CLICK TO HEAR THE CALL:

Now I feel like we are well fortified and ready to take on going over to our agent's place, a guy named Yeltsin who we've worked with for about 15 years. Basically we get our battle plan together, for getting everything from our permitting, our royalty paid and all that to making sure we have enough Snickers bar boxes going up to Base Camp.

VIDEO DISPATCH Pete Athans REAL PLAYER modem speed (28k) (T1) RealPlayer WIN MEDIA modem speed (28k) (T1) Windows Media CLICK FOR FULL TRANSCRIPT

Not much else to say right at this point, we will definitely be checking in with you, I will be sending you a further dispatch and everyone here is obviously incredibly excited. We will be meeting with Elizabeth Hawley, who if you don't know her, she is obviously the chronicler of virtually every expedition to come through here. She has been here since the 1960s, which, really, she was brought here as a correspondent for Reuters covering the newly minted democracy in Nepal which lasted about 15 minutes. But Liz did stay here since that time and she's obviously become kind of the darling and patron of every expedition that actually goes through here as far as information is concerned. She is a wonderful gal, and we will definitely be telling you a little bit more about her later, so take care, have a great day and we look forward to talking to you all soon. Bye now!

—Pete Athans, Expedition Leader

DISPATCHES