Dan Mazur's Kangchenjunga Spring 2002

Dispatch March 17th, 2002: Today was the day we finished our rest period, and all set off for camp 1. Just before setting off, a Landcruiser rolled into camp, and our Tibetan liason officer, Tsering, and our friend Brian Mertes jumped out. We were so relieved to see that Brian was ok, but it was very sad, and a horrible job to tell him that he could not stay in basecamp, for fear of a relapse of pulmonary edema (which had forced him to make a hasty exit a few days before, coughing bloody sputum and responding to the drug Nifedipine). Pulmonary Edema is a frightening disease that can kill in short order, and we have seen its effects too many times to fool with it. Brian's malady, coupled with the fact that he had been unable to reach camp 1 in two attempts, had forced us into this action. We finally got away from basecamp, and on his way down, we met Jon Otto (Mike stayed in camp 1), who told us that he and Mike had good progress above the cornice and had actually climbed the first peak of our expedition, the 6700 meter Togulung. Jon's car and driver were impatiently waiting in basecamp, and he rapidly descended down the scree toward basecamp to camp 1, not before showing us his slashed bloody knuckle that he had done while fixing rope and cutting off old line with his sharpened pocket knife. Upon our arrival in camp 1, we gave Mike a hearty congratulation in being so successful. Andrew was trying to recover from his knee complication in basecamp, and had also begun to take antibiotics for a pernicious "seal-like" cough, that was keeping him up at night.

Thank you very much. Cheers for now. Yours
Sincerely, Daniel Mazur from http://www.SummitClimb.com

Dispatches