Cerro Torre, A Mountain Consecrated - The Resurrection of th

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MarkWestman

Trad climber

Talkeetna, Alaska

Feb 16, 2012 - 03:23pm PT

I think you and Largo confuse honesty with personal standards.

enzolino,
I fully grant to you that personal standards and style and ethics are acceptable to be left as matters of one's own opinion and taste, provided they do no harm to others or to the environment.

The same applies to what Maestri said. He didn't climbg the Icy mushroom and he stepped where he considered was the summit. 95 % of climbers disagree with him. And so what? You can say that he has a different standard, but not that he is a liar.

Come on, now. Claiming that the mushroom isn't part of the mountain as an obvious justification for why he didn't finish the route is beyond absurd.

By this standard, every attempt on any route could be considered "complete". This is getting beyond a matter for "notaries"- do we have any standards at all when we can make claims to have made the first ascent of something but in fact there was more ground above which was not covered?

So, if someone sees dishonesty where doesn't exist, this questions the nature of his judgement.

Even if we allow Maestri latitude with his claim on the compressor route, the evidence overwhelmingly points to dishonesty in his reporting about 1959. I'm a scientist by training- I base my observations on evidence. Which also means I'm willing to change my view as new evidence comes to light. So far, the only evidence that he was being truthful is that nobody saw him NOT make it, so we don't REALLY know. Otherwise, it's overwhelmingly against him. It would be a great story if he really had made it- if it were actually true.

There's also a matter of our intuition: Browne and Parker stated of Cook's claim on Denali: "we knew he couldn't have done what he claimed the same way a New Yorker knows you can't walk from the Brooklyn Bridge to Grant's Tomb in ten minutes!"

A final comment ... I cannot care less if someone reaches the summit or not. That is a notaries' concern.

I care about the human experience. The epic of an ascent.

I'm with you on this enzolino, however, I also expect people to state very simply and honestly what they did, which only will add weight and value to their experience. There is no shame in stating: "I bailed just below the summit because (I was tired, the climbing was too hard, I was scared, the weather was changing, etc.). Far less respectable is "I bailed below the top of the mountain but claim a complete ascent because the last part of the mountain was too easy to be bothered with or because it was made of ice and it's not really part of the mountain". This sounds like excuse-making and redefining of facts- at minimum, this is intellectually dishonest.

rectorsquid

climber

Lake Tahoe

Feb 16, 2012 - 03:29pm PT

Picking a definition for a word that differs from what 95% of the population believes is the definition of that word is a rationalization. He picked a different definition to suit his desire to lie and then compounded that by suggesting that it is a matter of style as opposed to being a matter of honesty.

As soon as you tell someone else something, you are responsible for what they take from it. If you use a word very differently from how they use it and you know it, you are intentionally misleading them.

A lie by any other name still stinks.

Either that or he was too stupid to know that people would take his statements differently than he meant. In that case, what a dumbass.

I would say that more than 95% of climbers would not call the area below the mushroom, or highest elevation of the rock, the summit but that's just a wild guess.

Dave

enzolino

climber

Galgenen, Switzerland

Feb 16, 2012 - 04:02pm PT

@MarkWestman,

Concerning standards, I agree that climbers should have a common definition of what style, ethics, fair means, alpine style or summit is. My impression is that Maestri and his team were fed up, the storm was coming and the mushroom was too dangerous. I can agree that we cannot say that he summitted Cerro Torre, but I disagree if you say that he lied. Because he admitted that he did not summit the mushroom.

I'm also a scientist and I know that sometimes there are hidden variables or wrong assumptions that, at the end, make a theory just wrong.

I agree that Maestri's inconsistencies suggest that he has been dishonest. However, the underlying assumption is that human memory is infallible. This is a wrong assumption. Human memory is even more fallible after traumatic experiences where the person tends to remove his recollections from the conscious mind. Finally, I don't feel that I can judge him as a liar and I prefer to doubt or to believe him. But not to say that he is a liar.

@rectorsquid/Dave,

you may be right on what most climbers define as a summit. We may even agree to say that Maestri did not summit Cerro Torre in 1970. But you cannot say he is a liar. He specified what he did at the end of his route and that he did not step on the top of the mushroom. You can only say that he has a different and (for you) wrong concept of what summit is.

Snorky

Trad climber

Carbondale, CO

Feb 16, 2012 - 04:10pm PT

Enzolino

You're getting desperate.

If Messner couldn't accurately describe the details of the climb, and was generally disagreeable and obfuscating when discussing it, then , yeah I'd say he was lying.

Your Beamon example is stupid. He had witnesses. And it was measured. It's on video. C'mon, do better.

