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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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An incredible thread about an incredible topic.
Thanks to all of the contributors.
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Hardman Knott
Gym climber
Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca
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Yeah, absolutely, for years I've been pushing for the Half Dome cables to be replaced with a set of non-elitist escalators.
There already is one, it's called Snake Dike (aka Snake Hike); arguably less strenuous than the cables...
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SGropp
Mountain climber
Eastsound, Wa
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://www.planetmountain.com/english/News/shownews1.lasso?l=2&keyid=39140
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TwistedCrank
climber
Ideeho-dee-do-dah-day boom-chicka-boom-chicka-boom
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From Planet Mountain ^^^^^^^^^^
In this sense I ask for the route not be eliminated from our collective memory and that the figure of Cesare Maestri be completely redeemed, both from a human and mountaineering perspective. And that one gleams the ray of sincerity which accompanied all his actions, right from that first, dramatic ascent of Cerro Torre with Toni Egger and Cesarino Fava.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Yup......and there really is an Easter Bunny.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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In this sense I ask for the route not be eliminated from our collective memory and that the figure of Cesare Maestri be completely redeemed, both from a human and mountaineering perspective. And that one gleams the ray of sincerity which accompanied all his actions, right from that first, dramatic ascent of Cerro Torre with Toni Egger and Cesarino Fava.
Not sure what the root of this level of delusional revisionism could possibly be, but it appears to transcend mere nationalism breaching into the realm of a debilitating alternate reality distortion field of epic proportions.
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SteveW
Trad climber
The state of confusion
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Feb 10, 2012 - 12:23am PT
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bump
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adnix
Big Wall climber
Finland
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Feb 10, 2012 - 04:40am PT
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In this sense I ask for the route not be eliminated from our collective memory and that the figure of Cesare Maestri be completely redeemed, both from a human and mountaineering perspective. And that one gleams the ray of sincerity which accompanied all his actions, right from that first, dramatic ascent of Cerro Torre with Toni Egger and Cesarino Fava.
The planetmountain.com article is well written but from the logical point of view it has two very big problems. First of all it's clearly evident Maestri didn't reach the top of Cerro Torre in 1959. Secondly his gear cache was found below Col of Conquest so it's a very good question if we he
ever reached that point either.
The diffrence between 5 bolts of the fair means variation and the 500 bolts of the Compressor route is that the first one is a climbing route and the second one a via ferrata (iron ways).
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marty(r)
climber
beneath the valley of ultravegans
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Feb 10, 2012 - 09:15am PT
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For those of you following the controversy around bolt-chopping on Cerro Torre: here are Doug Tompkin's thoughts, reposted from Conservacion Patagonica's FaceBook page.
Finally someone chopped those bolts of Maestri off of Cerro Torre. To 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 sty. 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. Let’s 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.
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gug
Trad climber
Italy
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Feb 13, 2012 - 05:48am PT
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I think that the point is exactly the one mentioned at beginning of that statement.
That route should have been chopped just after its realization, if somebody would have been able to do it, but now after 40 years and after a statement of the local community is really a non sense and a very dangerous act.
If we accept this behaviour every route can potentially be chopped even if now has become a calssical route and a part of the history of a mountain.
To mention an example, I think that it was acceptable if Robbins would have chopped The Wall of Early Morning Light just after the realization by Harding because at that time it was a part of an ethical discussion and because Robbins was an important climber in that period and in that valley.
Nevertheless it would be a nonsense and a violent act if somebody that comes from abroad would chop now the same route.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Feb 13, 2012 - 11:21am PT
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I reject the notion that time adds value to the bolts.
What then should be the "statute of limitations" for the removal of totally unnecessary bolts?
Does weather play in? This was, after all, an exceptional season weatherwise.
Somebody should reprint Teddy Roosevelt's "in the arena" speech from a hundred years ago.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Feb 13, 2012 - 11:37am PT
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This was more than an exceptional season weatherwise, this was an historic season. I have been going to Patagonia on a pretty regular basis since 1974 and I have never seen weather to compare with this season. Climbs done this season should come with an asterisk and a note that they were done in "Sierra Conditions."
