Simonson

It always seems like getting out the front door is the hardest part of one of these big expeditions. For me, as expedition leader, it is the part of the trip that ends up being the biggest challenge.

I starting organizing this 1999 Cho Oyu Expedition nearly two years ago. During the intervening months I've assembled a good team, made arrangements for the permits, collected an amazing amount of paperwork from everyone involved, hired our Sherpas, organized all the gear and food, made travel arrangements, and now, finally, seen it all come together in the last three days. We are on the way to Cho Oyu now!

The flights to Kathmandu were long and boring as usual, but everything went off without a hitch...almost. Bringing the MountainZone communications gear into Nepal was a problem, but I convinced the airport customs staff at Kathmandu to itemize the gear in my passport since we were only going to be in Nepal for a day. The alternative was that they send me off to the Ministry in search of a permit which would have been a bureaucratic black hole (in China we have a satcom permit which cost $2000). The only other hassle was that one of Joe Coughlin's bags turned up missing. We had to put a trace on it...fortunately it showed up the next day.

Then it was time to go get everyone checked in at Hotel Tibet and say hello to Tsering Dolkar and her family who run the place. After getting everyone squared away there, guides Craig John and Jason Tanguay headed over to Great Escapes Trekking with me to have a meeting with the Sherpas.

The Sherpas had all come down from Khumbu a few days before and had been busy getting the food and equipment packed up under the direction of Pemba, our head cook. Since we had left a lot of the tents and camp gear in Tingri after the Mallory Expedition, things were not too much of a headache. All the rice, flour, potatoes, vegetables, etc., had been packed by the Sherpas into yak loads. The bags were all sewn shut to prevent pilferage. Our stash of several thousand eggs were safely packed in their metal egg boxes.

We only had one day in Kathmandu, and we had a number of chores to take care of. First, we had a big team breakfast meeting the next morning at Mike's Breakfast. It had rained all night, so we had our meeting under a thatched cabana amidst Mike's luxurious garden. Mike, an American who has lived in Kathmandu for many years, had just returned from one of his semi-annual trips to the States. In fact, he had been in Northfield, MN, home of Carleton College, the alma mater of both Mike ('62) and me ('77).

After breakfast, we did a Kathmandu taxi road rally to Bodhnath, home of the famous stupa. There we met our Sherpa team and had a puja ceremony with the Rinpoche from Thyangboche, who was at one of the nearby monastaries. This is important for the Sherpas as they want to stack the deck in their favor. Some extra prayers never hurt!

Then it was back to finish packing. At the same time, the staff from Great Escapes was getting our Chinese Visa from the embassy, something that takes all day! Since all of our paperwork was in order, it wasn't a big problem, just one that takes time and money.

At 4am yesterday morning, the Sherpas starting packing the truck. We said goodbye to Craig John who would be going with them. We knew he was in for an epic having heard that the road was washed out in at least three places. He'll have to hire porters at each place to carry all the loads past then hire another vehicle on the other side of the landslide. We sent Craig with an extra $1000 in small rupee notes to cover these unexpected expenses!

The rest of the team joined me on an early morning trip to the airport to board our China Southwest Airline flight to Lhasa. It was reassuring to get into the Boeing 757 for our trip over the Himalayas. We climbed through thick clouds to about 24,000 feet where we finally emerged into blue sky. What a sight! The only peaks visible as we flew east along the Himalayas, were the summits of Cho Oyu, Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, and Kangchenjunga. Turning north, we crossed over the range and started our descent into Lhasa.

As we came down through the clouds over Tibet, what was first apparent was how incredibly green the countryside was compared to how it looked when we left Everest last spring. The summer monsoon season had been quite wet compared to the scorched, brown landscape last spring. Descending into the the Gonggar Valley, we flew over the mighty Tsangpo River which later becomes the Bramaputra, one of the world's great rivers. It was bank to bank—in places, over a mile wide—flooding the entire valley! Awesome!

Chinese immigration and customs took a while, but soon we were meeting up with Mr. Chong, our interpreter. Our Liaison Officer, Mr. Jong, had gone ahead to Zhangmu to meet Craig and the Sherpas. Piling into a bus, we headed for Lhasa, about an hour away. Tibet looked great. Green and tidy! Such a difference from the clutter and filth of Kathmandu. It's been a few years since I've been to Lhasa (I usually get stuck doing what Craig was doing...going by truck!), and a lot had changed.

— Eric Simonson, MountainZone.com Correspondent

EXPEDITION DISPATCHES