Wally Berg

	Hear Wally Berg's call from Pheriche Click for [RealAudio] or [NetShow]
Satellite phones for Everest cybercasts provided by MVS/USA

Expedition yak [click to zoom]

Hi Mountain Zone, it's Wally Berg calling you the morning of the 8th from yet another beautiful Pheriche sunlit morning. We have a quiet little scene here going, yaks being loaded, a number of rather unruly yaks I might add. Today's a big day for us, after three days of acclimatization at Pheriche, we are moving to Lobuche, 15,900', and then we'll stage one more trekking day to Gorak Shep at 16,800' and move on to base camp one day after that.

The path to Lobuche [click to zoom] (photo: Potterfield)

So really, approaching base camp in earnest now. It's a problem with the yaks up there as well as the porters. Above here, life gets a little harder. There's not much food for the yaks, and it's a colder environment for the porters. So, we're organizing this morning to send the bulk of our scientific equipment and electronics and that sort of thing ahead. We'll have simple trekking bags with us so we can approach base camp over a period of two more days, but allow many loads to push directly ahead. Of course, the vast majority of our loads have already arrived at base camp and have been deployed or stored by the sherpas who have occupied that base camp now for sometime. So we're looking forward to a nice mellow trek to 15,900' today, and we will let you hear from us when we do arrive in Lobuche. Bye.

— Wally Berg, Expedition Leader

DISPATCHES