2023-12-23 03:03:56
It was four in the afternoon when they reached the top. There was barely an hour of light left. We had to go down. Before them, six expeditions had given in to the “Mother Goddess of Harvests.” It was February 3, 1987 and they had just summited the fearsome Annapurna (8,091 meters) on its north face, the first winter ascent of the tenth highest mountain on earth. The Japanese had tried it three times in four years. But the two climbers trying to catch their breath after climbing for hours in the fog were not Japanese. The Polish Jerzy Kukuczka, “Jurek”, and his compatriot Artur Hajzer had made history. Four months earlier, Kukuczka had seen Reinhold Messner deprive him of becoming the first human being to set foot on the fourteen eight-thousanders. Now, he was trying to overcome an ascension that had managed to shake his legendary strength. “He moved me more like a fly in a soup,” he would later confess in his autobiography “My Vertical World” (Desnivel).
We had to find the store somehow before it got dark. But it was impossible. Helped only by the light from their headlamps, at ten at night they were still fighting to survive “having lost faith.” Then Jureck tripped on something soft. It was the store. It was salvation. “We went down all the time with our souls in suspense,” Kukuczka recalled. And that, coming from someone whom another illustrious figure of Polish Himalayanism, Voytek Kurtyka, defined as “the greatest psychological rhinoceros” he had ever known – for his ability to suffer and ignore danger – is saying a lot.
Ten months later, on December 20 (one day before the beginning of astronomical winter), a Japanese expedition would finally manage to fly the flag of the rising sun on the summit of Annapurna, although at a high price. Two of the four climbers who achieved this feat paid with their lives during the descent. Since then, nothing. No climber has been able to climb the mountain again in winter. In 1997, two mountaineering greats – the Italian Simone Moro, with four first winters at eight thousand under his belt, the most, and the Kazakh Anatoli Boukreev, the false villain of the Everest tragedy in 1996 – tried it together with the cameraman of Dimitri Sobolev height. On Christmas Day, an avalanche took Boukreev and Sobolev away forever.
“I don’t do it to be the fastest or the best”
Thirty-six years later, Biscayan Alex Txikon (Lemona, 1981) is willing to face that challenge. He is no newcomer. At 42 years old, he has a few notches in winter Himalayanism: the first ascent in history of Nanga Parbat in the coldest season and the winter Manaslu that he achieved a year ago, in addition to several unsuccessful attempts at Everest, K2 and Gasherbrum I.
And now, Annapurna. Although in 2010, when he promoted him with Edurne Pasaban, he swore to himself not to return “not even for all the gold in the world.” Despite the fact that last year, after his summit of Manaslu on Three Kings Day, he arrived at base camp muttering about the breakup of his love affair with winter Himalayanism. “I won’t come back in winter, that’s it.”
But despite renouncing winter and Annapurna, after a month in Nepal acclimatizing to the altitude, Txikon is already at the mountain base camp waiting for his opportunity, which he hopes will present itself before January 15. Almost four decades have passed since the last winter ascension, but he assures LA RAZÓN that he does not intend to challenge History. «I don’t measure myself against anyone. At most, we measure ourselves against the mountains,” says Txikon. «We climb when you have butterflies in your stomach. Expeditions are born like this. I don’t do it to be the first or the fastest or the best. In mountaineering, everyone seeks their dose of motivation.
“Why do I go back to Annapurna?” he asks himself out loud. «Because I think we have made a mistake when facing ambitious projects such as the winter attempts at Everest and K2. “Before, winters were more stable and easier to predict,” he points out, “but now one week they predict one centimeter of snow and you get 50, and you can have strong winds and heavy snowfall.” «We are going to Annapurna because the time has come and because we have risen after Manaslu. It is a mountain that we already know, that we climbed in 2010 and that represents an evolution as mountaineers.
Txikon prefers not to draw parallels with Manaslu. «Annapurna is a completely different mountain. It is very dangerous, but with good acclimatization and our knowledge of winter, if the weather respects us, great things can be done,” he ventures. What he is clear about is that he will not risk “even half of what we risked in Manaslu.”
“Fears should not be left at home”
It is inevitable to keep in mind the agonizing experience in the descent of both the Polish and Japanese expeditions in 1987. The Basque mountaineer never tires of repeating that “the true summit is the base camp.” The summit, he insists, “is no more than 40%” of the expedition.
Despite the difficulty of the challenge, he recognizes that he faces it with his fears on his back. «You don’t have to leave them at home. “You have to be a person, you have to feel, suffer, suffer.” «One of the keys to the success of Manaslu – she remembers – was the management of emotions, knowing how to channel them and, above all, being able to face and overcome your fears. It is the most important thing, without any doubt. And have courage, many times.
It is inevitable to now remember the tragic experience of his friend Simone Moro in 1997. «He has told me many times what that avalanche was like and how I can survive. And it’s scary. It was not on the north slope, but on the south. A cornice fell off. “Every time he tells me, I’m amazed.” “All tragic events – he acknowledges – make you reflect when undertaking your expeditions.”
Txikon and the six Nepalese climbers who accompany him – in addition to the Italian mountaineer Mattia Conte – still have hard days ahead of them to equip the mountain before thinking about an attack on the summit on its northern slope, plunged into darkness in the days of winter. “The north face of Annapurna is as ugly as the night,” wrote the great Krzysztof Wielicki, who defined it as “the ugliest wall that exists” in all the eight thousand.
But, whether there is a summit or not, what after? «I would like to see myself for many more years, but it requires a very high commitment. The expeditions are very expensive, and you have to work very hard for nine months to be here,” he admits. «But it motivates me a lot. I have learned to function well in winter. Every year I feel stronger, technically and tactically; experience is essential. God will say.
“Everest makes me a little lazy”
AlexTxikon has no plans to return to Everest in winter. At least, for now. “He makes me a little lazy,” confesses the Basque Himalayan player. «I missed the rice a bit. We have tried it three times and there has to be that point of motivation,” he explains.
Aside from these winter challenges, the Spanish mountaineer still has three summits left to complete the 14 eight-thousanders, a challenge that does not seem to motivate him excessively. “I would like to climb all of them, obviously,” he confesses, although he is aware that time passes and his expectations in the mountains, in any case, are different. «We have already climbed Annapurna and now we are coming again, we have done Manaslu twice and Shisha Pangma two other times. I think this is indicative that we don’t care exactly,” he says.
However, he explains that if he had to choose one of the three eight-thousanders that are missing from his record, “I would choose K2, because I would like to climb up there, it is a large giant stone, or Kanchenjunga” in front of Everest. «I am from that generation that realized that 14 was not important. If not, we would have done them already. In perspective, he states that “in twelve years we have only achieved two out of eight” winter summits, something that he considers “great challenges.”
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