OXÍGENO # 69 - La ruta mas importante de los Pou

Charlamos con Eneko Pou sobre su última expedición a Perú, de donde se traen una de las rutas más importantes de su carrera.
Podcast Oxigeno, con Elena Moro y Jorge Jiménez Ríos. 

Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Oxygen. The podcast of the author' s passions The Mountain will never fail
to remind us that they are neitherjust nor unjust. They' re just

(00:25):
dangerous. As Rainholmesner said, thisquote becomes more relevant in high and indomitable
mountain ranges such as those that risein Peru. So far the Poe brothers
returned to take some impressive routes andto leave a legacy, not only as
athletes, but also as authentic climbers, participating in the intense and difficult rescue
of the Italian Thomás Franchini after hisaccident in the Casán and that Rieneko,

(00:49):
along with Peruvian micher Quito, managedto repeat one of the most impressive routes
of the Sphinx after having opened anew route on the southeastern side of the
Cup that they described as the mostimportant of their career. These and other
fantasy routes fell into his backpack,mixing with the emotions of the aforementioned rescue
in which twenty people, twenty rescartistas, demonstrated once again the true values of

(01:11):
the mountain, managing to recover andreturn Francini' s body to his family,
the mountain in all its external andinterior explorations and always authentic alpine and
adventure stories with echo po once againin our podcast Hola Eneco. Welcome and

(01:32):
thank you so much for being withus once again. Thank you very much.
He hears new arrival in addition toVitoria, from your intense stay in
every way in Peru. Without adoubt, not an expedition that we have
defined as intense. Yes I thinkthe word is to be intense sentimentally speaking

(01:57):
also especially hard, because I thinkthat great sports challenges have been achieved,
as you were commenting right now Elena, but also on the human part,
because it has been a difficult expedition, considering that nothing more land in Peru
and without acclimatization, because we areinvolved in the rescue of taking Franquini a

(02:21):
story that leaves you imprint, leavesyou marked, because the objectives that were
ahead were difficult, dangerous, verycommitted objectives, and having to participate a
rescue like this, besides being alittle first line of the rescue, because
mentally it leaves you very down.He was a friend, we knew him

(02:44):
pretty well and it' s notthe same good thing. It is always
difficult to rescue anyone, but oneperson who knows is to rescue her dead,
because she is much more complicated,much more difficult. We can imagine.
And besides, it was in echo, nothing, nothing more terrified,
that is, you literally landed atthe airport and they told you the news,

(03:05):
because of course, after participating,as you say well, in a
rescue and also, very personal witha loved one and very close, how
you overcome that for the rest,to face those difficult climbs that you have
ahead of those objectives, how thoseemotions are managed. Let' s keep

(03:29):
this in mind. Also, wellsomething that only my brother and I knew
and was that we were going toPeru with ambitious goals, but we had
also had a rather interesting conversation beforeleaving, in which I put my brother
that, for me it could bethis one thousand twenty- four, it
could be a year, a littlemore relaxed, a little quieter in the

(03:50):
sports field. I was just closingdown our second book, which will come
out in October, and we camein like a few complicated things. He,
on a personal level, had alsohad some problems and we were rowing
countercurrent row. A few months agothen I, when we were on the
plane. Even before we had talkedthat maybe we both needed something, a

(04:14):
little more relaxed. Well, thisis the usual. It hasn' t
really been like that. No,I mean, we came from the expedition,
because with very important things at asports level. Probably, as you
mentioned before, the most important ascensionon the line, a little bit of
the mountaineering of our career, themost important opening and, moreover, we

(04:35):
are involved in that rescue that isvery very complicated. We were in acclimatization.
We came from sea level mallorca.On the second day we arrived in
Guaraz we planted five thousand three hundredwith those other twenty people and I was
hoping that we would not be acclimatizedby participating several days of high mountain there

(04:59):
from Peru, who are also companions, because to participate several local guides in
the rescue, because we thought thathe grew up. We weren' t
gonna get the first ones till shots. No insurance was known to be dead.
He was not deceased, but theindications were for the time that had
passed, that he was probably forthe signs of the time that had passed
and, above all, also forthe size of the fall. We'

(05:21):
re talking about a three- hundred- foot drop. There were very few
possibilities, but it is true thatincredible things have always been experienced at this
level in Mountain. Then you gothinking as long as he can be alive.
I mean, the personal implication isto get a person out alive.
We thought that by the strength ofthe guides or acclimatization and so on they
were going to arrive long before us. I was telling him, well,

(05:44):
there' s no problem. Let' s help now. When Thomás Este
got into the bag for doing away on the stretcher and personal involvement is
already much, much less. Butwe met when we reached five hundred meters,
we found that it is a solerarea, with which there is a
spectacular fall of stones, that isto say it looked like war. They
looked like hand grenades one after theother. And we find that we have

