Cerro Torre, A Mountain Consecrated - The Resurrection of th

Messner is clapping for the chopping made by K&K. Well, not much worth really. What is the weight of a god clapping?

And Kelly Cordes has chosen the polemical way like Enzolino.

Hi Carlos,

Finally someone chopped those bolts of Maestri off of Cerro Torre. In my way of thinking it is 40 years too late, but better late than never. If there ever was a sacrilege in alpinism this had to take the cake. This bolt ladder had compromised Cerro Torre for all these last four decades, not to mention the slime ball Maestri with his lies, his arrogance and his cowardice. I remember arriving with my wife to his base camp in early 1971 and it was a pig’s stye. We spent two full days picking up the garbage and restoring the area. It was a metaphor for Maestri and all he stood for, the black chapter in Patagonia climbing.

Hats off to Hayden Kennedy and Jason Kruk, they had the courage, the ethics and the climbing style that now has rectified the curse of Maestri and put Cerro Torre back to the dignity it deserves. Let only climbers who have the techniques, the courage and the sense of adventure and human accomplishment that are capable of reaching the summit by the leading standards of contemporary climbing, not reduced to the lowest common denominator by such things as bolt ladders. Today, bolt ladders are obsolete (if ever they were really acceptable), the climbing techniques and standards have blown by all of that, we are in a new era. Those of us having climbed in these past epochs can only salute and admire the work of these young contemporary climbers, and not cry in our cups that the errors of our own era are being even somehow desecrated. That is nothing short of a testimony of the small mindedness of a relatively small group who raise unsophisticated and actually outlandish arguments having nothing to do with real climbing standards. You will not find one top climber in today’s field of world class alpinists who approved of Maestri’s bolt ladder in the first place or who is not happy that it is being chopped out. Fair Means is the password today. Lets not talk of dumbing down climbs or the climbing standards that are always advancing, let’s not have any retreats to the mistakes or lower climbing standards of forty years ago.

Shame on the circle of people who are criticizing these young climbers who just did an heroic feat of alpinism restoring the self respect of the mountain. As a contemporary of Maestri myself, I do not see anything worth preserving of his reputation as a fine alpinist, he left that at the door when he entered the Valley of the Rio de las Vueltas. His ‘legacy’ is that of a liar breaking the tradition of honesty and goodwill that climbing and its spirit of adventure has carried since the sport appeared , the industrialization of the compressor route unheard of in climbing before this or since remains one of the black marks on Alpinism any where in the world until today not to mention the outrage it provoked at the time of putting up the route.

Anyway, I just want to congratulate these excellent young climbers, they will go down in history as the heroes of Cerro Torre for this epoch and they will applaud future climbers who do routes faster and with less equipment and freer yet. For they embody the best spirit of human endeavor. Applause all around ! Let us be sure that we all back up Kennedy and Kruk and not let them get flummoxed for example by strident or hysteric voices swirling there in Chalten or elsewhere. They need our hearty support, they are the heroes.

Best, Doug

Enzolino, when you refer to me, please use your brain and be accurate. regarding Maestri and the 1959 climb, i stated that i was a supporter of Maestri's claims UNTIL i actually got on the climb and viewed the evidence. In the early 70's Mountain Magazine was using the argument that Maestri couldn't have done the climb because it was beyond the reach of climbers in 1959, an argument that you say that Messner and I are also using. I, by contrast, decided to approach Torre Egger by the Maestri/Egger line precisely because I believed that they had shown that it could be done.
The evidence that I found when I DID the climb and have expounded on a number of times is extremely damning from a number of fronts. If you persist in being delusional about the climb- so be it. I just don't want you to make inaccurate statements about my comments.

Tompkins climbed the California Route with Chouinard and others in 1969. I believe that it was his only climb in the area.

Thanks for the clarification Enzolino, I guess we will just continue to disagree on this point.

Another Manichean!

The cables will withstand Climber Fundamentalism, no problem.