September 19, 2006 – Taking a Look at Camp 2

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

It’s September 19th and I’m calling you from Camp 2.  Michel, Bryce, Danuru and I had the same experience today that the rest of the team had yesterday.  When you first walk up into the Western Cwm and view the majesty of the southwest face of Everest, it’s a sight you will never forget.  It thrilled and awed me 17 years ago when I first walked up this valley of silence and it’s no less powerful today.

Now I’m sitting here talking to five remarkable guys.  Da Sona as you know is our climbing Sherpa leader, an old, dear, trusted friend of mine, great leader, great mountaineer and he has four other of our best guys up here and they are already thinking Lhotse face.  This is our lead Sherpa climbing team and they are putting in Camp 2 today.  Tomorrow Da Sona, Passang Tenzing, Mingma Ongel, Sonam and Ang Namgay will move up and begin working on the Lhotse face.  I’m talking with the boys and I can tell by looking in their eyes and seeing that they are excited and so am I.

Also the communication is great here, I just talked on the radio down to base camp and they have been in radio communication with Pangboche and they answered my question; I’m not sure exactly how the word got relayed but Leila and the trekking team did fly on schedule from Kathmandu to Lukla today and we know they are walking down that beautiful trail to Phakding where they will spend their first night on the trek.  Everything is great in the Khumbu and we’ll keep reporting to you day by day.