May 7, 2004 - A Special Visit at Namche Bazaar

Listen to Audio of Wally's Call (.wav)

It’s May 7th and I’m calling you from Namche Bazaar at 11,400 ft (3475m). On May 5th we had a very early wake up call at the Yak and Yeti and we were at the airport in Katmandu by 6:15am. Believe it or not we were standing at the airstrip off the twin otters in Lukla at 7:20am on the 5th of May. Our trek from Lukla was beautiful, clear skies as we walked through the villages with the colorful religious shrines on the way to Namche Bazaar.

Right when we got to Lukla, Amy Cross... as many of you know one of the purposes of this trek is for Amy and others to support and visit Will Cross who you will remember from the Vinson climb with Berg Adventures last December. Will and his remarkable Peaks and Poles campaign is continuing in his impressive efforts to show the world what someone with Type I diabetes can accomplish. We wanted to visit Will and of course Amy, Will’s wife was very eager to see him. A sherpa runner actually met us in Lukla and handed Amy a note from Will and it brought tears to her eyes immediately. We trekked up to Namche and we knew eventually we would cross paths with Will, we would go all the way to Base Camp if necessary.

I got a phone call from the BAI office from Leila this morning very early, I should say I called in to her and she told me that she had spoken to Will via satellite phone and that he was on his way down to meet us at Namche Bazaar. I had to sit on this secret all day, I didn’t want to get Amy and the others excited in case Will decided to stop along the way, but I knew that he would be walking in here this afternoon and in fact he did.

Just moments ago Will and Amy were reunited, Will off a very impressive physical effort so far on Everest. He told me he was at camp 3 and slept like a baby which is always a good sign.

So here we are in Namche, Will is resting, recuperating for his summit attempt and we are acclimatizing for our attempt up to base camp. We will keep you posted as our adventures continue, but the whole group is together, the trekking group as well as Will Cross is here at Namche Bazaar on the 7th of May.

Previous | Menu | Next