On October 13,1972, a Uruguayan plane carrying a Rugby team and their friends crashed in the Andes. Sixteen of the 45 passengers survived 72 days trapped on a glacier, isolated from civilization and having to resort to eating the bodies of the dead to survive. In those 72 days, they endured extreme cold temperatures, avalanches, starvation and dehydration and ultimately two of them, Parrado and Canessa, climbed out of the Andes to bring helicopters to rescue the other survivors.
On February 12, 2005, Ricardo Peña (left in the photo), mountain guide and husband of RMEC member Ulyana Horodyskyj, discovered the jacket, passport and wallet of survivor Eduardo Strauch (right in the photo) high in an unexplored gully above the glacier where the survivors lived their epic survival story. This discovery led to Ricardo meeting Eduardo and eventually all of the survivors and becoming close friends with them. Ricardo went on to lead the National Geographic expedition that repeated and documented for the first time the historic escape route of Parrado and Canessa.
He has also conducted extensive research in the area and helped film many documentaries on the subject. Ricardo will share an insider’s view into this epic and legendary survival story as well as his discoveries during his trips back to the site, including his last one, in January 2022, with survivor Eduardo Strauch and Ulyana, where global warming is melting the glaciers dramatically and revealing evidence that had been lost for decades.
Learn more about this fascinating project exactly 50 years after this disastrous aircraft disaster: https://alpineexpeditions.net/andes-survivors/