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ExWeb interview with Ferran Latorre: Still he plays. And so do I.
Oct 6, 2004 20: 14 EST
Published Sep 17, 2004
ExplorersWeb met in Barcelona this week with yet another true heroe of the past K2 season: Ferran Latorre. Read the interview on why he didn't summit, why K2 is easier than Everest, and what Mick Jagger has got to do with it.
A cry in the night
An accomplished rock climber and a potential alpinist star, Ferrán Latorre renounced his own climbing dreams in favor of a job this summer: To be the camera man for ‘Al Filo de lo Imposible’ TV show. He's a guy you'll rarely see in the documentaries. But he is there alright, often climbing ahead of the rest, filming them as they climb, summit, or fail.
On midnight July 26, Ferran was ready to leave C4 for the summit of K2: He was strong and the weather was perfect. But in that moment he heard cries for help. That's when he made a decision.
The result: He never got to the K2 summit - and probably never will. But Juanito Oiarzabal is alive. Ferran found him helpless and sacrificed his own summit bid to save Juanito’s life.
It's only rock and roll
ExWeb: You’ve been working for ‘Al Filo’ as a camera man for five years now... In that time, have you done any other expeditions, beside the ‘Al Filo’ climbs?
Ferrán: No, I haven’t... It's been years since I was on an expedition with friends only, without filming.
ExWeb: Well how does that feel? Don't you sometimes miss simply climbing?
Ferrán: What can I say... Sometimes you could miss to do something else but... hey, just ask Mick Jagger. Yeah, it's great having millions of people at your feet on a concert but... Imagine playing the same songs, night after night. He’s filthy rich and not young anymore. I bet he would love to be somewhere else sometimes, to just refund everybody’s ticket and send them all back home. But still, he plays. And so do I.
I like my job. You know, it's only rock and roll... but I like it.
ExWeb: Do you propose projects to Al Filo? Have you ever tried to plan something you really want to climb, and offer Al Filo to do a documentary on it?
Ferrán: Sometimes we the climbers involved in Al Filo talk between us. I offer my point of view, propose ideas... and sometimes we all agree on a climb we all wish to attempt. In that case though, it is not me but one of the ‘veterans’ who introduces the project to the Director.
K2’s long shadow
ExWeb: Almost two months have passed by since K2. How are you?
Ferrán: Well, physically I am ok, but mentally... Oh, man! Well, that’s all right, I am just a little bit upset. I was so close... But there was nothing I could do. Someone is in trouble, you go and help. The important thing is we found him and got him down alive.
ExWeb: Aren’t you coming back to K2, to ‘finish what you started’?
Ferrán: No, I don’t think so... OK, you never know, I might change my mind in the future but right now, I just don’t even want to think about it.
ExWeb: Was BC as tense and negative as it has been said?
Ferrán: No, why? Who said that? I didn’t even notice, honestly. Yeah, true, there where the Italians quarreling, that’s right. It was amazing that the strongest team had no tent. But it was not really something evil, just lack of organization, laziness perhaps... Sure there were some arguments, but nothing outstanding, nothing special for a mountain like... welll, like Everest.
ExWeb: Ok, we’re talking about K2 here... It is supposed to be a different story. Everest is the highest, but K2 is the real deal, the ‘savage mountain’...
Ferrán: Oh, come on! With the fixed ropes and O2, do you know what I think? I think K2 is easier than Everest. Once you’ve got a rope to clip on, K2 is much better, as it is much more straight forward. You don’t have to climb the Khumbu ice fall up and down; you don’t have to walk for 12 km each time through the Valley of Silence, and don’t have to climb up the Lhotse wall even before you have the chance of seeing the summit. Yeah, you gain altitude very fast - and steep slopes at altitude are exhausting. But that’s what O2 is for. Isn’t it?
ExWeb: You seem rather skeptical as far as K2 is concerned...
Ferrán: Not really skeptical. What I feel is, when you are alone on a mountain, as we were on Makalu’s west Pillar two years ago, you work your way up, and then you reach kind of a complicity with the mountain. On the other hand, when you find K2 as the Abruzzi spur was, with so many teams fixing ropes and tents, when you already find the way up fixed and marked, well, then you don’t really feel the mountain as ‘yours’.
ExWeb: It seems that climbing K2 is going to be somewhat ‘easy’ from now on...
Ferrán: It won’t be so much a question of exploration anymore. Commercial outfitters know by now that it can be climbed if enough ropes are fixed, so it will change in the same way Everest changed. The most important condition to succeed on K2 won’t be strategy or the skills to choose a route. It will be a question of true motivation and capacity of adaptation to altitude.
Someday I would like to...
ExWeb: So K2 is over, at least for this season. Where are you going next?
Ferrán: I am working again - filming a climb on El Capitan (Yosemite, California). The Pou brothers (Iker and Eneko) are trying to freeclimb the Nose - it will be the first freeclimb of that route after Lynn Hill's . If they can't make it, they'll try the Salathe.
ExWeb: Are you using a helicopter to film the climb?
Ferrán: Oh, no, I wish I could. But no; I'll be climbing slightly ahead of the Pous to film them. Perhaps setting a line on another route nearby, but mostly from above: That's how you get the most spectacular images. Let me tell you, it's going to be a difficult job; some pitches are pretty scary and you don’t feel exactly comfortable when you just hang there, holding a camera.
ExWeb: Just one more question. If you were not a camera operator for ‘Al Filo’, what would you like to be?
Ferrán: Hmm.... Well... I guess I’d like to be a mountain guide. As a matter of fact, I am considering taking the courses. My life is easy now, I have no commitments, but one have to think of the future, too.
Ferrán Latorre was born in Barcelona in 1970 and started to climb at a very young age. In the ‘90s the Catalan young gun amazed the Spanish climbing community with an impressive amount of alpine climbs and ‘eight degree’ sport climbing routes. He was awarded the Spanish version of the Golden Piolet for a winter climb to the Croz, together with Manel de la Matta.
Ferran climbed Shisha Pangma SE face to the Central summit, and summited Annapurna in 2000 together with Juan Oiarzabal and Juan Vallejo. He attempted the Everest Hornbein couloir in 1995. Working with ‘Al Filo’ Ferran has taken part in and filmed climbs all over the world, from Everest to Makalu West Pillar, Manaslu, Gasherbrums, Queen Maud’s land in Antarctica, just to name some.
Ferrán was part of the ‘Al Filo’ team to K2 this past summer. He was one day behind the first summit group. He was getting ready to go for the summit (as many others) when he heard Juanito Oiarzabal had disappeared on his way back from the top, before reaching C4.
It was Ferrán who found Juanito laying on the snow, blind and semi-unconscious, and helped him back to the tents. With that Ferran renounced to his own summit bid: Oiarzabal has repeatedly claimed that he owes his life to Ferran, and that he deserves to be included in the summit team (Oiarzabal, Edurne Pasaban, Vallejo and Zabalza) more than anyone.
Image of Ferrán Latorre in La Garriga (Barcelona) Copyright ExplorersWeb.
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