Federico Campanini

by Amy Jurries on 4th Mar 2009 | View all blogs by Amy Jurries
The whole story about Federico Campanini and his death on Aconcagua makes me so sad and also angry. I know it's a big controversy and probably will remain so for a long time. All I can say is that when I climbed Aconcagua a few years ago, we came across a man who had spent the night out in the open probably 100 feet from the summit and appeared to be suffering from both hypothermia and HAPE. He was given tea and physically warmed up to the point where he could at least stand. Then my guide Lhakpa Rita Sherpa, brought him down the mountain. One person brought him down. Granted the man could walk but not very well and he was definitely disoriented. 

I will not comment anymore on the subject as I don't know the circumstances around the rescue attempt, this video, etc. but it is still devastatingly sad and worrying to see.


Comments

1 Comment

  • TJ
    by TJ 1 year ago
    The whole thing is not only sad and inexplicable, but the facts seem very confused so it's hard to know exactly what happened. I was on Aconcagua a few days after this accident and what we saw doesn't jive with some of the reported facts. We passed the bodies of Federico and his client on the way to the summit. They were in the Canaletta, about 600 to 800 feet below the summit and well off the main route (they were finally evacuated by helicopter, together with another UK climber who had passed away at the summit, when we were at Plaza de Mules on the way out). That is pretty hard to square with the official Argentine rescue team reports that they were on the Polish and that the difficulties were in getting them back to the summit so they could then descend the normal route. Seems like once it became a body recovery rather than a rescue they wouldn't have dragged the bodies to the summit and then left the job half done, rather than simply lowered them down the Polish which bottoms out at a well established camp on the Polish Traverse route. I can understand some of the lack of organization and lack of skills if the team in the video was essentially porters. While they are unbelievably strong and well acclimatized, the porters as a general matter have little or no technical mountaineering or first aid skills and very little equipment, much less rescue equipment. However, based on what I heard while I was there, it would be charitable to say that the communications were a disaster. There were a number of acclimatized and well equipped Western guides high on the mountain who would have been willing to participate in a rescue attempt, but, based on conversations with several of them, they were not made aware of what was going on until it was too late. Not meaning to cast any blame here, since ultimately the responsibility is on the climbing party to make good decisions, which clearly didn't happen here, but once things do go bad, they needed better communications and more willingness to involve other, non-local teams. It would also be a relatively easy matter for the park to cache some rescue equipment high on the mountain (there evidently is none except what some of the US guide services have cached unofficially in a couple places). Won't help those who perished here, but could help others in the future. Should at least learn something from this tragic event.
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