(06:09):
an hour of light left and thatwe have to enter yes or yes.
Yes or yes, because we stilldon' t know if he' s
alive, he' s dead,he' s badly hurt. Then it
was decided, it was said toenter with all of the twenty sixteen decide
that they will not enter, thatthey will not enter the ransom. It
' s too dangerous. And mybrother Micherquito, our fellow climber and in

(06:31):
Peru and I had a personal relationshipwith Tomas. Then we automatically make the
decision to enter with all the consequences. Also decides Francisco Ostos, one of
the youngest guides, decides to enterwith the two. It was also very
important about the four people. Thomaswas relatively large, although it did not
weigh much, relatively large and weentered all four to the rescue. As

(06:55):
you can see in the images thatwell, we have taken a long time
to teach them. We haven't taught half of what we had,
because I don' t think theother one was worth it. People can
already imagine the images clearly see thatthere are many nerves at the entrance of
the rescue, because we are inconstant danger by the fall of the fall
of stones. We have to gofrom block to block, in an ascent

(07:19):
of two hundred and fifty meters withoutwhom to kill to five zero and peak
costs a lot, but well wego practically walking to the race from block
to block until we get into somebig blocks that close a bit the area
where, through the binoculars we haveseen something red that did not move and
the one that did not move wasno longer a good sign and we get

(07:41):
in there and there quickly we talkto each other we decide how we will
enter, how we will do it. We could not arrive with the cabilla
that we had prepared, because itwas a climbing area in which we could
not logistically enter with the chapel.So, among the four of us,
we have to lower the body oftomas as we can when we leave the
last area that we are parapeted bythe stones, because we find something that,

(08:07):
of course, is not at allpleasant, that is, it is
extremely hard for people above that weknew him, we certify the death.
The police had not asked us totake the point of death, to take
some pictures, to make some videoso that they could first certify the body.
When we get there and he's already dead, we do that

(08:31):
as fast as we can from below. The group rescues through the radio asks
us for celebrity, because they knowthat we are in great danger in the
area that we are. But it' s very difficult to move to,
to move to, it' svery difficult to move between the four.
We finally decided to put two stringson it. We tie him up as
we can and we' re goingdown. But the whole process is very,

(08:54):
very slow. Until we get tothe stretcher area. We' re
out of danger now. We countgood luck that none of the stones that
is falling reach us and well,what goes through our heads at all that
time is basically that we have toreturn the body to the family. Not
that' s a little what's in the head of the four of

(09:16):
us up there. And we're not thinking too much about ourselves,
because there' s no room,that is, really if we thought about
it we wouldn' t have enteredthe area. It was too dangerous.
We got him down to the stretcherand well, and from there a very
long rescue, which lasts hours,but well we were already twenty people not

(09:37):
to leave us a little bit.In the background, there were very strong
porters in the history between porters toone of the guides who had not entered
and others, as they managed tolower the body down. So good goal
to achieve. But it is truethat from that moment on, in the
emotional burden of getting into the storiesthat we wanted to get into was too

(09:58):
much, too big, too muchpersonal involvement in history very, very,
very hard in echo. The truthis, sometimes that' s what you
say, it' s done withoutthinking. And there it' s really
from the heart, because if youthink about it for a moment sensibly,
that is, you do a coldanalysis, you' re playing life to

(10:24):
yourself, too, that is,the people who go there. As you
said, the chances of him beingalive were minimal, but there is always
one that harbors that hope and thatthread of hope and there you continued,
that is, that is, thatit is to be appreciated above all the
family. I imagine you will haveto thank for life for what you have

(10:50):
done and good community, the wholeAlpine community and the other mortals who thank
you for this effort, especially so. And, well, that after,
as you said, this expedition alreadygoing on at least emotionally hard, you

(11:13):
get that climb that you recognize orthat you qualify as the most powerful of
your history. Look, you've done some powerful activities. Maybe why?
Because you call it this way alsobecause of that emotional component that you
have had to say in some wayto overcome, apart from the technical thing

(11:43):
of climbing, where it gets pureflower or pure flower with it just a
few days ago, when you getpure flower, we had already opened a
new way in the pisco that wecall Auer piscos, a very hard way
also. Twenty consecutive hours of activityalso quite commitment. We go under several
ages so that people who don't know what the serax are are these

(12:05):
giant ice towers. Then it wasalso a committed activity. It' s
still really hot in there. Thewhole subject matter cost, cost a lot
more and, above all, tryto put a bit of a head on
the story as well. Mitchel andmy brother are action people, the two
of us, the three of us. But maybe I went up a little

