Daughters retrieve photos, bag and pickaxe from 6,500-meter mountain where their father, a legendary climber, died 40 years ago

40 years after their father lost his life on one of the highest peaks in the Americas, two daughters have retrieved some of his belongings after they were spotted by another mountaineer.

Climber’s backpack found almost 40 years after death

Guillermo Vieiro was known as a legendary climber in his native Argentina but died while descending Tupungato lava dome, which lies on the Argentinian-Chilean border. Last year, Gabriela Cavallaro came across Vieiro’s backpack and was able to track down his daughters, Guadalupe and Azul.

Elder sister Azul, now 44, was just a child when she lost her father, although she revealed her mother had “never really told us who he was”. Vieiro, who was 44, lost his life shortly after Guadalupe was born.

In February, the siblings, along with Cavallero, four guides and two filmmakers, embarked on an 11-day trip to recover the backpack from an altitude of approximately 6,100 meters, just beneath the summit of Tupungato, which is at over 6,500 meters.

Photos show historical mountaineering feat

Their father’s belongings inside the bag included a jacket, a sleeping bag, a water bottle, aspirin, vitamin C tablets, a set of knives and rolls of film. Vieiro’s photos show that he and his climbing partner, 20-year-old Leonardo Rabal, are the only people in history to have reached the top of Tupungato from its eastern side, considered the most challenging route.

“What they (Vieiro and Rabal) accomplished has real historical value in Argentine and international mountaineering,” stated Cavallaro, who lives near the foot of the lava dome.

Like Vieiro, Rabal’s body was found and recovered shortly after he died.

“It felt like a greeting, like: ‘I’m still here, I exist”

“In my family, the word ‘mountain’ was always forbidden,” Azul explained to AFP. “My mother wants nothing to do with the discovery of this backpack. It’s a family that has been broken by grief, by the void.

“It all seemed crazy to me, and I didn’t want to go back to the volcano where he had died. But as the months went by... I started to loosen up, and began thinking: ‘Why not?’ Spiritually, it felt like a greeting, like: ‘I’m still here, I exist. You’re not alone’.

“My mother never really told us who he was. We knew he had died in the mountains and that he was a mountaineer, but not much more than that. So it was like rediscovering his story, like saying, wait... we have a father who had a life, a history. So it was like discovering him all over again”.

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