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Berg Finally Part of Landmark
Kathmandu - Sunday, April 23, 2000

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Berg

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Mountain Zone I'm calling you as usual from the rooftop of the Hotel Tibet, a little later in the morning on this particular day, the sun's up high, it's a clear, beautiful day in the valley here.

Continuing on with this Thamel legacy, and some of the scenes down there and what's going on. Recently, this week while I was here, Gyalzen Sherpa, from above the clouds, my old dear friend, the agent for the 1998 GPS Expedition, arranged for something that I've been putting off and hasn't happened for years, and that is the honor of signing the famous display of Everest summitters that's kept behind the glass at the bar at the Rum Doodle, the Rum Doodle bar in Thamel.

Actually the first time I summitted Everest in 1992, Gyalzen took myself and two fellows who had summitted with me, Apa Sherpa and Kagzi Sherpa...of course, these guys now being very well known: Apa being the man who will probably soon have the most successful Everest summits and Kagzi, being the guy who has the speed record for an ascents of Everest, from Base Camp to the summit, at 20 hours 24 minutes which he did in 1998.

The three of us were pretty proud after our accomplishment back in 1992, and Gyalzen took us out to dinner and we were prowling the streets of Thamel, and one of our intentions was to go sign that display at the Rum Doodle. At that time, the Rum Doodle, which is a long-standing institution in Thamel, was temporarily closed; they were moving locations. So it didn't happen that night and over the years since, I just never got around to it.

That original case, which I'm sending you a photo of, which sat there for years and years was a landmark in Kathmandu and Thamel for tourists and climbers for years. Now there are a few more cases, all displayed really nicely, the same brown type parchment paper. And, in fact, Gyalzen had arranged...these days they check with the Ministry of Tourism to confirm when somebody walks in there and wants to sign these things. It's not like you can walk in there and decide after a few beers that you've climbed Everest, you know, 'let me sign it.' But, Gyalzen took care of making these arrangements and we had a lot of fun doing this.

So I've put my name up there in one of the hallmarks in Thamel for climbers. I loved signing the display at the Rum Doodle, it was a lot of fun.

— Wally Berg, Alpine Ascents Guide and MountainZone.com Correspondent

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