Expedition Dispatches
Satellite phone updates from the 1998 American Everest Expedition



Wally Berg
Acclimating at 14,000'
Sunday, April 5, 1998 — Pheriche (14,000')
Hear Wally Berg's call from Pheriche
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Pheriche (14,000')
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(photo: Potterfield)
Good Morning Mountain Zone, this is Wally calling you from Pheriche, 13,700 feet. It's a beautiful, clear morning here. One of the most spectacular places on this trek. Sitting here in the sun looking at Ama Dablam, Kangtega, Taboche, Lobuche Peak and most especially for me, and I think Eric too probably, we are looking up at Cho Oyo; Eric was on the summit of Cho Oyu last September. It's a real treat to have this sun after a couple of days of walking in mist and clouds.

We will be here at Pheriche for three nights. We feel that this is an important elevation to acclimatize at. We also have the advantage now that we are at Pheriche of being really in direct contact with base camp. For the Sherpas and for us later when we become acclimatized, Pheriche is only a days walk away from base camp. After we arrived here yesterday, one of our climbing Sherpas, my dear friend, Nima Tashi, who you probably will remember was on the summit with me last year, and who has climbed with us a great deal over the years, came through with news from base camp, mostly very good news. They did have that windstorm that I mention earlier but managed to repair all the tents except for one, and it seems that they have a good scene there as they are preparing our base camp and doing their work with rocks and platforms in order to get things set up for our two month base camp.

We plan to arrive at base camp Friday. One thing we've worked out via communication from Nima Tashi is that we are going to do a Puja with all the Sherpas and the climbers together next Sunday, that is an auspicious day, a good day to do that. We are arranging that right now. We're contacting a Lama from Pangboche to come up, and we're looking forward to that being, in many ways, a starting point for our expedition. After we do the Puja next Sunday, the Sherpas will go into the icefall and begin the first carry to Camp I.


Pasang Sherpa
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Today I'm going to backtrack to Pangboche and go see a Lama Geshi, who is a Lama who is very learned and educated, a senior you might say. Also very revered and as the Sherpas say, very popular. There is this old guy down in Pangboche — Nima Tashi went to go pay respects to him and asked to be blessed himself. He is doing that this morning. I'm going to go meet Nima Tashi and go see him on behalf of the expedition. I've never met this fellow myself, but I'm looking forward to it. He has been around for a while; he actually was a teacher of our Sirdar, Pasang, who you have already seen and heard about, when Pasang was at the Thyangboche monastery years ago. The rest of us I think are going to just enjoy the sun here at Pheriche.

One of the things we will be doing besides just acclimatizing, we will be occupying the station up on the ridge above here between here and Dingboche. We occupied the station with GPS receivers last year and we will do the same thing while we're here at Pheriche this time. It'll be a good chance for us to get out and operate some equipment. Hopefully we'll continue to stay in touch with such beautiful sun as we are having right now. We'll talk to you soon. Take care.

— Wally Berg, Expedition Leader

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