(12:26):
more thoughtful. Then I took careof a little bit of the emotional part
of that climb, that nothing happened, that everything was, that everything was
fine, because on the mountain,I think we all know what the price
is if things go very wrong orit' s or the worst that can
be paid. In this case itwas what Tomas paid, who eventually paid

(12:46):
for the activity with his life.But until it happens to you, it
' s like you always have itin the bedroom. He' s not
there. It' s easier tohandle all the time because you' re
not thinking about it. In thiscase we were thinking about it before the
opening of web pisco, because itwas right there the accident had been a
few days before. So, whenwe get there, in this case,

(13:07):
we get to the Cup, wego like very mentalized, still weighs,
but very mentalized. We found avery large track, a track of what
is the road thousand meters, butbefore arriving at the route there were three
hundred unevenness, then the thousand metersand then another two hundred meters of unevenness
on the list scimera to reach thesummit. Then you have like moments.

(13:31):
We enter, we enter with everything, we enter the route with all the
first day, resulting twelve hours full, climbing without without in continuous and we
do not stok without stopping and finallywe find a vivir at the end of
the day and less bad because itseems it was so vertical that we did
not find anything to sleep and justwhen we saw something good here we stopped

at 4 (13:50):
30 in the afternoon and decided to stop a very hard night,
very cold, but well, fivezero and picometers. He' s
half- managed. The next daywe re- enter the super intense day,
with very difficult lengths of climbing andwe plant ourselves already at the last
hour at five o' clock inthe afternoon on the cymera list, already
at six zero meters. We thoughtthat same day we were going to reach

(14:11):
the summit and we' re goingdown to the bottom. When we get
to the scimera list, we realizewe' ve opened something so hard that
we' re not gonna rap it. I mean, we were aware that
we weren' t going down there. We were also in alpine style,
that is, with the right thingat the material level, with the right
thing at the sack level, withthe right thing at the level of everything,
then you also don' t havemuch material to get off. Depends
on what. Looks like we hada set of fres, a small set

(14:37):
of fissurers, six screws. Itseems to me that there were four and
three stakes, that is, no, we weren' t coming down from
there. With that we quickly decidedthat there was no retreat along that road
and also dangerous, with a lotof loose block. Then we decided to
go to summit. That same night, at six o' clock in the
afternoon. When it starts to getdark, we realize we don' t
have power, we don' thave the strength to get to the cradle.

(14:58):
We have left but we didn't make it. We didn'
t make it because we' reall three blown up. We had eaten
very little on top. We didn' t get much of the food right.
We were a little short on thefirst and second and this second day
and we threw ourselves there in themiddle of the ice or near a crack,
a little for sins. It wasvery windy, it was very cold,
and I think we were carrying sacksof more than three, that is

(15:18):
to say to give you an idea, that is, bags of extreme temperature,
plus three of us were already atleast twenty that night, then we
were very cold and we had asoup and an envelope for the three of
us who were left with food andwe focused all night not on sleeping,
we knew that we were not goingto sleep, but on moving toes and

(15:41):
hands, because we knew that ifwe didn' t get frozen, then
you were all night, come andmove toes and hands, come talk to
each other and when it' sdawn we went out to summit with an
energy bar. Everyone who no longerhad envelopes and deep snow. It cost
us an hour, hour and peaksto hundreds and picometers, but well we
got to cumedos. I was lookingforward to ending up at the top.
The route was already open, becausethis part was already common. But we

(16:04):
were very excited. We got abouteight and a quarter in the morning and
jumped to the other side. Itwas a cracked, dangerous grace. We
had to look for a little mazeto extend. But it is also true
that we have brought Mitcher, whohas been working on this grace for fifteen
years. This reminded us of him, because it has been many years since

(16:25):
he entered, but we knew thathe had a lot of experience for which
we had others and above all,the one he had to put this carra,
appeal to bes and so on.We knew he counted the day ahead.
We had to get out of therewith a little luck, without falling
into any of the holes and well, it was. So it was three
zero meters of unevenness and ten hourslater we managed to get to where they

(16:47):
came looking for us with the car, that is, happy with that route.
But a tremendous experience. The experiencesin alpine style in large mountains are
always very hard, especially if theroutes are technical like this. I wanted
to talk to you about this,because well, congratulations on the adventure,
especially because it is an authentic adventureas you are, as you are commenting,

(17:08):
it does not have all the elementsof these great expeditions and ascents.
And when you send us the informationand people are usually fixed, because we
see the amount of meters or thedegree of the track. But one thing
that I see very important that sometimeswe forget to value of the brothers Poe
de Ti and Ikers is to beable to go one step further on each

(17:29):
expedition, not lately every time yousee the Himalayas or Peru, because you
have made one of the great routesof your career. And that' s
amazing that still, after so manyyears of career, it' s still
going one step further. It's not just that you' re strong
anymore. Every person can say jois that they are the host of strong
because of course, they can domany things. I think we must also
value the imagination to go one stepfurther each time to get to these places.

