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The Big, Dark Pyramid
Kala Pattar - Friday, April 7, 2000

DISPATCHES

Berg

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Hey Mountain Zone, I'm calling you a little later, actually it's early evening still on Friday the 7th of April. I thought I'd call you back, we've had a great day. And in fact the evening here at Gorak Shep is beautiful — the tinkle of those yak bells I keep talking about behind me here. I'm looking up at a beautiful sunlit face on Nuptse which is just right across the Khumbu Glacier from where I'm sitting. And of course I can look over the Lo La at Changste, the north peak of Everest in Tibet and it's really a lovely evening here.

A group of us went up Kala Pattar this afternoon, we didn't all go because the big focus is the trip to Base Camp tomorrow. We'll be up there late morning tomorrow I hope. We may go back up to Kala Pattar for the classic sunrise photos the day after tomorrow before we bail down to the valley of Pheriche. But those of us who went up had a great time. It was not a big draw when we first got here because the weather I described earlier to you, the very good weather, changed dramatically shortly after I did my dispatch to you this morning. We had big lenticular clouds over Everest and later thicker clouds came in and I wasn't confident at all we'd see much of Everest as we went up Kala Pattar, but a few of us decided to walk up anyway.

If you don't know, Kala Pattar is not really a summit or a mountain, it's actually a series of viewpoints along, what you'd almost have to describe as a spur that comes off a ridge that comes off a bigger ridge that comes off Pumori. But we like to go up there because you don't have to walk far at all above Gorak Shep before you see a really dramatic and opposing view of the big, dark summit pyramid of Everest.

It's especially dark this year because the Southwest Face is as dry as I've ever seen it. The winter was pretty dry here and of course the wind is always a factor up there. But it's pretty intriguing to me to see after looking at this mountain season after season, year after year, for so long to see the Southwest Face as dry as it was made the mountain all the more imposing — this big, dark pyramid. As we climbed a ways up the ridge on Kala Pattar, I actually had the Mini M (satellite) phone with me and I was trying to do a dispatch from up on Kala Pattar but the wind was blowing so hard it wouldn't have made any sense anyway, you wouldn't have heard me.

But we had a great walk. As it turned out the clouds shifted from time to time and we got a look at the mountain and it even cleared perfectly a time or two. So pretty good exercise. The rest of the group as we go up has just been hanging out enjoying the quiet afternoon at Kala Pattar. We have a long walk up to Base Camp right up the moraine tomorrow. It's not that easy stroll that some people might think to walk up a glacial moriane. So there's a lot of up and down; it will take us a few hours, probably as many as four, I'm hoping to do it in about three, to get up to Base Camp. We'll hang out for a while and we'll give you a call from Base Camp and let you know how the group's doing.

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

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