November 2 - After Lobuche Peak

This is Wally Berg calling. We left from the Lobuche base camp after our successful summit. We’ve had a marvellous day of trekking in the high Khumbu.

The views of Lhotse and Everest were unique to me, unlike others I have seen. It was really a great day. You enjoy a day of walking in the mountains after a climb like Lobuche.

We met other trekking groups along the way, including a group from Park City, Utah; we met Joanne who is doing the medical research out of Lobuche and a lot of Sherpas we knew. We just had a great day trekking in the bright sunshine.

And of course we ended up back at Pheriche. I’ve mentioned a lot about Eric and Peter - the physicians at Pheriche - and Peter’s wife Wang Luan Ying. They’ve been so nice to us on this trip; it’s been one of our home bases. It was great to head back into Pheriche and see them.

And especially, back in Pheriche today, as I had hoped would happen, we were reunited with Meagan Carney. You’ll remember, if you were following the trekking dispatches on the last trip, that Meagan was going in to climb and do a ski descent of the North West Face of Cholatse. I’d been counting on running into her at Pheriche or Pangboche today and in fact we did and I was really delighted to hear that her ski descent had gone well. It’s a very impressive accomplishment. She was tired after the expedition and was eating a lot.

[ Later on that day from the village of Pheriche.]

It is nice being back in Pheriche, seeing friends. It’s a home base for us, as I mentioned. I was able to send some pictures back of our earlier days in Pheriche on this trip. And it was at that time that Doug Frost started moving his arms about widely and jerking his legs up and down and dancing around to get warm. Doug was “doing the chicken”; he invited Brent and the rest of us to “do the Chicken” to warm up.

So, now we’re back down in Pheriche doing the chicken again and we’re going to head down to Pangboche to Ang Temba’s house. Of course, as most of your know, Ang Temba will be the head Sherpa organizing the Berg Adventures’ base camp for Everest next year. He came along and climbed Loboche peak with us just for the good company and fun. We’ll be back down at his wonderful lodge in Pangboche in about an hour and a half. It’s going to be great to get down there and see Ang Temba and his wife and kids again and relax in Pangboche.