Dispatch 49 Part 2

Hey, this is Dave Hahn again, it's about 20 after ten in the morning here, one of the neat things yesterday was having Phurba in for tea, he's Russel Bryce's lead Sherpa on the north side and Phurba and one client had crossed over the summit and made it back down into our base camp yesterday. It was neat having tea with Phurba, he's an incredible guy, that was his 12th summit of Everest, all from the North Side. Back in 2001 Phurba and I ended up working together on a rescue up above 28,000 feet. So it's neat to see Phurba and also interesting to hear his take on the South Side. He'd never climbed the South Side so what a strange thing for him to be introduced to the Khumbu Icefall from the top down, to climb down over those ladders and come through the icefall you could tell it was an eye opening experience for him, he said it was pretty scary. I sympathize. I can't imagine what that was like, we get used to the icefall and the weird climbing practices in there, but we get used to then from the bottom up, he would have been coming at it from the top of the mountain coming down.. He didn't have any trouble with the Hillary Step in roping that and coming down. A nice side thing for us is that. Phurba took a helicopter out of base camp this morning with his client and they went down valley, and in a few days Phurba will be back on the North Side on the Tibet side.. The helicopter took him to his home town of Kumjung and then Kathmandu. The good side thing for us is we got some treats and newspapers and magazines so this morning I had the great pleasure of drinking my coffee with a one day old America newspaper in the sun at Mount Everest. So one of the greatest pleasures. This day is going well so far. I'll let you know if there's more of interest.