Dreaming and dying at the top: the tragic fate of the Spanish climbers buried in Fitz Roy

It is 9 am on Thursday, January 19, 2023. The sky is clear.

At the top of Cerro Fitz Roy, in Santa Cruz, at 3,405 meters above sea level, the temperature is zero degrees.

Amaia Agirre, a 31-year-old Basque doctor, one of the promises of mountaineering in her country, descends the mountain rappelling, that technique to slide down with a system of ropes.

A few meters away she is accompanied by Iker Bilbao, also Basque, 29, a professional firefighter and federated mountaineer with a similar concern for nature.

Amaia and Iker cannot take refuge and, in a few seconds, they fly about 60 meters dragged by the block of snow, ice and stones.

Josu Linaza, a 31-year-old mountain guide, the third Basque in the group, was able to move away from the impact zone, avoided the lethal blow and was saved.

Amaia and Iker are buried by snow in a crack known as the "Italian Gap", a hole about 100 meters long, 8 meters wide and 15 meters deep.

On the verge of hypothermia, almost frozen,

, who had started the descent at five in the morning: they had reached the top after four days of climbing through of the Afanassieff route, opened in 1979.

Due to the possibility of new avalanches, the El Chaltén Relief Commission assesses that it is very dangerous to go out in search of climbers.

The hours pass.

There is no news from them.

Resigned, two days later they are considered dead.

“We found out about the accident when Amaia and Iker had already been buried for more than three hours,” explains Carolina Codó, a doctor and founder of the El Chaltén Relief Commission, who has worked pro bono for 28 years along with 200 other volunteers.

“We were going to take another six or eight hours to reach the area, when the chances of survival are almost nil, so we prefer not to risk other people.

.... Now, in total, there are five climbers who have never been removed from Fitz Roy: in addition to Amaia and Iker there are two Brazilians and another Spaniard”.

What were the dreams of the Basque climbers who were buried in the mountain?

What led them to face that journey that led to death?

The Fitz Roy hill, in El Chaltén.

"No one can be blamed for dreaming, because dreams set you free and Amaia and Iker were," says Eneko Pou, another Basque mountaineer from Vitoria, who has been touring the peaks of the planet for more than 30 years with his brother. Iker, and these days they are in Chamonix, France.

“Almost everyone who is not associated with the mountain will ask the same question:

In view of the result, anyone could answer this:

But neither of them was there looking for this outcome,

.

In addition to the adrenaline that a tour of these characteristics entails, Amaia and Iker pursued an objective: to reach the top of Fitz Roy and, from there, hand in hand with the sun and the stars -believers would say hand in hand with God- , contemplate the immensities of Patagonia.

An impressive, fascinating setting.

They were also, surely, trying to match the performance of the colleagues who made that promotion and at the same time test their own skills. 

“In mountaineering,

.

Once you climbed this hill, everyone recognizes you as a good climber.

And if you also went up a very difficult route, like Afanassieff's, which Amaia and Iker advanced on, it's as if you were playing in Boca or River”, explains Toncek Arko, a journalist specializing in mountains, author of the book Las montañas de

among other jobs.

Amaia was born in Urnieta, ten kilometers from San Sebastián, in the Basque Country.

She received her medical degree from the University of Zaragoza and moved to Aragon.

In the free time that she left her profession, she dedicated herself to climbing.

Thus, in addition to joining the Peña Guara club, she was part of the National Women's Mountaineering Team.

“For us, Amaia was always an inspiration, a reference, a friend, a leader”, her colleagues Ángela Altaba, Julia Casanovas and Ruth Fornós, among others, dedicated to her.

“

.

You won yours a long time ago, when you decided, free and in accordance with your values, to give yourself to your passion and your people”.

In 2021, the Aragonese Mountain Federation had awarded her the Federation Trophy for "her excellent career in the practice of mountain sports and her excellent quality as a mountaineer."

Last year, shortly before traveling to Patagonia, Amaia had climbed in Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

And the year before she had been in Nepal.

As part of the same route, she was the first Spaniard to ascend the Grandes Jorasses via the Groucho Marx route in the Mont Blanc massif.

Together with her boyfriend, Julen Berrueko, also a mountaineer, she climbed the 6,286-meter Eternal Flame route to the Unnamed Tower in Pakistan.

From Durango, about 60 kilometers from San Sebastián, Bilbao was part of the Parque de Laudio fire brigade, in Álava.

And, also, he had already shown that he had the ability to climb the main peaks of Spain, Norway or Morocco.

"He was a young but experienced person", defined Eneko Pou.

The new challenge for Amaia and Iker was Mount Fitz Roy, "a difficult and slender needle" on the border between Argentina and Chile, first climbed in 1952 by the Frenchmen Lionel Terray and Guido Magnone.

A place desired by climbers from all over the world.

“It is considered one of the most complex mountains.

