Martín Zabaleta and Six degrees of separation

This is a translation of the original blog entry in Spanish.

Para leer la entrada original en español haced clic aquí. 

 

Martín Zabaleta is the first Spaniard to set foot on Everest. He achieved this on May 14, 1980, as part of the "Euskal Espedizioa" (Basque Expedition), which consisted of two dozen Basque mountaineers. The expedition was led by the recently deceased (June 11, 2024) Ángel Vallejo Rosen, better known as Ángel Rosen. This mountaineer from Vitoria (born in Biarritz, but, as they say, "you’re from where you live, not where you’re born") is one of the great figures of Basque mountaineering. He participated in the first Basque expedition to Everest in 1974, the "Tximist." This year marks the 50th anniversary of that first expedition, and for that reason, an exhibition was set up in Amárica Plaza in Vitoria, which I visited on July 18, 2024, and found fascinating. That first expedition did not reach the summit. Ángel Rosen and Felipe Uriarte spent the night at C6, their final high-altitude camp, at 8,530 meters, just below the South Summit. That was the closest they got (which is no small feat). Strong winds that began in the early hours forced them to make a difficult retreat.

 

Ángel Vallejo Rosen is the father of Juan Vallejo, another legendary Spanish mountaineer from Vitoria with significant achievements in his career.

 

In that first Basque expedition to Everest, the "Tximist" of 1974, Martín Zabaleta did not participate. However, he did in the second expedition, the "Euskal Espedizioa" of 1980, where he, along with Sherpa Pasang Temba, were the only ones who managed to set foot on the highest point on Earth. Ten days earlier, on May 4, 1980, Ángel Rosen and a small team had reached the South Summit (8,750 meters), but once again, the wind forced them to retreat. Martín Zabaleta and Sherpa Pasang Temba succeeded later, on May 14, 1980, a date that immediately became part of the historical calendar of Spanish mountaineering.

 

Martín Zabaleta had not participated in the Tximist expedition of 1974. In 1979, along with Xabier Erro and Catalan Joan Hugas, he pioneered a complete variation on the southwest ridge of Aconcagua, which likely secured his spot in the "Euskal Espedizioa" of 1980.

 

A couple of curiosities about this first summit of Everest:

 

-It was the first time a Spaniard had climbed Qomolangma. Martín Zabaleta, from Hernani, probably didn’t feel much of a nationalistic Spanish pride, and when he reached the summit alongside Sherpa Pasang Temba, he planted next to the Nepali flag an Ikurriña (Basque flag), which also featured an anti-nuclear symbol and the axe and snake from the logo of the terrorist group ETA. Spanish media, unaware of this, reported the news with comments like "the roof of the world now bears Spanish colors." A few months later, when photos of the summit showing these symbols were published in Spain, it sparked considerable controversy.

 

-Martín picked up a rosary from the summit that Polish climbers had placed on top of the world. It had been given to them by none other than Pope John Paul II. Martín took it as proof and gave it to his mother. This also caused controversy, and Zabaleta promised to return the rosary to Everest once his mother no longer used it. His mother passed away on December 23, 2019, in Hernani, at the age of 95. The previous summer, she had donated the rosary to the Basque Mountaineering Museum, so for now, it hasn’t returned to the summit.

 

Shortly after returning from Everest, Zabaleta moved to the United States, where he still lives today. He is 74 years old, and besides that first ascent of Everest, he has climbed two other 8,000-meter peaks: Kanchenjunga (1988) and Cho Oyu (1989, the first alpine-style ascent of the west ridge). Even if you removed these three 8,000-meter peaks from his resume, which are usually the most widely covered, he would still have an exceptional career with groundbreaking and difficult climbs that would secure him a place in mountaineering history. I enjoyed reading that in 2019 he joined Juan Vallejo and Juan Mari Iraola in an attempt to climb the Ferrari route on the west face of Cerro Torre, in Argentine Patagonia. It’s interesting how names are linked, Zabaleta on another expedition with Ángel Vallejo Rosen’s son. They came close to their goal, and a few days later, Zabaleta climbed Fitz Roy at the age of 70. Previously, he had lost his toes on the south face of Aconcagua (6,962 meters), but that hasn’t stopped him from continuing his adventures.

 

A true phenomenon. But perhaps because he lives in the U.S. and is away from the media spotlight, he’s a legend that goes more unnoticed in Spain.

 

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In my blog, back in June 2011, I wrote about the theory of six degrees of separation. This is what I said:

 

What is this theory? I’ll copy and paste from Wikipedia:

 

"Six degrees of separation is a theory that tries to prove that anyone on Earth can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances that has no more than five intermediaries (connecting the two people with only six links), or more popularly that ’the world is a handkerchief.’ The theory was first proposed in 1930 by Hungarian writer Frigyes Karinthy in a short story called ’Chains.’ The concept is based on the idea that the number of acquaintances grows exponentially with the number of links in the chain, and only a small number of links are necessary for the set of acquaintances to encompass the entire human population."

