Two Basque mountaineers are declared dead in Patagonia

The climbers Iker Bilbao (29 years old, from Durango, Bizkaia) and Amaia Agirre (31 years old, from Urnieta, Gipuzkoa) have been missing since yesterday, when a snow avalanche buried them first, and dragged them to the bottom of a crevasse, minutes after reaching the base of Fitz Roy (3,405 meters), the iconic southern Patagonian ice mountain, on the border between Argentina and Chile.

Both were part of a rope of three climbers and had just completed the Afanassieff route to Fitz Roy, opened in 1979 on the northwest slope of the mountain by a group of four French mountaineers.

After abseiling down the Franco-Argentine route, the trio overcame the Italian gap and was surprised by the avalanche when all difficulties seemed overcome.

Josu Linaza (31 years old), Biscayan from Igorre,

In this municipality, all accidents go through Dr. Carolina Codó, founder and head of the El Chaltén Relief Commission: “I think there is no hope for the two disappeared.

The survivor searched for them for almost an hour without seeing any trace, and noted that the avalanche had swept them to the bottom of a huge crack in the glacier.

Right now, we have 30 degrees of temperature (it's summer) and the 0 isotherm is above 4,000 meters, so I can't even send anyone to look for the bodies, because it would be putting them in enormous danger.

When the temperatures drop, we will try to organize a small team to assess the situation and decide if it is possible to recover the bodies”, explains Dr. Codó.

El Chaltén lacks a professional rescue group,

and all its members are benevolent: rescues are pure craftsmanship, teamwork never without danger.

Their work is crucial in an area experiencing a tourist explosion that fills the isolated town with hikers and climbers from all over the planet.

Dr. Codó herself has spent years requesting, almost imploring, a rescue helicopter for the area, a request that has never materialized.

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Iker Bilbao, a firefighter by profession, was a highly appreciated climber in the Basque region of Duranguesado and in recent years he had become more inclined towards mountaineering, a facet to which Amaia Agirre was fully dedicated: despite having completed her medical studies, she was part of part of the National Women's Mountaineering Team of the Spanish Federation of Mountain Sports and Climbing (FEDME), and had in her curriculum major ascents such as the first female ascents to the Groucho Marx de las Grandes Jorasses route or the Eternal Flame to the Tower No Name, in Pakistani Karakorum.

Amaia Agirre belonged to the Aragonese mountain federation, since she had lived in Huesca for the last few years, while Iker was federated by the Basque one.

Now, both federations and FEDME are working to streamline bureaucratic procedures,

“The news has fallen like a stone in the town, but it is already the third fatal accident of the season.

A Swiss mountaineer slipped on the Standhardt Needle and we have not yet been able to recover her body and a 25-year-old North American woman died of hypothermia when she was surprised by a strong change in weather at the Guillaumet Needle ”, reveals Dr. Codó.

“We have asked by radio and satellite messages for the collaboration of the climbers who are in Fitz Roy so that they try to find evidence of the two missing persons that will lead us to be able to search for their remains, but it is not an easy task and we do not have high hopes because they may be buried near the surface or under meters of snow”, explains Caro Codó.

The arrival of the Internet and mobile telephony in El Chaltén, more than two hundred kilometers from El Calafate, the first town with services in the area, has radically changed the expectations of climbers.

This and climate change, which offers windows of good weather that are somewhat more generous than before, allow climbers to manage the calm periods, when the winds drop and the violent storms that have always plagued their mountains disappear.

When this happens, there is a veritable stampede of climbers looking for a reasonable objective based on the expected duration of the good weather gap.

Consequently, in recent years, activity in the area has grown remarkably, and so have accidents.

The commitment involved in climbing in the shadow of Fitz Roy or the no less legendary Cerro Torre is enormous.

No one can count on a rescue helicopter in an emergency.

In return, the selfless work of a few, the desire to help local climbers, the rescue courses given by European professionals and the private search for funds to obtain at least the necessary material for the rescue have already saved numerous lives.