Cerro Torre, A Mountain Consecrated - The Resurrection of th

During Maestri's time, ethics was not as standardized as today. Bolt ladders represented a forced path in Yosemite and Dolomites, before criticism buried this disputable style.

Not sure what I can do or say other than to assure you one of us is using reaching, if not delusional rationalizations, in the matter. The bolts and the overwhelming judgment of them have both remained unaffected by the passage of time. Nothing you can say now can revise the reality of this overwhelmingly sad chapter in modern alpinism. Neither the Dolomites or the Valley are Patagonia and the name of the game down there was well-understood by the players at the time as corroborated here again and again by Maestri's contemporaries - there is simply no getting around the fact his actions were a complete break with those accepted standards.

Hi Greg. Thanks for posting on this. I heard about Hayden’s and Jason’s nice ascent a few days ago and was (and still am) really happy for them. I heard about this chopping just now, and I am not happy about it at all. Frankly, it bursts the pleasant bubble of happiness I was carrying around after hearing of the ascent they made.

Maybe I’m confused, and communication can change stories. But what I understand is that the Compressor Route is no more because the guys chopped it. If this is truly the case, I think this situation is a real shame. First, I don’t think Americans should alter a (legendary) route in Argentina. That is extremely presumptuous, and as an American, it makes me feel embarrassed. David Albert’s comment basically sums this up. I would hope Argentines will not go fill pin scars, remove webbing and chop bolts on the Nose, the Salathe Wall, Moonlight Buttress or any of the other revered, classic routes in America that exist only thanks to metal and hammers. Somehow I doubt they will.

Second, I don’t approve at all of the message of this action, which to me says, “I did a better climb, and that makes me the Decider, and now that I’ve climbed this peak in my good way, I Decided that everyone must follow my style if they want to climb it.” That seems extremely presumptuous, and it makes me deeply uncomfortable.

I also loved the history of the Compressor Route, simply for the crazy, baroque nature of its story. Of all the classic routes down there, I never climbed it, and maybe I never would have gotten back down to Patagonia for it, but it was always floating around on the bottom of my list just to share the experience that so many have had, the legend of the Compressor Route. I spent a lot of time below those torres, and I pondered the spirit and the passion of that story many times. I definitely thought I’d climb it sometime, just to see it for myself. It bothers me that someone else just decided I won’t.

I tend to agree with your views on fundamentalism in climbing (or otherwise). I don't buy the deification of a mountain. Terms like 'the rape of Cerro Torre' are actually laughable.

"Where was the huge number of bolts the British had accused Maestri of placing ! Instead we encountered five or six clusters of hardware: clogs, pitons, rurps, cliffangers, fifi hooks, ice screws, even clog ascenders, and carabiners - so many carabiners we couldn't use them all. Fixed ropes trailed from the anchors, broken and shredded. They also were presumably left by the british team which had failed here in 1972."

"A strenuous overhanging bolt ladder followed. How had Maestri managed here? [...]
We had climbed 3500 feet already - more than the Nose of El Captain and nearly as difficult."

The mushroom was sloped here, the difficulties reduced to a six-foot overhang of soft snow.

'm not interested in telling anyone else how to climb either, unless they're going to slather rock I'm interested in with bolts, because at that point they are telling other people how to climb.

I guess that 50 years ago (and with equipment of that age) you would certainly got to that summit and by that way without drilling the rock!

Well, I can't really talk about fifty years ago, but thirty-eight years ago or today I'd walk away before drilling my way to the summit - what would be the point?

I love Alpinism and, whatever is the opinion on Compressor Route, I think that we can accept that two young men came from abroad can decide such a important matter.

Erasure should have occurred on the second ascent. Bridwell is to blame.

And if you insist that Bridwell in fact made the first ascent, then he is even more to blame.


I can't remember if this link has already been posted, if not, here's Brewer's 1980 account of their ascent of Cerro Torre:

http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1029543

...exploratory alpinism at a high technical level in minimal style undertaken with consideration for the environment.