Regarding Maestri in 1970. He may have done the first ascent of his awful Compressor Route, but he did not make the first ascent of the formation. You have to stand on top for that title. Not all routes go to the top. It is telling, though, that after all that effort, he wouldn't bother climbing the final moderate snow mushroom. He was totally unmoved by the mountaineer's instinct of climbing until there is no further one can climb and surveying the kingdom. How totally unromantic and hard-hearted.

Regarding Maestri in 1959, one on side there is all extant evidence, including testimony from those who have searched for traces of his historic passage, the placement of his gear cache well below the col, and his own inability to consistently describe the climb. On the other hand is the character of his word, which, sadly, has been compromised by his own inconsistent, belligerent, and narcisisstic explanations of the climb, as well as the lack of physical evidence that he claims to exist, such as the bolts he and Egger left behind.

Enzolino, I'm curious. What exactly would you consider to be evidence that he fabricated the 1959 story?

What if I told you that some hardcore Chilean climber and myself made an FA of a new route on Cerro Torre seven years ago via a system of shallow overhanging dihedrals connected by leaning ice-smeared ramps beginning on the south face and finishing on the Ragni route? The whole climb was so intense that my memory of the details is sketchy. We didn't quite top out, because what's the point? We climbed the hard part. Easy climbing is not worth my time. We descended through an epic storm that erased the super unique conditions that made our invisible line possible. We got into a huge fight about whether to report the climb at all. We didn't. Real men don't answer to anybody. We haven't spoken since, can't remember his name.

Don't believe me? Who cares?

Hardman Knott

Gym climber

Muir Woods National Monument, Mill Valley, Ca

Feb 16, 2012 - 04:16pm PT

What if I told you that some hardcore Chilean climber and myself made an FA of a new route on Cerro Torre seven years ago via a system of shallow overhanging dihedrals connected by leaning ice-smeared ramps beginning on the south face and finishing on the Ragni route? The whole climb was so intense that my memory of the details is sketchy. We didn't quite top out, because what's the point? We climbed the hard part. Easy climbing is not worth my time. We descended through an epic storm that erased the super unique conditions that made our invisible line possible. We got into a huge fight about whether to report the climb at all. We didn't. Real men don't answer to anybody. We haven't spoken since, can't remember his name.

Good one!

LOL

enzolino

climber

Galgenen, Switzerland

Feb 16, 2012 - 04:16pm PT

Yeah well and Santa Claus should be real.

Pretending there is consensus may make some folk feel better but it resolves nothing.

The definition of a summit is entirely irrelevant to the chop anyway. Totally beside the point.

DMT

I agree on the last sentence.

About the rest, for me climbing is a game. And as in any other game, there are rules that make it more or less challenging (and fun). We can play with ourselves, and here we set the standards. But if we play with others, we should use a common language. Therefore alpine_style, freeclimbing, freesolo, ropesolo, on_sight, etc should have a well precise meaning ...

Fair means, instead, is quite personal ... you can use all bolts, an helicopter or your imagination and still make a fair means ascent ... :-)))

Snorky

Trad climber

Carbondale, CO

Feb 16, 2012 - 04:22pm PT

Fair means, instead, is quite personal ... you can use all bolts, an helicopter or your imagination and still make a fair means ascent ... :-)))

Wrong.

If you impact a scarce public resource for your own private utility, that is a public problem, not a personal one, and that is incompatible with "fair means".

Edit: So I could helicopter to the top of Cerro Torre, rap-bolt it, and then aid up the bolts, and it would be a fair means ascent if I want it to be?

Seems like a stretch, but if you say so...

MarkWestman

Trad climber

Talkeetna, Alaska

Feb 16, 2012 - 04:37pm PT

I can agree that we cannot say that he summitted Cerro Torre, but I disagree if you say that he lied. Because he admitted that he did not summit the mushroom.

We're getting way too semantical here Enzolino. If I tell you I made the first ascent of Mount ABC, and I also tell you I stopped climbing 1000 feet from the top, what would you call that? I told the truth about not doing the last part. So therefore I'm not lying about making the first ascent?
Are you just trying to be contrarian?

I'm also making the argument that his readiness to use such absurd rationalization for THIS climb bolsters the likelihood that he LIED about the earlier climb, added to already very convincing evidence.

I'm also a scientist and I know that sometimes there are hidden variables or wrong assumptions that, at the end, make a theory just wrong.

Wishful thinking is not a hidden variable. I'm sorry. I'd love for Maestri's story to be true, but there's overwhelming evidence it's not. And if it is not true- he's a liar.

I agree that Maestri's inconsistencies suggest that he has been dishonest. However, the underlying assumption is that human memory is infallible. This is a wrong assumption. Human memory is even more fallible after traumatic experiences where the person tends to remove his recollections from the conscious mind.

So you seem to indeed believe that he didn't make the climb, but are also suggesting that the trauma of Egger's death has caused him to make up a fantastic alternate version of events as a coping mechanism? Even through the most traumatic moments of my own existence and those of everyone else I've known, I don't know anyone who would mistake completing the first ascent of Cerro Torre with retreating 1/4 of the way up the route.

