Hitachi Daily Dispatches [CLICK FOR INDEX] Pete Athans Settling Into The New Neighborhood
 Mon, April 5, 1999 — South Side Base Camp
CLICK TO HEAR THE CALL: 
Hey Mountain Zone. This is Pete Athans, Everest Base Camp, 17,500 feet. The first full day in Base Camp and we took care of a lot of different types of details: organizing everything from our very high tech communications tent to our very low tech food tent, which is full of Snickers Bars and junk foods that we'll of course be very happy to consume in a variety of places.

Medical Tent We had a very pretty day. For about the first half of it, we were almost out in tee shirts really, and then the snow kind of came in and obscured things. We had some very brilliant icefall collapses from the crowd pleasers across the valley over at Pumori, and obviously over up on Nuptse, which is another very frequent runner.

Laundry So it feels good to be back here in Base Camp. Everyone's excited about our puja, which will take place the day after tomorrow. One lama who will be coming up from Pangboche will give the final blessing to the team, and then we'll be able to move under his good auspices and move up to Camp I and we'll actually send a sherpa team to Camp II. Certainly for me, it's my 13th expedition here, things are moving right along and we're obviously really pleased to close one chapter of getting us and all of our supplies half way around the world to this place and now it's up to us to really deal with the physical mountain and get to the business of climbing the thing.

So, I'm looking forward to talking with you all really soon. We'll be getting some other images up to you quick, and I hope you're having a great day. Thanks for spending some time with us. This is Pete. I'm out.

—Pete Athans, Expedition Leader

DISPATCHES