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Expedition Dispatches
Satellite phone updates from the 1998 American Everest Expedition
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Wally Berg
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Taking Care of Business
Saturday, March 28, 1998 — Kathmandu
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Satellite phones for Everest cybercasts provided by MVS/USA
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Today is a big day for us in that we have our Ministry of Tourism briefing at 11am — we'll all be there. We have various other ends to tie together to get ready for our very early morning departure to Lukla, tomorrow morning in a chartered Russian MX-17 helicopter which will transport all the cargo we have with us still in Kathmandu: GPS equipment, food, tents, a few Sherpas that are still in town — although the core group of our Sherpas are well underway at our basecamp now getting ready to set things up. So we're off in a Russian helicopter tomorrow morning, weather permitting, and I have a feeling it will be good.
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The Mountain Hardwear Six Meter Satellite Dome Tent
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Yesterday was a big day of organization. We all run in different directions; we have enough to do that we kind of run about town getting things done in groups of two and three, and individually as necessary. Certainly I've been working very closely with Gyalzen, spent a lot of time with him. One of the cool things that happened yesterday that I wasn't a part of is we put up all of our tents and checked them out, Mountain Hardwear tents, which we'll be using this year. I was especially pleased when I saw this Mountain Hardwear Six-Meter Satellite Dome Tent which is going to be basically our basecamp, living tent, dining tent, office-space, and that sort of thing. It's a very large good looking tent, I think we'll get a lot of use out of it. We're very pleased with our Mountain Hardwear gear.
The Thamel district in Kathmandu
(photo: Potterfield)
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One thing you should know that will happen tonight is we're staying at the Hotel Tibet which is owned by the Phocars, a Tibetan refugee family that has been in Kathmandu since 1959 when they left along with the Dalai Lama.
This family has been close friends of mine as well as a lot of other American mountaineers and trekkers over the years, due primarily to a little trekking shop they ran in the heart of Thamel, on a corner in Thamel, for years and years. Faringo Car ran this shop and her and her mother, her father, and her younger brother Tenzing were always so gracious and helpful to climbers that their little shop became a focal point, a cross roads of expeditions, both American and European, and to some extent Japanese, during what I consider the Thamel heyday, back in the early and mid 80's. Her family has built the Hotel Tibet now, and we're pleased to be staying here. There's a puja [Buddhist ceremony] going on upstairs right now, and this evening, we're going to have dinner with the family.
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Charles Corfield works the sat-phone from the roof of the Hotel Tibet
(photo: Wally Berg)
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We're still on the rooftop of the Hotel Tibet, getting some images, and I remembered that one little description I wanted to give you in my first dispatch that relates to our story. Last evening, myself and Charles and Todd Burleson and Gordon [Janow] and Lakpa Rita and Dawa Sherpa, two of our key Sherpas from last year (and all of the last few previous years) on Alpine Ascents trips, we all had dinner together in Kathmandu. Very nice reunion for us; it's nice to all be back together. Todd and Gordon had just arrived the day before yesterday and they are waiting, of course, for the trekking group, some of which arrived today and many more who will arrive tomorrow, who will be coming into basecamp with us. We're all together in Kathmandu once again and especially with regard to seeing Lakpa Rita and Dawa, it was great to get back together with those guys.
— Wally Berg, Expedition Leader
