COMPAÑERAS DE CORDADA. DEL PIRINEO AL KARAKORUM

Sunday December 14 – 12:00 Euskalduna Bilbao

LLucía Guichot and Nieves Gil, rope teammates since joining the Spanish FEDM Mountaineering Team in 2018, will tell us about their careers as mountaineers and, more specifically, their latest ascent of the ‘Eternal Flame’ route in the Trango Towers, in Pakistan’s Karakorum. In August 2024, they climbed this legendary 800m 7c+ A2 M6 route, opened in 1989 by the Germans Kurt Albert, Wolfgang Güllich, Christof Stiegler and Milan Sykora. The route is rated as one of the most beautiful and difficult at high altitude in the world at its 6,250 metres and takes its name from a beautiful song by The Bangles. 
Nieves and Lucía live in the Aragonese Pyrenees and work in nature (a forest ranger and a mountain guide). Whenever possible, they maintain their commitment to undertake one expedition per year, which has led them to explore different mountain ranges around the world: Patagonia, Nepal, India, Pakistan, and Peru.  

BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH 

MIKEL ZABALZA

Sunday December 14 – 12:00 Euskalduna Bilbao

Mikel Zabalza has always loved winter. He started climbing in the Pyrenees, in the Cirque de Gavarnie, where he has scaled ethereal ice routes. He has skied, travelled to the Himalayas, where he has opened new routes on giant rocks far away from the beaten paths, and advanced across the ice of Antarctica, with the wind as an ally while he pulled a sledge. Through his story, we become part of his rope team and travel to the Alps and Patagonia, to the great walls of the world, where we sleep suspended at altitudes where cold, wind and snow reign supreme: Integral de Peu Terey, Trango, Piergiorgio, Kanchenjunga, Dunagiri, Queen Maud Land, Everest and K2, the Abruzzi Spur, Gasherbrum II and IV, the Broads traverse, Nuptse, South Tower of Paiju Peak, Phurbi Chyach... and, always, the Pyrenees.