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Recovering in Dingboche
Dingboche - Thursday, May 11, 2000
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Tejas

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Good morning Mountain Zone, this is Vernon Tejas with Alpine Ascents and guess what, we're in Dingboche in the high Himalaya, very far away from Base Camp at this time. And we are resting and recuperating. We are so recuperated that our pulse rates have dropped and our oxygen saturations have come up.

And yesterday we were able to go for a little acclimatization hike over to the small town of Pheriche, just across the hill, and visit the Himalayan Rescue Association, which is a volunteer clinic staffed by doctors from all over the world. They've come there not only to help out with trekkers and climbers, but also to learn a lot more about altitude sickness: AMS [acute mountain sickness], HAPE [high altitude pulmonary edema], HACE [high altitude cerebral edema] and HAFE [high altitude flatulence emission] — all the big killers of the high mountains.

So we went over yesterday afternoon, 3 o'clock, and listened to the talks, where they gave out very good information and dispensed not only with them, but some drugs to people who had needed them as well.

Today we're looking at another low-key day, looking at some beautiful, white, towering mountains surrounding this valley. We're going to go for a nice little hike and probably just eat some more. We've all put on a couple pounds since we got here and we'll probably put on a couple more before we head back up to Base Camp.

The weather's starting to look like it's improving and we're hoping it'll go right into its normal May-time window of opportunity between the winter winds and the monsoon snows that come in another couple weeks.

So thank you very much for listening, and those who are interested in numbers, our sat today, our blood-oxygen saturation is 91. Our pulse rate 68 for the group. It was exactly zero centigrade this morning when we got up, but it has now warmed up quite a bit more and we're at 4340 meters above sea level. And does anybody out there know the score for the White Sox? Thanks.

That's all from Nepal, ciao for now, all the best from Everest and that's all were going to say from Dingboche.

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

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