Daily Dispatches [CLICK FOR INDEX] Climber Eric Simonson 12,000' and Climbing
Thu, March 25, 1999 — Nyalam, Tibet
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Satellite phones for Everest provided by MVS/USA

Hello, this is Eric, calling from the roof of Taki's Snow Land Lodge, in beautiful downtown Nyalam. It is, about, a little over 12,000 feet here. Today we traveled from Zhangmu up to Nyalam on snow covered roads. Last night it rained hard and snowed up higher, so today we hit snow for the first time. We were fortunate however that the roads were in reasonably good shape and that no avalanches had blocked them. That was something that we have, in the past, experienced a lot of trouble with, as this section of the highway is very susceptible to landslides and huge, devastating snow avalanches.

Right now, everything is going well and the whole team is together and we're gonna take a rest day tomorrow and do some hiking. This is a great elevation to acclimatize at, we are at about 12,000 feet and we want to take advantage of that for a couple of nights before moving on to Tingri, which is over 14,000 feet.

Our plan right now is to send our three trucks and Sherpas ahead tomorrow to Tingri and they will work on getting our equipment organized in Tingri to go on into Base Camp. Meanwhile, the rest of us will take an extra day and do some hiking here. So that is about it, all's well. Goodbye.

Eric Simonson, Expedition Leader
DISPATCHES