What makes climbing in Patagonia Worldclass and badass is the combination of technical difficulty and extreme (as in bad) weather conditions. This season only one of those conditions was in evidence.
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gug
Trad climber
Italy
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Feb 13, 2012 - 12:02pm PT
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The point is not that time does add value to bolts, but that the time makes a route become classical route: that means that many climbers have climbed on it and that there are pictures, topos, articles on newspapers, books in which there are stories on it.
At that point it is no more just an ethical discussion as in the beginning, because the route is owned by many people, even if it was not an ethical route (and I think that the Compressor Route was not a good style route even at that time).
If we do not agree with this principle we must do a list of many routes in which chop away the bolts everywhere in the world.
That is what enzolino tried to express, I think, and I agree with him.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Feb 13, 2012 - 12:34pm PT
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... even if now has become a classical route and a part of the history of a mountain...
It was never 'classical' then or now - it was and will always be an enduring reminder of a rape of desperation. Again, it's a shameful part of the history of both the mountain and alpinism.
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gug
Trad climber
Italy
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Feb 13, 2012 - 02:29pm PT
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It was never 'classical' then or now - it was and will always be an enduring reminder of a rape of desperation. Again, it's a shameful part of the history of both the mountain and alpinism.
I understand your point of view, I totally agree with your bad opinion of the style of this route, but you cannot say that the Compressor Route is not a classical route on Cerro Torre: come on, the most of the routes climbed after that finish on it!
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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Feb 13, 2012 - 04:10pm PT
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"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
"Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910
(thanks Anders)
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Feb 13, 2012 - 05:03pm PT
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A seductive route certainly not a classical one. The CR attracted people Worldwide as a "reasonable" way to gain one of the most treasured summits out there. Cerro Torre always deserved better although I still have mixed emotions about the chopping.
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AE
climber
Boulder, CO
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Feb 13, 2012 - 08:40pm PT
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Many posters here should have done basic homework, instead of making folks like Leo Dickinson have to respond with basic climbing History 101.
Maestri was given a lengthy opportunity to explain himself in a Mountain interview, as I recall, and together with his other published statements only displayed his limitless egotism, condescension towards every "inferior" and otherwise revealed his narcissism to the world.
The casual use of the word "rights" here in regard to climbing is a non sequitor - climbing is a privilege, and it is mostly tolerated by the general public and authorities in specific only so long as climbers stay under the radar.
As an esoteric sport, it is essentially self-regulated unless or until it attracts the wrong sort of attention and results in regulation or outright bans. "Fair means" has changed over 100 years, but really represents the notion that climbing is a low-budget affair wherein tactics must balance a fair percentage towards failure. As soon as the budget, tools, teams, etc. pass an arbitrary threshold, it becomes civil engineering.
Had Maestri contracted with Argentina to construct a tourist line up Cerro Torre, his tactics might have been tolerable. He instead circumvented all standards, thumbed his nose at traditions and other climbers, and created a monument to his ego - which I can see being left in place as an example.
I can also see it being removed, also as an example - except Argentina apparently has developed an economic stake in the deal over 40 years.
I see too much self-aggrandizement in either story, frankly. Admit that had the bolt ladder not been there, the impetus to free that line would have been dramatically less compelling, more problematic, and even the recent mixed ascent by "fair means" might have evolved quite differently.
Lost here as I can tell is the story of Cerro Torre's FIRST free ascent - 1986, by Eric Winkelman and Mike Bearzi. With no fanfare, or sponsorship, the duo skied in via the icecap behind the accessible side, climbed the West Face, ice mushroom included, then exited the same way.
Apparently nowadays one must have a publicist, or else your ascents will not be acknowledged.
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donini
Trad climber
Ouray, Colorado
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Feb 13, 2012 - 09:07pm PT
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AE, good thoughts. Most of the vitriolic comments on this thread have come from people who have never been there.
Bragg, Wilson and Carmen did the West Face in alpine style (a first) in 1977, I'm not sure if they did it entirely free, but in ice climbing- what does that mean?
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