Mi CHO OYU

I was withLucía López at the last camp when we saw a wobbly man going down the yellow band. Lucía wanted to go after him. It was just a few meters, perhaps an hour of operations, but it was almost night and I thought it better to join efforts. I yelled offering €500 for their ransom to the Sherpas of the other group... nothing. I went up to €1000... nothing. We opened the store and asked directly how much they wanted to ransom him. They said that his clients had paid a large sum for the summit and that they were not going to rescue him. The customers were silent. Just at that moment the man fell. First it slid slowly, then, hitting a piece of land, it went spinning wildly into the air, then it landed, its fall accelerating prodigiously until it disappeared in a jagged.

I scratched myself I wasn't going to summit with that panda...

The next day I looked out into the valley. Surprisingly a stain moved. I grabbed the glucose water and ran downstairs. His name was Pepe, Pepe Q... I think I can say it because it has already been published in the specialized press. I left him with the water on the trodden route, through which all the expeditions passed, and I was very calm thinking that his rescue would be organized naturally.

Nothing of that. People passed him almost without looking at him. I was quite impressed. It seems that in the Himalayas they let you die without the greatest compunction. So I had to download it alone. He leaned on my backpack and when he stumbled I held him back as best he could so he wouldn't fall, since the section from C3 to C2 is very vertical. As he was very weak from the fall, the night in the open and a cerebral edema we were going very slowly because he had to stop to rest continuously. The thing was black. We had come across more than a hundred mountaineers, nobody had helped us and nobody was going to help us. When we were close to the C2, it couldn't take it anymore and I dragged it.

Ferran Latorre was in C2 and he got oxygen and volunteers who came down, while I assisted Pepe with the basics: hydration, medication, cleaning, etc.

And I spent the night awake (the third, I already had 2, but they are other stories).

As soon as the descent began, the volunteers disappeared. Vicenç remained, a Catalan who had frozen feet from the top, accompanying me (6th photo). He couldn't help me because he was very touched. As I saw that we did not reach C1, I prepared a temporary camp on the plateau above the serac with a tent that I took from a Sherpa. We left Pepe there with oxygen, water, food, 3 mats... We made sure he was working well... In short, everything was perfect.

There was a reason to go down. During the journey he had sent a multitude of messages to his group through the stations of the Sherpas with whom we passed, but it seemed that they did not arrive. The last one indicating the situation above the serac. (Indeed, later we confirmed that of about 20 messages, only 2 arrived). In addition, Pepe had exhausted his battery and needed to replenish himself with oxygen to descend the Serac.

And we go down. Vicenç stayed behind with his frozen feet and I ran downstairs.

Luckily the last message did arrive safely and almost at the base camp I met Jordi Tosas who was going up to the rescue. (The day before he had tried to go up with two Sherpas but a storm rejected them in the serac)

Jordi arrived at Pepe's at dawn and took him down from the serac, taking advantage of the fact that he had recovered sufficiently.

For my part, I slept a little and left for C1 at dawn to arrive first thing in the morning, although the situation was already under control because Tibetan porters arrive at C1. We took Pepe to the stony area and from there the Tibetans carried him in the air over the slippery scree to the CB and Jordi immediately rushed to Kathmandu to hospitalize him.

Pepe recovered from the edema, but lost an entire foot due to frostbite.

That was my Cho Oyu, an experience without peak but intense. Anyway, I upload a photo of my friend Lucía with the views from the summit for anyone who wants to know what is seen from there.

So be careful with the eight-thousanders, which have other codes, as can be seen in this video in which a Czech appears who ran out of strength in the serac and no one helped him.




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I contracted the expedition with Monterosa and, for those who want routes, below are the links to the tracks between camps. In any case, in these types of mountains the route changes every year depending on the footprint that is formed.


From Chinese Base Camp to Middle Camp

From midfield to advanced basecamp

From advanced base camp to camp 1

From field 1 to field 2