Finally, I don't feel that I can judge him as a liar and I prefer to doubt or to believe him. But not to say that he is a liar.

It's nice that you have empathy for the man, but it seems like you are choosing to believe something that you actually know in your heart to be false. That, in my opinion, is a greater transgression (for yourself) than labeling someone a liar. I think you mean well and it's heartening that you are so willing to extend the benefit of the doubt- a longstanding foundation of the alpinist community- but I don't think we should be as forgiving for people who have violated that built-in trust. It's a huge disservice to us all.

enzolino

climber

Galgenen, Switzerland

Feb 16, 2012 - 04:42pm PT

@Snorky,

Concerning Messner you are implying that he is a liar. Because as far as I remember he did not provide a detailed description of the crux and he justified the exploit saying that it was so hard that he was like in a kind of trance state. Nevertheless, I believe his claim. Because I am one of those people who has a very bad memory. And I know what means to mess up the description of a route, or the way I did a move in a climb that I did just a moment before.

About Beamon read more carefully. Beamon example was an argument to show how some performances can be realized decades before someone else can repeat them or do better. My questioning of that exploit was provocative (as well for the Messner exploit).

Concerning the '59 ascent there is not evidence that Maestri summitted Cerro Torre. It's understandable that people don't believe him. But I find their hate and fierceness excessive. As far as I'm concerned, there is the trust towards a person's word, by the way he communicates his truth and all circumstances around. Therefore I'm in conflict if to believe Maestri or not.

But for the same reason I don't believe your claim of your FA with the hardcore Chilean climber. But don't worry. I don't hate you. I won't set up a propaganda against you, your route and your style in the name of purity and honesty. I will not promote any erasure of your route. And even more, we can still be friends!

Finally ... Snorky ... com'on ... on "fair means" I was joking ... I was sarcastic in reference to what Kennedy and Kruk said ...

Fair means does not mean no bolts. Reasonable use of bolts has been a long-accepted practice in this mountain range.

Which I find pretty ridiculous ...

enzolino

climber

Galgenen, Switzerland

Feb 16, 2012 - 04:44pm PT

@MarkWestman,
sorry but I have to go to bed now ... reply you tomorrow ... :-)

deuce4

climber

Hobart, Australia

Feb 16, 2012 - 04:54pm PT

Remember that Maestri wasn't the last to justify what he considered a bold climb with an untrodden summit. I recall how, in a slide show I attended, Greg Child made a convincing case defending their first ascent of Shipton Spire with their bold route but which ended just short of the summit (http://books.google.com.au/books?id=FattUWiYu80C&q=p320#v=onepage&q=untrod%20summit&f=false);

Regardless, the issue here seems to have gotten polarised into nuances. Some people are justifiably upset because a classic route has been altered (and yes, it was a classic partly due to about 25% of the route made easier via bolt ladders). And others applaud the notion of purifying the line. Regardless, the bolt removal sets a new precedent of modern standards providing cause for "fixing" the old way, and who knows where it will go from here--that's the more interesting discussion, and might soon apply to our great areas of Zion, Yosemite, and other great walls closer to home.

bhilden

Trad climber

Mountain View, CA

Feb 16, 2012 - 05:03pm PT

You think mountaineers make up stuff to justify the "success" of their climbs you should see what great lengths the current crop of Antarctic adventurers(and I use that term loosely) have gone to justify their claims of 'first' this and 'first' that. It is bordering on ridiculous.

MarkWestman

Trad climber

Talkeetna, Alaska

Feb 16, 2012 - 05:05pm PT

Deuce,

Child's statement above is a good example of truthfulness in reporting, it doesn't seem like he's doing anything other than stating exactly what they did, and allowing the community to decide what it is. As it should be.

In regard to this:

Regardless, the bolt removal sets a new precedent of modern standards providing cause for "fixing" the old way, and who knows where it will go from here--that's the more interesting discussion, and might soon apply to our great areas of Zion, Yosemite, and other great walls closer to home.

I agree and I share your concerns.

Squamish Climber

Trad climber

Shangri-La

Feb 16, 2012 - 06:40pm PT

I agree this debate is getting a little stale and repetitive in part due to a lack of fresh information. Squamishclimbing.com has just posted a feature article and interview with Jason Kruk.

Some info in the feature that's new or may not be known:
Jason had not intended to climb the Compressor Route this year. They only did it after climbing the other three "Torres" and the new route they wanted to do on the north face was out of condition.

While commending David Lama for making the first free ascent of the CR and praising it as a fantastic 'athletic achievement', he doesn't think it qualifies as an 'alpine climb'.