(17:49):
Looking at those walls is a littlebit, that artistic part of climbing,
to put it a little bit,not being able to see in those
lines how you find them what theteacher is like today, finding that way
to break a little bit with theestablished within those mountain ranges and, above
all, how important it is forpeople like Bisierquito who live in those mountains.

(18:10):
They are those companions of yours inthe expeditions that, as you say,
has a lot of experience and soon, has to be a fundamental
part, I suppose, of findingthese projects. I also said yes and
I said to my brother the otherday I didn' t call him shit.
It can' t be that we' re all turning fifty in March.
I say no, because it isdoing some good damage and the challenges
are becoming more and more difficult.Man, I told him that, not

(18:33):
kind of horny in the middle,really, because I, at the end
of the fifties, had the crisisof the fifties, which everybody has.
In the end you don' tsee you' re not twenty- five.
And the great thing is that everytime we go to a story of
these that sometimes gets harder, thatis to say this one at the end
that I told you of pure flowerin the end is a six thousand two
hundred. They are practically four days, four whole days of continuous activity and

(18:57):
very difficult lengths. It is alsotrue that perhaps you need the trajectory that
we have in order to be ableto do this kind of activity with some
certainty, because in the end youalready have a lot of experience. It
is true that the recoveries that aresometimes harder than at the same time cost
you have much, much experience.And usually from this kind of activity is
what gets you out of the experiencealmost always and I think that' s

(19:18):
why we' ve come out bothof us at 2: 00 this year.
But, as Jorge said, yes, it is difficult to continue to
put the imagination. If it's hard to stay. Being there,
because it is evident that now,when we put him together with the people
in Andes, in Himala and Patagonia, we are the oldest. I mean,
that' s right, that's what this is, it wasn
' t like that 20 years ago, but now it' s like that

(19:41):
and we' re the older ones. And the truth is that you also
create a lot of illusion in youngpeople, not because you are seeing that
taking care of yourself a little,taking it seriously, loving a little activity
and mountain nature, as we do, because you may have traveled that that
is so beautiful too. On thisside, well, I don' t
know if they will have your determinationand your attitude and motivation to follow these

(20:04):
young people and get to where youhave come and continue, because that,
as Jorge says, is the difficultthing, not only the imagination, but
the motivation and the willpower to follow. I' m fifty, too.
I' m older than you,as you know and Joe, yeah,
it does cost, so it costs? So I don' t know true,
I don' t feel good anymoreand neither do you, because I

(20:27):
already know that you have to go, that is, we say goodbye already,
but now you go foolish, comewhat time is the podcast, which
is that we have to do itactivity, if you don' t stop
for a moment that is vacation,not where you have to go now,
to buy, to make the purchase, to go the full fridge or something

(20:48):
you realize that for us, inthe end, when you come from this,
this is like war really, thatis so intense that it is like
war. When you come from this, go yesterday as we get home,
we have a few hours left.We went for a run, but go
for a run and go out withthe road biker, with the montamba and
you' ll hear what you doevery sport. For us, it'

(21:08):
s not like we almost played sports. What' s coming is entertaining and
spending some time with friends. It' s not an uncompromising activity. The
shop without commitment. In the end, when you come from what you come
from, they are done with greatpleasure. Yes, I imagine it will
also be like a mattress for thatnecessary disconnect, as nothing to enjoy much
of these months of rest and wehope that in October you will notify us

(21:32):
for the release of that new book. Not in echo that this adventure will
already give for a third, becauseI didn' t give you time to
tell it in this second, thatis, that you already have material to
think about the third. But nowcalm down, a little calm. They
say that if you dream you're dead, I think you have to
have goals in life. It's very important that it' s all
the same. Each has his own, but we must continue with goals in

(21:56):
life. If that second book,we have something pending here with oxygen,
also that we will be talking andalso sports we still have at the end
of this summer. I don't have any widows to us. We
also have a lot of motivation anda lot of desire and, above all,
a lot of desire to do thingswith you again, to collaborate closely.
So, thank you so much,Eneco, once again for your time.

(22:19):
Thanks also to your brother Iker,who had to leave after solving the
technical problems. A hug for bothof you and enjoy the summer, a
big hug for you also enjoy summerand disconnect that salt variations are always necessary.
Also a kiss. Thanks, Enecko, big kiss to everyone. Bye.