Pee inside the tent.
The hardest thing for Carlos Soria on his expedition to Dhaulagiri (8,167 m) is satisfying his physiological needs inside his
shelter
when the cold outside is a knife.
The fault lies with the prosthesis in the left knee that accompanies this 83-year-old mountaineer from Avila.
In the high mountains, men usually urinate on their knees in a pot, but Carlos Soria's joint has limited flexion after the operation and he has to manage lying down.
He also has a hard time getting dressed and tying his boots, but otherwise nothing stops this eternal man who continues to pursue a dream: to become the oldest person to collect all 14 eight-thousanders.
And there are only two left to sign up, the Dhaulagiri and the Shisha Pangma (8,013 m).
“Going down is when I notice the prosthesis the most, especially if there is deep snow, but every time I have more confidence and I move better.
The rest of the body is strong.
I am a weirdo and I am very happy with what I do, with enough energy to go up there and go down.
I want to finish the 14 eight-thousander project, but above all I want to climb Dhaulagiri, I want to climb, let's see if we're lucky this time," Carlos Soria tells EL PAÍS from base camp, at 4,700 meters, as he prepares to start this Friday the assault on the top taking advantage of a window of good weather that, according to his plans, would take him to the summit next Monday.
Dhaulagiri.
The dazzling mountain, according to its Nepalese name.
The seventh highest peak on the planet.
Carlos Soria climbed his first eight-thousander at the age of 51, the Nanga Parbat in 1990;
He has conquered 10 peaks when he is 60;
and at eight he holds the record for being the oldest person on his roof.
Everest fell at 62, K2 at 65, with 77 Annapurna... But Dhaulagiri, his "old friend", a malicious mountain due to the amount of snow it accumulates and the danger of avalanches, resists him.
They are more than 10 times that Soria has come to their skirts.
The top has never been granted to him.
In exchange, he has found pain: there he saw his friend Pepe Garcés die.
And now, on his way to the clouds, he keeps a special object in his backpack.
His wife, Cristina, has crocheted some colored flowers.
Carlos wants to pose them on the summit.
“It is my tribute to the people of my generation who have died in the pandemic.
I want to upload those flowers to remember the elderly people who died in the residences.
We, my age, have been through many things and for some life has ended in an unfair way.
That saddens me.
I want to go up for them”, says Soria.
Flores that Carlos Soria wants to climb to the top of Dhaulagiri.
The life of this upholsterer from Ávila was not easy either.
Raised in a poor family that lived in a house without water, he started working at the age of 11 and it was not until well into his adulthood that he found financial aid to finance more ambitious expeditions (he was on the first Spanish adventure in the Himalayas, in 1973).
Although now the tap has been closed.
Al Dhaulagiri has traveled without a sponsor, accompanied only by his inseparable Sito Carcavilla, mountaineer and geologist, a physiotherapist who remains at base camp and six Sherpas (the cook has prepared a potato omelette for him).
“To come here very well we needed 100,000 euros, although you can also set it up for just two reais.
Everything is very relative.
If we do summit, it is most likely that we will get a sponsor for the Shisha,
hypoxia and black garlic
In a world that is increasingly exposed to “selling out”, Soria does not lift a finger from his philosophy.
As a precaution, he has turned around many more times than he has followed, boasts that he has not lost a fingernail and tries to be honest before the "camelos and tales" of the mountain: "You can use Sherpas, oxygen or fixed ropes , but tell the truth.
I have never used oxygen below the last field.
The mountain belongs to everyone and each one lives it in a different way.
There is a lot of lying and exaggeration, ”he laments.
For the Dhaulagiri he has prepared as if it were “his life”.
The light is turned on at 6:30 in his Madrid house in Moralzarzal.
In the garage, the place of the car is occupied by dumbbells, mats, grips on the walls, an exercise bike with special cranks so as not to bend the knee so much and a hypoxia tent in which he sleeps pretending to be at 4,000 or 5,000 meters (good part of his life has been spent at that altitude).
On the menu, black garlic, soy milk, oatmeal and chia seeds.
The care must be maximum at 83 years old.
Some keys creak.
He's had cataract and bladder surgery, he has some hearing loss, he worried about a peripheral nervous system problem and then there's that prosthesis.
"And despite everything, I have not seen anyone fight as much as him," says Juan del Campo,
athletics trainer and professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid, who helps the mountaineer with his preparation.
“The months of rehabilitation were very hard.
He is the first person in the world to ride a eight thousand with a prosthesis.
Not even the doctors knew how that piece would react at that altitude and 40 degrees below zero.
Nobody stops Carlos.
When he was going to give a talk in Spain he asked for a physio to do rehabilitation and not miss a day of recovery.
He wanted to go back.
He always says: 'If one arm hurts, train the other.'
His motto is never stop.”
Not even the doctors knew how that piece would react at that altitude and 40 degrees below zero.
Nobody stops Carlos.
When he was going to give a talk in Spain he asked for a physio to do rehabilitation and not miss a day of recovery.
He wanted to go back.
He always says: 'If one arm hurts, train the other.'
His motto is never stop.”
Not even the doctors knew how that piece would react at that altitude and 40 degrees below zero.
Nobody stops Carlos.
When he was going to give a talk in Spain he asked for a physio to do rehabilitation and not miss a day of recovery.
He wanted to go back.
He always says: 'If one arm hurts, train the other.'
His motto is never stop.”
Manuel Leyes, traumatologist who intervened in his operation, has spent 10 days with Soria during acclimatization in the Khumbu Valley.
"And it seems almost impossible for someone to think of doing this," says the climber from base camp.
There he moves between expeditions from Germany, Israel, Japan, Norway and Taiwan.
Among them he is almost a mythological being.
Other trekking groups pass through the area and come to greet him.
"Many people love me," says Carlos Soria at the foot of the Dhaulagiri, with a bouquet of flowers in his hand.
Carlos Soria, at his house in Moralzarzal. Víctor Sainz
Eight thousand | Altitude | accession year | Age of Carlos Soria |
|---|---|---|---|
Nanga Parbat | 8,125m | 1990 | 51 years |
Gasherbrum III | 8,035m | 1994 | 55 years |
Cho-oyu | 8,201m | 1999 | 60 years |
Everest | 8,848m | 2001 | 62 years |
K2 | 8,611m | 2004 | 65 years |
Broad Peak | 8,047m | 2007 | 68 years |
Makalu | 8,465m | 2008 | 69 years |
Gasherbrum I | 8,068m | 2009 | 70 years |
Manaslu | 8,156m | 2010 | 71 years |
Lhotse | 8,516m | 2011 | 72 years |
Kanchenjunga | 8,586m | 2014 | 75 years |
annapurna | 8,091m | 2016 | 77 years |
You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on
and
, or sign up here to receive
our weekly newsletter
.
Exclusive content for subscribers
read without limits
subscribe
I'm already a subscriber