Gipuzkoan mountaineers, born in Aretxabaleta. Felix was born on April 1, 1967 and Alberto on November 3, 1968.
These two mountaineers have been the maximum representation of an effective eight-thousander conception. This is evidenced by their 12 eight-thousanders achieved together in an attempt to complete the 14 eight-thousanders, until Felix's tragic death on July 28, 2000 in Pakistan, when he fell down a 400-meter cliff while descending Gasherbrum II. They also planned to film for television eight documentaries and two special programs that will take the viewer from Patagonia to the Mali desert, passing through the little-known New Zealand Alps.
They started around 1984 in the Basque mountains (Atxarte, Etxauri, San Bartolo), opening some routes in Araotz. Since 1987, year in which they visit the Verdon and do the Mont-Blanc by the normal route, they carried out their activity in the mountains together. In 1988 they climbed the Pilar Bonatti del Dru and the Travesía de los cuatromiles. In 1989 they climbed El Capitan in Yosemite. From then on, they focused their projects on the Himalayas and began a supervised training that allowed them to reach very fast schedules.
After climbing Pumori by the normal route in 1990, they climbed the Makalu via the Kukuczka Variant with Felipe Uriarte, suffering from frostbite. The following year, Alberto is the youngest at that time to climb Everest without oxygen. In 1993 they retired at 8,100 meters on the north ridge of K2, a mountain where the following year they achieved the first absolute summit by the Cesen with Kike de Pablo, Juan Oiarzabal and Juan Tomás, an activity for which they were mentioned in the Piolet de Oro. The Cho Oyu was climbed in alpine style and in the same year they achieved the first national climb of the Lhotse, both by the normal route. In 1996, on Kangchenjunga they ed the Britannica on the north face with Oiarzabal. Months later, on the Shisha Pangma, Alberto was involved in the same avalanches that trapped Oiarzabal and Juan Vallejo and under which Zuloaga died, despite which they reached the summit in alpine style on the Britannica with Josu Bereziartua.
In the following season (1997) they climbed Broad Peak in 5 hours by the normal route, after retiring for the opening of a new route on the south ridge at 7,200 m, as well as Mount Cook (New Zealand) with the Spanish Television (T.V.E.) program Al Filo de lo imposible. They entered the new year with a winter attempt on Manaslu accompanied by Bereciartua (up to 7,400 m). They then reached the summit of Dhaulagiri by the normal route and had to retreat from Gyala Bari (7,200 m, Tibet) by the Japanese route at 5,400 m. In Nanga Parbat they made summit with José Carlos Tamayo by the Kinshofer, after having climbed with him and Jon Lazkano the Slovenian to the Nameless Tower (28-6-1999). Later, in 2000, they reached the summit of Manaslu (8,163 m) on April 25, but tragedy struck when, on July 28, Felix died on the icy slopes of Gasherbrum II, 8,035 meters. In the race for the fourteen on earth, Félix Iñurrategi, 33 years old, died while descending his twelfth eight-thousander with his brother Alberto. The failure of a rope anchor caused him to plunge into the void to the place that will forever be his grave. His body rests in the Himalayas.
A year later, in April 2001, Alberto Iñurrategi, together with Jon Lazkano and Jon Beloki, climbed the sandstone rocks of “Jewel Rum”, the highest point in Jordan, 1,754 meters high, located in the Wadi Rum desert. The chosen route was the “Pillar of Hope”, a wall of about 400 meters, in which the greatest difficulty was the state of the rock, since the Basque mountaineers are not used to climb in this type of loose sandstone. The spectacular images of this climb were captured by the cameras of Euskal Telebista (E.T.B.).
In August of the same year, after recovering from the hard blow of the death of his brother and inseparable companion in the mountain, Alberto Iñurrategi, together with Jon Beloki, crowned Gasherbrum I or Hidden Peak (8,068 meters), a mountain located in the Karakorum (Pakistan), also within the expedition of E.T.B. Jon Lazkano was the third member of the expedition. Alberto Iñurrategi had already attempted it the previous year in the company of his brother. For Alberto it was his thirteenth eight-thousander. He made the final attack with the ice axe of his Felix, which he had found on the glacier. For Beloki, a climber of big walls but with only one summit in the Himalayas to his credit (Dunagiri, 7,066 meters), Hidden Peak was his first eight-thousander. The two mountaineers from Guipuzcoa stayed on the summit for the time necessary to film the images for the documentary series “Oinak izarretan” by E.T.B.
The mountaineer from Aretxabaleta only needed to crown Annapurna (8,091 m) to round off a challenge that, curiously, would become a reality on the same mountain where Juanito Oiarzabal climbed it, that is, to close the collection of the 14 highest mountains on Earth. Indeed, Annapurna is the eight-thousander with the fewest ascents and, according to statistics, very dangerous. Alberto already tried to climb it with his brother Felix, after reaching Manaslu, but they had to abandon the attack due to bad weather conditions.
Once without Felix, Alberto climbed Gasherbrum I or Hidden Peak (with Jon Beloki, who has become his regular partner), and also Annapurna, accompanied by Lafaille.
At the age of 33, Alberto Iñurrategi became the youngest mountaineer in history to have climbed all 14 eight-thousanders, a career that has taken him 11 years of his life (it took Juanito Oiarzabal 14).
In the ascents, the difficulty was set by the climbers themselves, driven by their maxim of staying as short as possible at altitude and leaving a good difference in altitude for the summit day. But almost always, climbing the easiest route meant fast alpine or near-alpine times, which they have also practised far from the Himalayan giants.
In 1999 the Iñurrategui brothers, together with José Carlos Tamayo, during their ascent of Nanga Parbat (8,125 metres), the brothers' tenth eight-thousander, carried out a rescue, saving the life of a Colombian mountaineer. For such humanitarian behaviour they received an award from the Provincial Council of Gipuzkoa.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)