We are talking about routes of 1,300 meters that are climbed in the day.

They are 24/28 hour ascents, without sleep, with very great difficulties, with the southern Patagonian ice looming just behind.

The windows of good weather can be from one day in a month”, advances Pou.

“Today the media focus is placed, above all, on Everest, in Asia.

But strong people, those with a high technical level, are moving on peaks of these characteristics, in Patagonia, in the Andes... And it is for a

With a guide, climbing Everest, "the roof of the world," can cost up to $150,000;

reaching the top of Fitz Roy, on the other hand, is around 10,000.

If climbing this mountain is only for the brave,

.

"Mountaineers are now exposed to greater risks," explains Toncek Arko.

“The day that Agirre and Bilbao died, in the town of El Chaltén it was 30 degrees.

The Fitz Roy snow was softer and more unstable, which caused the avalanche."

Why do climbers take such risks?

-It is part of the mystique of mountaineering, of the idiosyncrasy of the people who dedicate themselves to this discipline.

He is, in a way, like the captain who goes down with his ship.

Some climbers are proud to say that they would like to be buried in a mountain.

In the history of the Tronador, for example, there were 22 fatal accidents.

And ten of those dead are still there, among the ice.

Iker and Amaia, in the mountains.

Spanish, Sebastián Álvaro Lomba is a journalist, writer and creator of the television program

, which has led him to carry out more than 250 expeditions around the world.

And he is another of the authorized voices on the subject.

“When Spanish Television broadcast the news of the accident involving the Basque climbers in El Chaltén, I lent them images that I had recorded in the area at the time,” Sebastián comments from Madrid.

“In addition to climate change, there is now another problem in El Chaltén.

It is a place that some 200,000 tourists visit every year.

This is not the case with Amaia and Iker, who were very good.

But people come with little preparation.

And,

... They take a plane in Buenos Aires and the next day they face the Fitz Roy.

They do not know the risks to which they are exposed... They are wrong... That is why accidents have increased.

What's more, in El Chaltén there should be a professional, organized rescue team, similar to the one in Spain, which is undoubtedly among the best in the world and it's also free... If something happens to you, in Spain dial the 062 and immediately you contact the Civil Guard, which arms the operations quickly and efficiently”.

-And why isn't there a team with these characteristics in El Chaltén?

-Because it is very expensive and takes time to assemble.

But at this point it is very necessary.

In the same season in which Amaia and Iker died, in the area of ​​El Chaltén, known as the National Trekking Capital, there were three other fatal accidents.

Marcos Gorostiaga, 28, a doctor from Bariloche, lost his life at the base of Cerro Torre: while he was climbing, a stone fell, hit him and dragged him some 50 meters.

His traveling companion communicated by radio and the rescue protocol was quickly activated.

According to the newspaper La Opinión Austral, Civil Protection requested a helicopter from Army Aviation Section 11, which transported five people to the accident site.

Although the tasks were facilitated by the good weather conditions, when the patrol arrived they confirmed that Gorostiaga had already died.

The Swiss Christoph Klein also died in Patagonia.

Shortly before, the one who had died in the northern area of ​​Los Glaciares National Park was Christoph Klein, 48, a Swiss theologian and filmmaker.

"Since he was a child, Christoph dreamed of reaching Patagonia," said Irina, the climber's wife.

Together with his friend Michael, Christoph had traveled to the area with the aim of climbing the Exocet route.

In the end, due to bad weather conditions, they postponed their mission.

Then, as they descended, Klein slipped on the ice and fell down a 500-meter slope, causing severe blows.

.

In any case, when she got to him he was already dead.

Also in December of last year, a few days apart, American Cassandra Doolittle, a neuroscience student and ice hockey player, died of hypothermia while descending from Gillaumet Needle, in the same area.

The 25-year-old was surprised by a snowstorm, she lost the ropes and could not continue down.

She was located with two drones and a tracking dog.

“We have hired a private team to bring Cassy back from the mountain.

And I just received news that her mission was successful.

Our prayers were answered," Doolittle's mother commented on social media.

Marta Altamirano disappeared on the Mercedario hill in 1981.

There are more stories of failed promotion or relegation.

And rescues.

Also, of bodies that are returned by the mountains long after the accidents.

Marta Altamirano, "Patty", was a climber who, in March 1981, when she was 20 years old, could not hold herself with her crampons on the wall of Cerro Mercedario, 6,700 meters above sea level, in the San Juan Andes, and It fell into a crevasse, where it died entombed by snow.

Earlier this year, almost 42 days after the accident, his body was found by a group of mountaineers.

“We believe that the movements of the ice have been moving the body from one side of the mountain to the other.

There is a saying that glaciers always return corpses.

But we think that the mountain embraced her and she had it as long as she wanted.

, ”commented Corina Altamirano, Patty's sister, in a note published by

on February 4.

