Vive Cerro Torre! With apologies for the photo quality, the central spike of a mountain is Cerro Torre. For a teenage birthday, my mum gave me a book. 'Filming the Impossible' contained a chapter on this mountain and it has been in my imagination ever since. In fact, along with cycle tours with my dad, those pages are a key underlying drive for this trip.
Italian Cesare Maestri claimed to have climbed Cerro Torre in 1959. Unfortunately his key witness, Toni Egger, died on the way down and noone else believed him. A hint of the Mallory and Irvine about it, and that's how it would have been, but Maestri returned in 1970 with a drill and bolted his way up, until stopped by the terrifying summit snow mushrooms. Not really giving the mountain a chance, many climbers 'spat the dummy' with him, but ironically now his 'Compressor Route' is the normal way to the top. A Swiss guy soloed it two months ago.
Also in the photo is Juan. Hard to believe with his look of Don Quixote, his jeans and his cycle shoes that he counts ascents of Gasherbrum 2 and Aconcagua among his adventures. He's a gent and patient with my faltering Spanish and we had a great day on the hill.
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