While four of my colleagues do not exceed quarantine, four others passed from the 55 years, an age that many consider the age to retire for a peaceful walk in the park. It is certainly a respectable option.. But I want to continue having goals, impossible projects and, at the same time, share them with honest friends, fun, good people with whom you can go to the end of the world. That's why every morning I trained in the gym surrounded by girls with tight flesh and tight leggings., That's why I have crossed a good part of Pakistan, one of the most dangerous countries on the globe, through an area plagued by Taliban and bandits and then I walked in knee-deep snow to get here: the largest concentration of high mountains on Earth.
All that should be enough. But it's not. That's why I'm now bent over my canes, feeling cold., looking at this beautiful landscape that makes us suffer, that overwhelms and shakes me by forcing me to look into the abyss of my interior, and that is the reward that only this effort and the solitude sought provide me. What happens to us always happens inside us, what moves us we never forget, what we achieve with effort makes us better. After all, Not even the best of climbs can give us anything resembling a state of mind.. All experience, no matter how hard and heartbreaking it may be, It is always an inner experience.. No trip, no climbing, It is of no use to us if it does not enrich us as people..
I think that was the point of returning to the Karakorum and in winter...
All experience, no matter how hard and heartbreaking it may be, It is always an inner experience.
And then we did it right. We work hard and almost to exhaustion, without setting long-term goals but rather concrete tasks, without worrying about who would “get” the prize of attempting the summit. Carrying like pack animals, without putting strings, emptying ourselves in work and in friendship. There is nothing more rewarding in the world. We all learned to suffer under brutal wind and cold. In fifteen minutes standing I lost sensation in my feet.. In just six days of climbing and carrying in good and bad weather we already had the essentials to attempt the summit of the Laila Peak. Then came a four-day storm that left us half a meter of snow at base camp and the certainty that the corridor through which we had climbed so many times was not a safe place.. Nonetheless, my colleagues tried it 11 February and they were less than a hundred meters from the top.
Everything seemed decided. The two expeditions to Nanga they had already retired, with a missing French mountaineer; Wielecki and the Poles of Broad, true experts in the art of suffering in winter, showed signs of discouragement, and then they lost two companions for a summit that did not deserve it. At our base camp it was colder and windier than ever and Ramón and Juanjo were out of combat… Yes, everything was coming to an end. At that time the Karakorun, and the world, how you sing Sabina, It already seemed like a sordid and foreign place to us…
We all learned to suffer under brutal wind and cold. In fifteen minutes standing I lost sensation in my feet.
But they tried; yet, José and Alex tried it; at the last minute and with terrible conditions. For more than fourteen hours they had to face temperatures below 30º below zero and gusts of wind that exceeded 60 kph.
Alex Txikon returned to base camp completely white. Lucky for him, had already left behind the corridor through which a gigantic avalanche had been channeled, but the snow cloud it raised reached the base camp, adhering to your clothing until it is completely covered. José Manuel Fernández it fell further behind but, fortunately, He had time to press against the wall of the corridor and watch the avalanche pass over his head in the direction of the glacier.. It was the last demonstration that, until the last moment, Laila Peak had wanted to show us its power. When the avalanche broke out, Alex and José Manuel were coming down from their hard and exposed attack to the top of Laila, that they reached, almost at the limit of his strength.
When the avalanche broke out, Alex and José Manuel were coming down from their hard and exposed attack to the top of Laila
The summit was the icing on the cake of a special love. But what I'm especially proud of is having been part of a great group of friends and doing it in as clean a style as possible., with the minimum of technology, without porters, with just three stores, without fixed ropes and with the maximum degree of exposure that we thought we could withstand. I would be, in the words of Bonatti, the union of ethics and aesthetics, the great dimension of classic mountaineering. That was the challenge. If that path ended at the summit, well better. But the important thing was the style. And it was normal that it was the youngest ones who conquered that peak as beautiful as it was elusive.. They are the best and the strongest. Although our friend Ramón, stubborn to the point of exhaustion, I would return a few months later and finally manage to set foot!! its summit.
Juanjo told me that he was no longer going to the mountains to be the best but, simply, to “be better”
One of those splendid days spent at the foot of Laila, Juanjo told me that he was no longer going to the mountains to be the best but, simply, to “be better”. That it is not about crossing the limit but about seeking “your limit”. I think that in Laila we achieved it. We came being better than before leaving. Enriched, with the head aerated by the Karakorum wind and the soul full of emotions and feelings that we will hardly forget. I no longer aspire to more. But not unless.
