All the beauty of an imposing setting, the magic of the desired isolation, the simplicity of climbing in the company of a friend, the desired peace protected from the cold in a sleeping bag… everything that makes mountaineering an exercise in escapism, a happy life within life, all of this erupted with violence in seconds that gave way to a chaos of screaming, pain and terror. Hit by an ice and rock slide while resting at dawn, the Argentine Tomy Aguiló (36 years old) and the Italian Korra Pesce (41) quickly understood that, although they had survived, they were so close to death that the world they embraced moments before As sure it had disappeared. Just as in a theater of war, as if a shell had hit them, it took them a while to understand the extent of their injuries. Tomy could stand up; Korra was unable. All around them, their climbing and bivouac equipment had practically disappeared and they were still in the middle of a wall on whose north face a new route had just been opened, a new milestone in their impressive career as climbers.
All this happened in the early hours of last Friday at Cerro Torre (Argentine Patagonia), one of the most severe, difficult, isolated and iconic mountains on the planet. There, far from everything, a rescue is always a Homeric gesture: unlike what is known in Europe, there are no official rescue teams or helicopters. All in all, the El Chaltén Relief Commission works and works miracles, a non-professional but well-trained rescue team created at the end of the 1990s by Dr. Carolina Codó and which, in case of need, draws on the benevolence of climbers passing through the area to respond to a distress call. That Tomy Aguiló was able to launch the distress call was a small miracle: while trying to gather the little equipment still usable, he found his small Inreach device (a satellite communication device that allows messages to be sent) among the remains of the landslide. Later, he helped Korra to reach the remains of a tiny ruined shelter, without a roof, just some rotten boards once baptized as the English Box where the Italian confirmed that the fractures in his pelvis prevented him from standing up.
With several fractured ribs and a clavicle, Tomy recovered a piece of rope about 40 meters long and began a slow and dangerous descent to heads or tails. Tomy and Korra are parents, high mountain guides and when the latter travels to Patagonia he stays at the former’s house. In the European summer, Tomy stays at the house in Chamonix where Korra resides, a true local legend, a highly respected and loved mountaineer. Tomy, an always cheerful guy with a spontaneous laugh, speaks admiringly of his friend, who is more serious and direct. They won’t see each other again.
On the phone, Dr. Codó confirmed Tomy’s good condition on Sunday, already in the El Calafate Hospital: “But unfortunately we have decided to cancel the rescue attempt on Korra. It is a very hard decision, but the good weather window is over and after listening to the description of the Italian’s injuries it is impossible for him to be alive: without a coat, food or drink, hypothermia will have already reached him. In addition, we have been able to observe the mountain with a drone and we have seen that it was 50 meters below where Tomy left it, and it did not move. Putting the lives of the rescuers at risk would be irresponsible.”
More than 35 people came to the couple’s rescue. Without this gesture, Tomy would not have been able to escape from Cerro Torre either. “The rescuers reached him 26 hours after he raised the alarm. He descended by improvising short abseils until he reached a snowfield where, exhausted, he waited, some 300 meters from the solid ground,” explains Dr. Codó. Four great climbers coincided in the final stretch of the rescue and managed to climb that stretch of wall until reaching Tomy: the Italian Matteo Della Bordella, the Swiss Roger Schaeli, the German Thomas Huber and the Argentine Roberto Treu.
The first two tried to continue climbing to Korra while the other two descended with Tomy, but a sudden change in weather forced them to withdraw: “We were already well above our physical and psychological limits and we understood that Korra will stay forever in the mountain”, confessed Matteo Della Bordella. Ironically, he and his two companions coincided at the top of Cerro Torre on January 27: “In fact, the Italians were opening a new route on the east face and they joined Tomy and Korra when they finished their route on the north, so they collaborated, but the former decided to sleep on the top and go down the next day along the compressor route while, to avoid avalanches, Tomy and Korra chose to go down at night to the north”, explains Carolina Codó.
Korra Pesce was not only a reference in Chamonix, who had adopted him, but also a highly respected and beloved figure by Spanish mountaineers: together with Martín Elías from La Rioja, he had climbed the now famous Rolling Stones route in 2015, in the Grandes Jorasses (between France and Italy), or the Directa de la Amistad (Barcelona), a year earlier, and together they had repeated the Impossible Star route on Bhagirati III (6,454m, India) in 2016, together with two French colleagues. Korra Pesce had also tied up the Aragonese Manu Córdova to climb Aguja Mermoz and Torre Egger, in Patagonia. Korra, endowed with an impressive vision, technique and strength, seemed untouchable and touched with the gift to make all his plans come true.
Tomy and Korra’s farewell will remain between them forever, but knowing Korra’s sincere and direct character, her ethical discourse, her always clear opinions regarding the essence of mountaineering, it is possible to imagine that she accepted her situation and understood that a rescue, in His case was chimerical. It’s all conjecture, of course, but it’s not difficult to move forward, which strongly encouraged Tomy to at least try to save his life.
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