There are also some "miracles", of course, like that of Willie Benegas.

In March 2022, at the age of 54, the Argentine mountaineer was buried for 23 minutes under the snow, after being swept away by an avalanche in the mountains of Utah, United States, and managed to survive.

“What happened with Willie was something never seen.

It does not enter any statistics.

More than 90% of those who are buried by an avalanche die in the first ten minutes,” said Alvar Puente, a friend of Benegas and a mountaineer from Bariloche with experience in this type of excursion.

"That's why after the accident, the closest of us set up a WhatsApp group and we called it Super Willie."

For an avalanche to form, there must be a slope of between 35 and 45 degrees on the mountain.

And accumulated snow.

Also, the snow can be drier or wetter, something that happens when spring comes and it melts easier.

Sometimes it is possible to foresee avalanches and other times not: a strong wind can blow and knock down a block of ice, which causes an avalanche... In some mountains, avalanche zones are delimited and, directly, access for climbers is prohibited or skiers.

And there are some ski centers that carry out studies to find out more precisely what can happen.

"Snow has its stress", they say. Sometimes it lets one, two or three climbers pass, until the fourth is charged. In Argentina, from time to time, there are usually avalanches in Patagonia. In Mendoza, as the mountains are more arid, with less snow, they are hardly provoked.

How do you say goodbye to the climbers who remain in the mountains?

How do your family and friends grieve? 

At the end of January, the procedures to recover the bodies of Amaia and Iker were carried out by the Spanish Embassy in Buenos Aires and the Consulate based in Bahía Blanca.

As they knew that it would not be easy to find the bodies,

They toured the Fitz Roy area, observed the walls of the hill, where climbers usually rest on small "ledges" (the practice of sleeping outdoors, without shelters, is known as "bivouacing"), and confirmed how dangerous it is. It can be an avalanche, above all, as happened to the Basques, if it is an avalanche that drags everything: ropes, backpacks with food, communication equipment...

"In February, Amaia's boyfriend and Iker's brother were in El Chaltén for a few days," confirms Carolina Codó, from the El Chaltén Relief Commission.

“It was his way of honoring them.

They did not reach the crack where their loved ones were buried.

They went up to Paso Superior, just as the camp is told to be there before beginning the ascent to Fitz Roy”.

Talking to the people closest to Agirre and Bilbao is very difficult.

They do not answer messages on whatsapp or Instagram.

"They don't want the press," says someone who was close to Iker's brother on his trip to Patagonia.

And he adds: "What they let us see was that they needed to be in El Chaltén to be able to assimilate what had happened."

Josu Linaza, the Basque from Igorre, in Vizcaya, who accompanied Amaia and Iker Bilbao at Fitz Roy, was left very sad by the loss of his friends.

"Physically he feels good, but he is emotionally very touched," an acquaintance of Josu told the Basque newspaper Deia.

"He saw his friends being swept away and he couldn't do anything...".

“When people as young as these boys die, the pain of family and friends is heartbreaking

,” says Álvaro Lomba, and his tone of voice changes, he becomes sad.

“I was seven times in El Chaltén;

the first, in 1987. And everything there is wonderful, excessive... To get to the upper pass you have to be trained, it's not for just any hiker.

I have heard that one of the people who went to honor Amaia and Iker was Julen Berrueko.

And yes: he is also a mountaineer with a lot of experience”, advances the specialist.

On February 4, before the trip to Patagonia by the relatives of Amaia and Iker, Urnieta's neighbors in the Basque Country organized a ceremony on behalf of the young woman.

In the main square of the city, with jackets, scarves and wool hats, dozens of people came to hug Amaia's parents, Joxe Mari and Belén, and her brother, Jon.

they cried.

They left flowers on a kind of altar.

Jon, who is a teacher like his parents, took the microphone and dedicated it to his sister: “Pain will always be with us.

But I promise you that we will learn to remember you and smile when we think of you”, she read a text that she had written on a tablet, and she could not hold back her tears.

At the same time, the Parque de Laudio fire brigade, in Álava, organized a minute of silence to remember Iker.

With his helmets and uniforms, Bilbao's companions applauded the mountaineer with emotion.

As part of the same ritual, the lights on the pumpers would flash as the sirens wailed.

The pain was great, unbearable.

And that grief had to do with the dashed illusions of the two climbers.

“The climbers who climb Fitz Roy, like Amaia and Iker, dream of being able to climb Cerro Torre, also in El Chaltén, at 3,128 meters, and then they will try to ascend the most beautiful mountain on Earth, Gasherbrum IV, located between China and Pakistan, at 7,925 meters, or the most difficult and dangerous in the world, K2, in the Himalayas, at 8,611 meters”, closes Álvaro Lomba.

“Mountaineers' dreams are intertwined in their heads like endless crazy fantasies.

And many of them die young…”.

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