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Lobuche - Saturday, May 13, 2000
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Prittie

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Hello Mountain Zone, this is Willi Prittie reporting from Lobuche, in the Khumbu, in Nepal, for the Alpine Ascents International Mount Everest program. This morning we have beautiful weather again, this seems to be a continuing pattern; beautiful weather in the morning and clouded up in the afternoon. We hope to be making Base Camp this afternoon, again, after our rest and acclimation foray down to low elevations. Couple of us actually went down to Deboche and saw lots of wildflowers popping up and the rhododendron forest staring to bloom. It's been a very nice interlude, all the while the weather's been very bad on the mountain.

The information that's reached us here is there have been a couple of attempts yesterday all of which were turned back, I'm assuming by deep snow and probably a combination of cloud. Our stats: about 89% group average oxygen saturation and group average of 70 pulse. So it's starting to drop a little bit as we go back up, here at 16.2 now and at 17.8 or so at Base Camp by this afternoon.

Well, looks like I'm stuck here doing the cybercast this morning because Kevin was last seen rushing toward Base Camp yelling, 'sell, sell.' Jack was last seen running down away from Base Camp with a large male yak with a huge set of horns hot on his tail. And Vern is off someplace hot waxing his head after a nice shave this morning. So it's up to me.

I also want to say that I've been getting a lot of flack here especially an email from my sister telling me that I've been falling down on the poetry and rhyming department. So I want everybody to know that Susan Keats, my sister, is responsible for all of the lousy poetry that follows:
We come to Ama Chomolungma to explore her secrets and mystery
She has shyly kept her veil of cloud and mists this season
Interfering with us learning her history
We climb up and down with patience
Waiting for when the goddess will relent
Preparing ourselves as best as we can for that window
When for the summit we'll be hellbent.

That's all for the Khumbu for now, this is Willi Prittie.

— Willi Prittie, Alpine Ascents Guide and MountainZone.com Correspondent

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