Juanito Oiarzabal is a mountaineering legend. The Vitorial man was yesterday at Nevaria, the ski and winter sports fair in Moreda that announces the start of the season each year. Juanito visited the fair and gave a lecture in the afternoon where he reviewed his career and joined any of his followers who wanted to chat with him.
Knows well as a mountaineer Asturias.
It’s my first time to Nevaria but I know the area, although it puts me a bit away from Vitoria. I am much closer to Picos de Europa.
He comes to Moreda to tell about his experiences. Himalayas.
To tell the story of my life, how it developed after the first steps in the Pyrenees, then in the Alps and then in the Himalayas. I’ll talk about my second ascent to Lhotse (8,516 meters), we were planning to climb the planet’s 14-eight thousand summit for the second time. It couldn’t have been because of a very severe pulmonary embolism I had five years ago and the accident involving Alberto Zerain, who was involved in the project with me in Nanga Parbat. Eventually I had to cancel and devote myself to other kinds of activities.
Has much changed in those years?
It’s a disappointment for me every day now. What we see in many ways, especially in the Himalayas, is something we mountaineers see all the time, due to human proliferation and climate change. In 1985 I did my first eight rides, Cho Oyu with a glacier. I did it again 15 years later and the retreat of that glacier is huge.
And mass?
There are too many crowds on Everest due to commercial expeditions. It’s becoming a purely commercial mountain, and that creates a lot of problems. It is said to be cleaned but not cleaned. With so many people, especially in the spring, it is a completely vulnerable mountain. It has lost all its significance and all its identity. Everest means nothing to me right now, it doesn’t interest me at all.
Are there lost paradises?
There are. You should look for adventure, you should look for other places where you can enjoy the mountain to the fullest. They exist, but there are others that are very popular. Agencies in Pakistan, especially Nepal, have done a lot of damage to the mountains. There is demand, but it is a poor quality offer.
Every season in Asturias we have more accidents in the mountains.
The same thing happens in Euskadi, unfortunately we see accidents very often. You should explain that you need to go to the mountain prepared and knowledgeable, and you should never take it lightly. This alone will reduce accidents. We are many people in the mountains and this is not what it used to be. We need to focus more on informing and making people aware that they need to go prepared and equipped. And if you don’t reach the top, you turn around and nothing happens.
Do you know Asturias well, but what would you choose, what would you recommend?
I recommend everything from Asturias. I’ve been coming here for many years, especially Picos de Europa. I would stay in the central massif of Picos but in general I would stay in all the mountains in Asturias. You just have to look around. We are in Moreda in Aller and this is an exceptional place to go mountain, cross country skiing, alpine skiing or alpine skiing.
The children of the Cabueñes school surprise the mountaineer who promises to visit them.
Nevaria worked its magic yesterday, not because ski and mountain enthusiasts enjoyed another day at the fair in Moreda, but because a nine-year-old girl named Estela Pidal had the opportunity to greet one of her idols, mountaineer Juanito Oiarzabal. The girl came to Moreda with the task of delivering Juanito letters that she and her classmates had written to her. The girl’s family is repairing a house in the municipality of Aller and learns that the mountaineer will be in Moreda. The calf told his teacher at the Cabueñes school in Gijón, and he set up a project with the students about his adventure of climbing the 14,800-meter top of the planet for the second time. Yesterday, Estela approached Juanito, who had moved. The girl explained that she loves the mountains “a lot”. The mountaineer assured that he would read all the letters, and at one point told the girl’s mother, Mabel Fernández, to “note my phone and send me a whastapp to see if we can find a place to go to school.”
Juanito Oiarzabal is a mountaineering legend. The Vitorial man was yesterday at Nevaria, the ski and winter sports fair in Moreda that announces the start of the season each year. Juanito visited the fair and gave a lecture in the afternoon where he reviewed his career and joined any of his followers who wanted to chat with him.
Knows well as a mountaineer Asturias.
It’s my first time to Nevaria but I know the area, although it puts me a bit away from Vitoria. I am much closer to Picos de Europa.
He comes to Moreda to tell about his experiences. Himalayas.
To tell the story of my life, how it developed after the first steps in the Pyrenees, then in the Alps and then in the Himalayas. I’ll talk about my second ascent to Lhotse (8,516 meters), we were planning to climb the planet’s 14-eight thousand summit for the second time. It couldn’t have been because of a very severe pulmonary embolism I had five years ago and the accident involving Alberto Zerain, who was involved in the project with me in Nanga Parbat. Eventually I had to cancel and devote myself to other kinds of activities.
Has much changed in those years?
It’s a disappointment for me every day now. What we see in many ways, especially in the Himalayas, is something we mountaineers see all the time, due to human proliferation and climate change. In 1985 I did my first eight rides, Cho Oyu with a glacier. I did it again 15 years later and the retreat of that glacier is huge.
And mass?
There are too many crowds on Everest due to commercial expeditions. It’s becoming a purely commercial mountain, and that creates a lot of problems. It is said to be cleaned but not cleaned. With so many people, especially in the spring, it is a completely vulnerable mountain. It has lost all its significance and all its identity. Everest means nothing to me right now, it doesn’t interest me at all.
Are there lost paradises?
There are. You should look for adventure, you should look for other places where you can enjoy the mountain to the fullest. They exist, but there are others that are very popular. Agencies in Pakistan, especially Nepal, have done a lot of damage to the mountains. There is demand, but it is a poor quality offer.
Every season in Asturias we have more accidents in the mountains.
The same thing happens in Euskadi, unfortunately we see accidents very often. You should explain that you need to go to the mountain prepared and knowledgeable, and you should never take it lightly. This alone will reduce accidents. We are many people in the mountains and this is not what it used to be. We need to focus more on informing and making people aware that they need to go prepared and equipped. And if you don’t reach the top, you turn around and nothing happens.
Do you know Asturias well, but what would you choose, what would you recommend?
I recommend everything from Asturias. I’ve been coming here for many years, especially Picos de Europa. I would stay in the central massif of Picos but in general I would stay in all the mountains in Asturias. You just have to look around. We are in Moreda in Aller and this is an exceptional place to go mountain, cross country skiing, alpine skiing or alpine skiing.
The children of the Cabueñes school surprise the mountaineer who promises to visit them.
Nevaria worked its magic yesterday, not because ski and mountain enthusiasts enjoyed another day at the fair in Moreda, but because nine-year-old Estela Pidal had the opportunity to greet one of her idols, mountaineer Juanito Oiarzabal. The girl came to Moreda with the task of delivering Juanito letters that she and her classmates had written to her. The girl’s family is repairing a house in the municipality of Aller and learns that the mountaineer will be in Moreda. The calf told his teacher at the Cabueñes school in Gijón, and together with the students he set up a project about the adventure of climbing the planet’s 14 eight thousandth climb for the second time. Yesterday, Estela approached Juanito, who had moved. The girl explained that she loves the mountains “a lot”. The mountaineer assured that he would read all the letters, and at one point told the girl’s mother, Mabel Fernández, to “note my phone and send me a whastapp to see if we can find a place to go to school.”