The El Chaltén Relief Commission (Cax) presumed dead the two Basque climbers who fell last Thursday into a crack more than 15 meters deep when they were swept away by an avalanche at the foot of Mount Fitz Roy since it considered that ” are buried for more than 48 hours and the chances of survival are drastically reduced.
“The climbers are not missing. They have been buried in a crevasse for 48 hours and we consider that the search for their bodies exposes our volunteer rescuers to very high risks; for this reason, the CAX of El Chaltén ends the search,” said the agency in a statement.
The climbers were identified as Iker Bilbao (29 years old), a native of Vizcaya, and Amaia Agirre (31), from Urnieta, both towns in the autonomous community of the Basque Country.
The alert came from Josu Linaza (31, a native of Igorre), who managed to go down by his own means after the avalanche that occurred last Thursday at 9:30 a.m. at the base of the Brecha de los Italianos, at the foot of the Fitz Roy hill. .
The accident
The accident occurred when The three members of the team descended from the Fitz Roy hill and at the base of it they were surprised by an avalanche of stones, ice and snow that dragged the two young men for at least 60 meters to a crack in a glacier.according to what Linaza recounted, who managed to go down.
Linaza walked around the area for about an hour to try to find her companions, but she couldn’t even spot them.
The CAX explained that “the ropes that were still descending the same route on the Fitz Roy hill were asked to look in the crack where the two Basque climbers were dragged and buried, in case there was any sign of life.”
After making considerations about the difficult terrain to arrive with risky weather conditions and that “Not having air resources in the area, after 12 hours of burial the chances of survival are drastically reduced”stressed the Commission.
“The crack in which these climbers are buried measures 100 meters long by approximately 8 meters wide and 15 meters deep to the snow plug, ignoring the real bottom that it has with the risk it implies for rescuers,” he explained. the CAX.
The Aragonese Mountaineering Federation (Fam), of which Aguirre was a part, highlighted for its part that the El Chaltén Relief Commission “transfers to us that The security conditions for the rescue are currently not given due to the unstable nature of the mountain at this time and it does not convey expectations of finding them alive“.
The head doctor of the Cax Carolina Codó indicated that “I cannot even send anyone to look for the bodies because it would be putting them in enormous danger” until the temperatures drop,” in statements to the newspaper El País.
Aguirre was a doctor, a member of the Spanish Federation of Mountain Sports and Climbing (Fedme), while Bilbao was a climber and worked as a firefighter in the Llodio park (Álava).
Their colleagues from the Basque Country fired the climbers on the Instagram social network.
“Our colleague and friend Iker Bilbao from the Aiara (Laudio) park has disappeared in an avalanche in Patagonia. We join the concern and sentiment of family and friends” and they clarified: “Unfortunately he has been presumed deceased.”
The experienced climbers had managed to reach Fitz Roy via the Afanassieff route and were rappelling back, as learned from Linaza’s account.
Fitz Roy, at the top of the Argentine mountain with the same name, has a height of 3,405 meters, is located to the east of the Southern Patagonian ice field on the border between Argentina and Chile and its attraction brings together climbers from all over the world who arrive at El Chaltén, the Santa Cruz town known as the National Trecking Capital.
