day before yesterday for one hour. He got off a helicopter and, even though he needed sticks to walk with and was on oxygen afterwards, he visited the people that gave so much to him and he gave so much back to — a wonderful tribute.

Today, as I mentioned, we are getting ready to move up. So we're going to go to the Thyangboche Monastery, world-famous, overlooking the Dudh Kosi river. It should be a very strenuous hike up to the monastery as it climbs from the valley bottom up to the mountain top where this famous monastery has been situated. After the visit there, we will drop down to a little lower elevation so that we can sleep low after working up high. The great thing about being up here is we're getting to meet so many people from all over the world. Namche has become a hive of activity with many groups getting ready to head up towards Base Camp. Looking out of my window, we just have a wide of color and activity as 50 or 60 different people are getting breakfast and meeting the day, packing their packs, rolling up their tents, getting ready to head up the mountain, along side our group. We're going to try to get out a little bit earlier so that we don't get caught in the traffic jam on the trail — those yaks can really back up.

The temperature this morning for the number people: 35 degrees Fahrenheit that's 1.6 Celsius, calm, clear, beautiful day. We're currently at Namche at 3545 meters and getting ready to go to Deboche this evening. Our group's average oxygen saturation is 91, which looks like it's holding now and maybe getting up a little bit — that's good. The average pulse rate for the group is 69, which is good. It is starting to look like we're acclimatized at this level. For all you young minds out there, try to tell me how to do averages. That would be great — a nice little challenge. I've got eight people in my group and I've go different pulses for each one of them. So see if you can get into a small group and figure out what your average pulse rate is.

Stay tuned gang, we'll talk to you later. Check out those pictures. Ciao for now, this is Vernon clear.

— Vern Tejas, Alpine Ascents Guide and MountainZone.com Correspondent

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