 

Let me give you an example: my connection to Barack Obama, the president of the United States.

 

1.- At Rock Hill High School (South Carolina, USA), I had Tori Gurley in my Spanish class.

 

2.- Tori Gurley is friends with Ivory Latta, a professional basketball player in the WNBA, whom I also saw play many pickup games at the YMCA gym in Rock Hill.

 

3.- Ivory Latta, in turn, is good friends with LeBron James, an NBA player for the Miami Heat and the USA Team.

 

4.- LeBron James has been invited a couple of times by the U.S. president to play some basketball games with a barbecue afterward at the White House.

 

Basurde – Tori Gurley – Ivory Latta – LeBron James – Barack Obama. Just three intermediaries, I had two to spare.

 

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My connection to Zabaleta would be as follows:

Basurde – Rand Harrington – Martín Zabaleta.

 

Who is this Rand Harrington, in the middle of the sandwich? Here’s the curiosity that leads to this blog entry.

 

Dr. Rand Harrington is the new director of my school in New Delhi, at the American Embassy School. He started working here in July 2024. I had access to his résumé, and there’s no doubt that he’s the right person for the job. As a side note, outside of his previous experience for the position he now holds, I saw that he had established a new route on Ama Dablam (Lagunak Ridge). Ama Dablam is a mountain located in the eastern Himalayas of Nepal, 6,812 meters high. The legendary Carlos Soria climbed it at 77 years old and said of it: "It always left me awestruck by how beautiful it is." It is considered one of the most beautiful mountains on the planet, and if you look for pictures, you’ll see why.

 

What caught my attention was seeing "Lagunak Ridge" on the résumé. Ridge is an English word that translates to "crest" or "ridge," and "Lagunak" is a Basque word meaning "friends." And I thought: "Wow, there had to be a Basque in this expedition." I did a quick Google search and found the following article, written by Rand in The American Alpine Club back in 1986: "Lagunak Ridge, Ama Dablam." He climbed it in 1985, and who was in that expedition? Martín Zabaleta! There were four members of that expedition, and here’s how Rand describes Martín Zabaleta in the introduction:

 

¨Martin climbed Everest in 1980, was on expeditions to Makalu and Lhotse and was far and away the most experienced high-altitude climber among us. Martin is a carpenter in Oakland and took off as little time as possible for the trip, avoiding the time-consuming walk-in by flying to the village of Lukla and then flying out from there again after the climb.¨

 

They had planned about two weeks to reach the base camp, plus 25 days from the base camp to the summit and back.

 

I found this paragraph amusing:

 

¨Locating a large crevasse with a suitable sleeping ledge we bedded down for the night. The crevasse turned out to be the large crack across the upper snowfield that can be seen from the valley, the top of the “dablam.” The luxury of not having to “dig” into an exposed ledge along with the icy chandeliers that adorned our sleeping quarters inspired Martin to name the camp the Hotel María Cristina, a large fancy hotel located in his homeland. While slurping at our hot chocolate and pea soup we discussed our next day’s plans. Should we rest a day or should we go for the summit? Our exhaustion was nearly complete but the exhilaration of being so close to the summit counteracted its effects.¨

 

What an incredible feat by these guys! In this brief article about Zabaleta in El Correo, they mention this expedition: ’Previously, in 1985, the Guipuzcoan [Zabaleta], along with Americans Hooman Aprin and Randy Harrington, opened the “Lagunak” route on the south ridge of Ama Dablam.’

 

I also saw in Rand’s CV that years earlier, between March and September of 1977, he completed the Pacific Crest Hiking Trail. What does this trail entail, the Pacific Crest Trail? Nothing less than connecting Mexico with Canada, walking through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. A 4,286-kilometer trail with an altitude range from sea level to 4,009 meters at Forester Pass in the Sierra Nevada. How does that make you feel? Back in July of 1999, I did the 774 kilometers from Saint Jean Pied de Port to Santiago, and it’s hard to imagine multiplying that by 5.53 and adding mountains to the mix. What an achievement!

 

One day, while passing by Rand’s office, I saw that he was inside, the door was open, and I asked if he had a few minutes. He said of course, and I told him I was impressed with what I had read in his curriculum, that it was awesome. We chatted a bit about Martín Zabaleta, and he said, ’Are you Basque too? Now I notice some similarities.’ In his office, he has some framed photos of Ama Dablam, and he showed me where the route they opened goes. We also talked about the Pacific Crest Hiking Trail.

 

Impressive! For some reason, it’s not the kind of profile you would normally associate with the director of a school that has over 1,000 students. But that’s how it is—our director has some great achievements under his belt. What a legend!

 

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More things about Zabaleta. I mentioned this to Pello Urkola, a colleague from Tolosa, and he told me that when he was younger, Mari Ábrego (another legend who deserves a separate post) went to Tolosa to give a lecture on how he climbed the highest mountain in North America, Denali or McKinley (6,194m), in 1982. Who was his climbing partner? Martín Zabaleta. Those crazy guys in their crazy contraptions...