Daily Dispatches [CLICK FOR INDEX] Pete Athans Old Friends and Pujas in Base Camp
 Fri, April 9, 1999 — South Side Base Camp
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Hey Mountain Zone, this is Pete Athans here at Everest Base Camp. It's the 9th of April, and it's about nine at night. Taking a little bit of time to give you a quick dispatch here. We have to get up about 3 am to go through the icefall for what will be our second time. We'll be doing some filming tomorrow morning so fortunately, that will be only about an hour actually in the Icefall before we come down and sack out for a bit. We will be going up the next day to stay at Camp I, so our presence will be felt by the Big E starting what will be the 12th.

Base Camp Hope you're all out there. Thank you for the fan mail. You guys are absolutely incredible. It's wonderful to be back here in Base Camp actually. I know this probably sounds like a surprise given the fact that the place is something akin to a high altitude walk-in freezer and gravel pit, but the people here is what makes everything so much more interesting.

Puja Altar We had a blessing ceremony with another one of the teams that is close by here. They are a pretty big team. They're about 24 people, 24 western climbers I should say and about the same number of Sherpa climbers, so it's rather a huge group. As you can imagine, throwing sampa, or the roasted barley, around and smearing it on peoples' faces, and drinking chang, or their rice beer, and basically carrying on like the fools we are, was definitely a lot of fun.

I had the time to sit with a friend of mine named Gyalzen who's from one of the more remote villages in the Khumbu known as Phortse. He is known as the Icefall Doctor, and he has gotten this moniker for basically doing icefall work for really about the last ten years. I met him here and climbed with him here in 1985. He was on our direct West Ridge to Everest trip, and we just had a great time slapping down some chang and kind of enjoying each other's company and he was surprised to see me back. He didn't think I would be back to climb Everest again. I told him I probably wouldn't be spending a lot of time in the icefall with him, but I would certainly bend elbows down in Base Camp and drop chang with him.

Lamas and Pete Athans Puja time is always a really fabulous time in Base Camp because people are not really worrying too much about what's going to happen in the following days. They are just kind of enjoying the blessing ceremony and each other's company and the fact that they've been able to get the logistical and physical things together so they can get to Base Camp, which are not minor hurdles really for any Everest expedition.

Thanks for being part of our trip this evening. I'm obviously really flattered that you'd listen in, and we'll be talking to you all. Stay tuned. We look forward to talking with you, and please keep the fan mail coming; it really is great to hear from you all. I appreciate it. Goodnight. Bye now.

—Pete Athans, Expedition Leader

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