원정 개요

The team climbed the North Face to the east (left) of the Dutch Rib by the route fixed by other Spaniards led by Edurne Pasaban.

After having pitched C1 on 3 April and C2 on the 4th, they went down to BC on the 5th to rest. On the following days, they carried loads up to C2 but slept in BC. On the 15th they went up to C2 and on the 16th established C3 at 6500m and slept there on an acclimatization trip.

But that day, the 16th, Arias and Rafols were in their at C3 while Calafat, Oiarzabal, Pauner, Perez and their Sherpas were outside a tent they were trying to erect. Those outside could see big ice blocks fall and hit the erected tent. The ice hit Arias in his back and Rafols in the back of his neck. They were not seriously injured but they were in considerable pain. Everyone returned to BC on the 17th. Arias and Rafols stayed in BC for a while, then decided they had enough of Annapurna. They left BC by helicopter on the 24th for Kathmandu and on the 25th flew home.

On 24 April the othere set out for the top: Calafat, Oiarzabal, Pauner and Perez, plus Sherpas Dawa and Lhakpa Sonam, left BC for C2. The next day five of them went up to 6950m and made C4 there. The sixth, Perez, had to descend to C2 because one of his crampons had broken. He continued down to BC on the 26th.

Calafat, Oiarzabal, Pauner, Dawa and Lhakpa Sonam left C4 at 2:00 am on the 27th for the summit and arrived there at 4:00 pm, an hour later than the Koreans led by Miss Oh because the Spanish party took time to fix 150m of rope above C4 near the summit. At the top, they left to the high bump.

In their descent from the top Oiarzabal, Pauner and Dawa were faster than other two and got well ahead of them. At 7:00 pm Calafat spoke on his walkie-talkie to Perez, saying that he and Lhakpa Sonam had lost the trail in the dark. They managed to find it after half an hour or an hour, but now Calafat reported that he and Lhakpa Sonam were at about 7600m. He was exhausted and sitting in the snow. He could not stand up, he was too tired to move. Perez exhorted him to move, but he did not. By 9 pm he was unable to talk intelligibly.

At 5:00 am on the 28th, other teammates continued the exhortation to get up and move down if he wanted to see his wife and children again. Now he did try to stand up, but his legs didn't hold him and he sat down again. Sonam went down to C4, where he found the three other summiters at 7:00 am; they were too tired to climb up to Calafat, having returned to C4 only at midnight after having waited for two hours at 7300m for Calafat to reach them. Meanwhile, at about 6:30 am, Perez used the team's satellite phone to call the head of their trekking agency, Sonam of Thamserku Trekking, and ask for a helicopter to come and help rescue Calafat -- perhaps to take some climbers up from BC to C4. A helicopter was sent, but it was cloudy at lower altitudes, and the helicopter could get no closer to BC than Ghorapani. His teammates still could not persuade Calafat to move.

At 1:00 pm on the 28th, Dawa went up from C4 with oxygen and mask made available by Miss Oh's Korean team, a sleeping bag and medicine for Calafat. It started snowing at 3:00 pm. Pauner and Oiarzabal stayed in C4 at 9:00 am on the 29th and reported that he gone nearly to the summit and had seen nothing of Calafat, who, Pauner and Perez believe, must by then have been lying under a blanket of snow and been invisible to Dawa as he went right past him.

At 7:00-7:30 am on the 29th, a search and rescue mission in a helicopter overflew Calafat's position at 7600m and could see no trace of him. His body remains there, on the trail followed by this team and the others this season.

Doctors who are experts in high altitude problems said Calafat did not have cerebral edema but died of hyperthermia, exhaustion and dehydration, which caused him to give up.

Sherpas:
Dawa Sherpa aka Ang Dawa, "Dhaulagiri Dawa", 7/12/59, Walung, Makalu-9,
Cho Oyu X5, Dhaulagiri X2-3
Lhakpa Sonam, 7/6/81, Kharikhola, Solu, Cho Oyu 19/5/07