Century of Mountaineering (IV): Shackleton's dream

For: Sebastián Álvaro (text and photos)
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When Real Sociedad Deportiva Penalara begins to, literally, its infancy in Spain was very recently the first ascent of Naranjo de Bulnes, conducted in 1904, whose unmistakable image may well represent Spanish mountaineering boot. While obviously one was in the Peninsula hiking ascents prior to high peaks, as the Veleta or Aneto, Naranjo escalating in Spain came to symbolize something of what he had represented the conquest of the Matterhorn in the Alps. With the escalation of Gregorio Perez, The Cainejo, spontaneous guide, and Pedro Pidal, Marquis of Villaviciosa, directly climber, you enter a new world, characterized by a passion for the mountains slender, difficult, and mountaineering acrobatic, because the road is opened and exposed to air.

Europe, however, are the moments leading up to the First World War that would sweep for six years the cares mountaineers. Although we'd get rid of the entry into the conflict, we fail to indemnify the violence that had broken out across the continent. They were turbulent years, precursors not only of war but of revolutions worldwide, and Soviet, in many of the surrounding countries.

Escalating Naranjo in Spain came to symbolize something like that had represented the conquest of the Matterhorn in the Alps

Since the early individual attacks had become commonplace. And 1913 was killed the king of Greece, but that same year King Alfonso XIII suffer another attack but without consequences. And a year earlier had been murdered Canalejas in Puerta del Sol. It's the same year, certainly, sinking the Titanic and Scott, Bowers, Wilson, Evans y Oates disappear in Antarctica. Its, as, hard years, inside and outside. Starving, revolutions, violence and wars. And 1909 events have occurred the tragic week in Barcelona. That same year Louis of Savoy, the Duke of the Abruzzi, has carried out a magnificent exploratory expedition to the Karakorum, setting the altitude record to get reach 7.500 meters Chogolisa.

Louis of Savoy, son of the ephemeral king of Spain Amadeus I of Savoy, is a keen follower of Mummery who, some years earlier, Zmutt had climbed the ridge of the Matterhorn. This year alone more than 120.000 Spanish leave the country in search of a better future than their land denied. And 1912, seven million Argentines are a million and Spanish emigrants. In this hectic world full of changes, Some climbers live a traumatic, men like Mallory, Louis of Savoy, Welzenbach, Heckmair, Hedin, Shipton o Tillman, and many other, be launched to provide answers to the great questions of the time mountaineers.

And 1909, the Duke of Abruzzi mark the altitude record to get reach 7.500 meters Chogolisa

The 3 August 1914 war broke began as European and world ended up being. On the western front stalled a devastating trench warfare that, the end, cause a rejection of the horrors of war as never before known. He had just been elevated to First Lord of the Admiralty a promise of British politics, Winston Churchill. Just at that time an old whaling ship, renamed Endurance, England started heading to Antarctica. The head of the expedition, Ernest Henry Shackleton, Endurance had Admiralty available if needed in the war already declared. The response of the authorities was a curt "appropriate".

The adventure of Shackleton and his companions in the Antarctica, without proper mountaineering feat, extend, however, its influence in all adventure expeditions, mountain and exploration to be carried out in later years. And not just because some of the intrinsic value of what has been called "Horizontal mountaineering" are shared by many mountaineers, but his influence on many British mountaineers try to climb Everest a few years later.

The winner of the race to the South Pole Amundsen was hands but, paradoxically, who won the battle of the communication was Scott

The pompous Imperial Transantarctic Expedition, as it was dubbed, was inspired by the failure of Robert Falcon Scott two years before the conflict with the Norwegian Roald Amundsen for being the first to conquer the South Pole geographic. The winner of the race was indisputably Amundsen but, paradoxically, who won the battle of the communication was Scott. The British public was shocked to learn about the tragedy of Scott and his men.

That frustration, transformed into national pride herido, ultimately boost, after the First World War, the early British expeditions to the highest mountain in the world. The poles would be replaced by Everest, since, would be referred to as "the third pole". Scott's disaster would also be the determining factor Shackleton launched a new challenge even more difficult, "The last great overland crossing": cross the Antarctic continent from end to end, past the South Pole.

They were caught in the worst place in the world, more than 15.000 miles from home, no means to communicate and knowing that no one would come to rescue them

While millions of people lost their lives in the trenches of the battlefields of Europe, Shackleton and his men were to carry out one of the most unusual and extraordinary expeditions of all time. After calling at South Georgia Endurance went to mar the Weddell where it would be trapped by the ice near the Antarctic continent. For nine months the Endurance lived up to his name resisting the thrust of the ice. They were caught in the worst place in the world, more than 15.000 miles from home, no means to communicate and knowing that no one would come to rescue them. In England and took for missing.

Before the ship sank in the Weddell Sea in splinters by ice pressure, Shackleton gave the order to bail out anything that might be of use. Over the next six months, twenty-eight men of the expedition lived on ice floes drifting, feeding on seals and penguins, the edge of survival. Finally managed to land on Elephant Island, an island lost in the northern tip of the Antarctic Peninsula.

For six months, the 28 men of the expedition lived on ice floes drifting, feeding on seals and penguins, the edge of survival

After 497 days returned to step earth firm. But they were just as lost. Again Shackleton was forced to take a drastic decision: had to split the group and captaining five companions in a desperate attempt to reach the South Georgia, about 1.400 kilometers, through one of the world's oceans worst. After an incredible journey reached the east coast of the South Georgia 8 May 1916. Getting there was already a feat that has not returned to be repeated.

But between them and their salvation, whaling bases, appeared an insurmountable obstacle, another, on its way: a succession of peaks, icy glaciers and valleys that nobody had ever crossed. It was the last great adventure that lay ahead. Shackleton and two companions succeeded in a march of nearly forty hours without rest. When he finally reached the Stromnes whaling station Humans appear not, but in the flesh ghosts. Still, the first thing he asked was if I had finished the war in Europe. Not, the dijeron, and learned they had killed more than a million men in the trenches.

Few companies in the history of mankind can match the feat lived by Shackleton and his men

Shackleton immediately organized an expedition to try to rescue the bulk of the group, waiting on Elephant Island, before the arrival of the winter and run cold sea surface making navigation impossible. They had to go back twice before the hive of icebergs that infested the ocean. But in the end, with the help of a Chilean tug, the Yelcho, Shackleton could finally spot the desolate island where he had left his men. Only then, could breathe relieved and tears clouded her eyes. He had managed to rescue all his men safely. Few companies in the history of mankind can match the feat lived by Shackleton and his men. An adventure where solidarity, team spirit and value of life shine above all. Values ​​would also endorsed many subsequent expeditions to the highest mountains on Earth.

Shackleton's dream could not be fulfilled until many years later, in 1989, when the navigator Arved fox and Reinhold Messner completed the first crossing on foot of the Antarctic, becoming the first humans walk spanning coast to coast through the South Pole.

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