Jason says:

There will always be a very large asterisk, after his ascent, due to the fact that he had two Austrian mountain guides and a camera man hanging above him, at times as close as ten feet above him.

I think what comes through here and in his other statements about the climb is a person who is sure of his convictions and has the courage to act on them.

Largo

Sport climber

The Big Wide Open Face

Feb 16, 2012 - 07:34pm PT

Maestri always declared that he reached what he considered the top of Cerro Torre. WHich for him was just the rock.

So he was quite self-consistent and honest about what he said. If he didn't reach the summit of the mushroom and he would have said that he did reach it. In that case you could say that he was a liar. So I wonder where you see his dishonesty.
---

To try and fob this off as reasoned and logical evidence per Maestri's nobility is in my mind folly and insanity. It is essentially saying that the summit of El Capitan, say, is wherever your particulr standars or principlas say it is, and that an actual, objective "top" or apex or summit does not, in fact, exist in time and space, but only in our minds.

The simple fact is I interviewed Bridwell for Mountain Mag shortly after he and Brewer did their ascent of the Compressor Route and heard Jim tell me (and I reported it as well, in no uncertain terms), that Maesri's bolts ended, absolutely and conclusively, some seventy-five feet BELOW the top of the rock.

This high point was no known or accepted definition the "end of the difficulties," and in fact Bridwell had to break out a chisel and copperheads and do the hardest climbing on the route to gain the top of the rock at the base of the ice tower.

So the simple fact is that Maestri never got to the actual top of the rock, but stopped half a pitch below, claiming all along that it was only the ice mushroom that he failed to summit.

You can write that off to personal taste, as to where the difficulties ended, but name one single marathon on the face of the earth where a runner can get credit for completing the race if they drop out even a quarter mile before the finish line. And what would you say to the person who insisted that a marathon, to them, was a quarter mile short of the official distance? You'd say that professional help was indicated, that they didn't have the wherewithal to recognize the difference between the the top of Half Dome, say, and Thank God Ledge. There are such unfortunates.

JL

deuce4

climber

Hobart, Australia

Feb 16, 2012 - 07:52pm PT

John, I'm pretty sure that Maestri reached the rim, where he could have walked up low angle ice and snow to the base of the summit mushroom, but making that final move off the vertical to the low angle, as you know, requires a bit of time to discard all the implements of vertical and get into snow walking mode with crampons, etc. I reckon he just figured he could walk to the top, thus called it a day.

The bolts ended below the rim (I recall it was only about 30-40'), because Maestri chopped his last 10 or so bolts, thus necessitating Bridwell's thin aid completion. But if I recall correctly, at the rim, Maestri's original bolts (that he rappelled from) were still there.

enzolino

climber

Galgenen, Switzerland

Feb 17, 2012 - 03:42am PT

@Coz,
I agree with you. But I don't accept that people call someone else a liar and attack him with excessive fierceness just as a consequence of their poor logic and reasonings and because they don't like this person so much.

@Deuce,
thanks for your contribution.
Now we know that Maestri is not the only one who believe that, to claim to summit a mountain, doeasn't mean that he has to put his ass on the very tip. Now we can add Greg Child, Doug Scott, Peter Boardman and Joe Tasker.
I wonder why they have not been crucified like Maestri.
Or maybe I know why?

@MarkWestman,
semantics is important. Deuce message and mine showed that other climbers claimed an ascent, without reaching the very tip of the mountain. They were specific in their report, therefore this doesn't make them a liars. Analogously, Maestri specified that he did not reach the top of the mushroom. So, why you and others keep saying that he was a liar on this issue?
Trust is not a binary system. I didn't say that I don't believe Maestri and I didn't say that I do believe him on the '59 ascent. I say that I'm skeptical, that means that I suspend my judgment. This means that, for me, to call Cesare Maestri a liar just because of his inconsistencies is excessive.
You say

And if it is not true- he's a liar.

and in my opinion "ifs" are not facts, but conjectures, hypotheses.

@Largo,
Bridwell told you that he didn't find Maestri's bolts up to the end of the rock.
And from this you concluded that Maestri didn't step on the top of the rock.
There are topos around that show how also Bridwell rivets (very ethical as well!) stop before the very summit.

Well ... let me tell you something.
There is a special material in the mountains. When temperatures are below 0°C (= 32°F = 273.15 K) this material from liquid becomes solid. The chemical formula is H2O. When is very cold (quite below 0°C) this material, which is called ice, may stick on a rock, and climbers may use it for the ascent without the need to put pegs, bolts or protections.
Have you ever thought that maybe Maestri used it, but the ice conditions where different in the Bridwell ascent?
I'm just wondering eh?

Or

if for you the bolts are a proof of an ascent, you can ask Mr Bridwell if he put them on the mushroom as well and where they are now. Maybe, according to your logic, Mr Bridwell is a liar as well.