Expedition Dispatches
Satellite phone updates from the 1998 American Everest Expedition

Wally Berg

Nice to be Under Way
Thursday, March 26, 1998 — Kathmandu

	Hear Wally Berg's call from Kathmandu
Satellite phones for Everest cybercasts provided by MVS/USA

Rickshaw driver in Kathmandu
(photo: Potterfield)

Good morning Mountain Zone, this is Wally Berg calling you from Kathmandu. It's nice to be underway. Sometimes — rarely I'll have to say these days — when you fly into Kathmandu, you're privileged to have a clear, crystalline sky, beautiful weather without the typical haze.

I want to relate who met us at the airport, I covered our staff, but I was very surprised and pleased to see another fellow standing there who is a dear friend of mine Pasang Kaji Sherpa. Pasang Kaji, or "Kaji" as we know him normally. He and I went to the summit of Everest together in 1992, and at that time we became very close friends and have remained close friends. Kaji you should know about because he was and is a very strong climbing Sherpa — certainly he impressed me the first time he climbed Everest in 1992, and he's impressed many other western climbers and Sherpas in the time since.

Kaji raised money on his own and put together an expedition in 1994. He tried to break Marc Batard's speed ascent record on the South Col route which was set in 1988. 22 1/2 hours from Everest base camp to the summit of Everest, climbing without oxygen, of course, and even though it was on the established route and with the support in terms of food and water being handed off and even sleeping bags to crawl into certainly is an athletic accomplishment, it was done entire on Batard's own in 1988. Kaji has felt for years that a Sherpa should be able to break that record and if fact tried in 1994. He didn't quite make it.

He met me at the airport. He heard through Gyalzin that I was going to be there and informed me that he is still trying to pull together the last details to be able to undertake this effort again this spring as a Nepalese citizen with a Nepalese climbing permit issued to him. I hope he pulls this off, but I just thought I would let you know who he is. He'll certainly be around. I hope that he gets this expedition together and makes his attempt again this year. If not, I just thought I would fill you in that he is around — he is in the loop. There will be a lot of other characters of course I will be describing as this thing goes on. But that's it for now.

— Wally Berg, Expedition Leader

DISPATCHES