Hitachi Daily Dispatches [CLICK FOR INDEX] Pete Athans A Difficult Walk
 Sun, April 4, 1999 — South Side Base Camp
CLICK TO HEAR THE CALL: 
Hi Mountain Zone, this is Pete. Great to be back online with you all. I definitely have missed the last couple of days of not being in touch. As Charles so well outlined where we've been for the last couple days, we've really—just in completing the last couple of days coming up to Base Camp—it's really a significant milestone achieved getting all of us up here.

We all seem pretty healthy aside from the obvious breezes from the stern that sometimes come around there. In any case, everyone is extremely healthy and very excited about being here obviously. We're looking forward to getting on with the business of getting Base Camp set up, and we'll definitely be sending out some digital stills and some other moving videos and some other things that I think you'll enjoy.

For me, personally, just—I don't know—hiking up the valley... [inaudible audio] my 14th year coming up to this particular place, and it certainly brought about an incredible array of emotion. Certainly, seeing the memorials to many different friends in a variety of places down there, near Gorak Shep, where the memorials stand as a ceremony to those people. And certainly, the one that I think moved me the most was from Rob Hall, who obviously I think most people who are in on this site remember Rob from 1996. Certainly, my experience with Rob began more than a decade ago really: meeting him on K2; climbing Everest, both of us for our first times in 1990; and then subsequently, working as guides and obviously getting up to the top on many many different occasions. I don't know, just going and seeing that incredible monument that's there to him, it has his photograph and obviously mentions Doug Hansen, Andy Harris, Desu Kunamba, and of course Rob himself—there's just this really nice photo of him.

And really, that's all I want to mention tonight. It was in some ways very difficult to walk by that place, and other ways, very nice to see that Rob had certainly been remembered and extremely well too. It just reminds certainly all of us here who come to climb and perhaps all of you out there, that life, often times, is subject to change and often times very quickly. Certainly, in the mountain environment that can be very very dramatic, but certainly it crosses over into everyone's lives on a day to day basis as well. So remember that. Remember that love can't be conquered by time. Tell the people that you know you love them, and we'll be coming right back at you in the next few days. Take care. Thanks for being part of our lives for the last few minutes. Bye now.

—Pete Athans, Expedition Leader

DISPATCHES