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DISPATCHES FROM EVEREST AAI Climbing Guide Wally Berg reports from Everest
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Acclimating in Camp I Tuesday, April 22, 1997 -- 9am (Camp I)
Ok this is Wally Berg calling in from Camp I [19,500']. We just have spent our first night at Camp I. By "we" I mean: myself, Charles Corfield, Greg Wilson, Eric Simonson, and Leslie Buckland. Our Camp I is situated at 19,500' almost exactly by my altimeter. We can look back down and see the bigger seracs kind of teetering in through and leaning toward the Khumbu Ice Fall. And we can look up and see the last big crevasses and around the corner we can look up into the infamous Western Cwm which, as Eric Simonson made the comment yesterday, to people who have a broad-spanning interest in Everest, there's a lot of mountaineering history there. The Western Cwm is certainly a famous, intriguing place; it's great to be here.
 The Western Cwm with Everest in front and Lhotse on the right. We had a warm night. Warmest of all the nights I can remember. No wind. The sherpa's report from Camp II this morning was also that they'd had no wind. We waited anxiously until we got sun at about 8:30 this morning. Now we kind of rolled out of our tents, and we're drinking coffee and tea and getting a leisurely breakfast going. We'll spend a second night here for acclimatization at 19,500'. The only report I can see looking around at all the members faces is that the first night at this elevation went very well. No headaches, no marked altitude symptoms. So we're very encouraged that after another night here we'll be ready to move on to Camp II up in the Western Cwm at 21,500' tomorrow.
 A horizontal ladder crossing over a crevasse in the Ice Fall Yesterday we got a 4:30am start through the Ice Fall. Got to the point that is always called the "Crampon Plain" or "Crampon Point" where you actually put the crampons on and begin your ascent through the Ice Fall. At roughly 5am, Charles and myself were very fortunate to be able to move quite quickly through the Ice Fall and actually reach the top before we had any sun on us. [Sun melts the ice in the constantly shifting Khumbu Ice Fall which is like a massive jumble of ice cubes slowly tumbling down the mountain. These huge ice cubes (called seracs) are more likely to freeze in place at night and come crashing down when warmed in the sun. The impossibility of predicting when a part of the Ice Fall will collapse makes it the most dangerous part of the climb.] Todd and the others were involved with some video work... but we all arrived here by mid-morning, very early afternoon in good shape.
I know that Eric [Simonson] and Greg [Wilson], after their many trips to the north side of the mountain, and their vast experience mountaineering around the world, I think I can speak for them in saying that the upper third of the Ice Fall was pretty... terrifying... I'm a guide who's made a lot of trips through there and maybe I've gotten a little jaded or used to it, but from a mountaineers perspective, the more you know about the way big pieces of ice can behave and move, the more terrifying a place like the upper third of the Ice Fall can be. -- Wally Berg, AAI Climbing Guide |
Click to hear Wally Berg's audio dispatch recorded over sat-phone.
[Dispatches from Everest Index]
Photos by Todd Burleson/Alpine Ascents International.
1997 Everest Expedition with
Alpine Ascents International, Inc.
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