This is some crazy sh*t.
Cerro Torre is a spire of granite in Patagonia, where the Scotia and South American tectonic plates butt up against each other. It is considered to be one of the most dangerous mountains to ascend in the world, and the first two ascents were both disputed by mountaineers-- not to mention that both were "accomplished" by the same man, Cesare Maestri. Maestri's first "ascent," in 1959, was undocumented and resulted in the death of his fellow climber. Maestri said that the camera had been with the dead man, and due to inconsistencies in his accounts, few people believe that he actually achieved the summit.
In his second attempt, in 1970, Maestri used the unfair method of equipping himself with a gas compressor to assist in the placing of the bolts for his ascent. However, when he reached the peak of the mountain, he did not continue up a large ice outcropping that sometimes forms on top of the mountain, and therefore did not fully summit it.
^^ Cerro Torre's infamous ice mushroom
As a result, the first indisputable ascent was made as recently as 1974, and was not made by Maestri (lol fail).
(National Geographic, Cerro Torre's Cold Case)
Why this guy got all the way up there without thinking to finish the job is beyond me. Did he seriously not think that anyone would get pissed with him? Also, the story of his first ascent is the most hilarious load of BS ever. "Hey guys, I saw Bigfoot! But he got away. And my friend had the camera and the camera was kind of lost in the confusion." Yeah... sure. I bet Maestri just wanted this guy dead, so he discreetly killed him and then blamed it on the mountain. Nice one, Maestri, but you're not fooling anyone.
- The Reverend Captain Sir Doctor Graham Victor Vert III, Esquire, MD DFA PhD PDF JPEG GIF KFC VHS DVD USB.com
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Great post Graham. I agree with everything you say. Mountaineering is an incredibly tough sport that is guaranteed to injure you in some way. It seems that in every part of this book, there is some new name for a hard patch of climbing on Everest. "The top of the world" is the most common, but according to MountEverest.net, it is also called the "Icefall", "where the teeth bite the wool", and some people just straight up call it death. I myself love climbing, I've climbed the lower reaches of half dome in Yosemite multiple times. But climbing over 29,000 feet is just plain crazy. The health risks alone go on for a couple pages. They are mentioned multiple times in the book, the one the stuck the most in my was this one. "Even worse, however, was the injury to Doug's respiratory tract. Less than two weeks before departing for Nepal he had undergone minor throat surgery, leaving his trachea in an extremely sensitive condition. This morning, gasping lungfuls of caustic, snow-filled air, he had apparently frozen his larynx"(Page 129). I couldn't even begin to imagine how painful breathing in so much cold air that ice crystals form inside of you could be. But sadly, there are far worse diseases associated with climbing Everest. According to HowStuffWorks.com, after climbers enter "The Death Zone", which is above 8,000 meters, many terrible diseases are common. The two most common are HACE and HAPE. High Altitude Cerebral Edema occurs when the brain swells due to the high altitude, and the blood vessels start to leak. This can lead to splitting headaches, loss of consciousness, and even hallucinations. The second disease, High Altitude Pulmonary Edema, occurs when freezing fluid accumulates in the lungs. This can lead to shortness of breath in an already oxygen depleted area, as well as bad coughing, and bloody sputum. With all these terrible risks involved it's easy to see, as you said Graham, how some people could try and use summiting Everest to boost their fame. It is not really known if Cesare Maestri really did summit Cerro Torre, he might have turned around after his companion died, who was conveniently holding the only form of documentation for the entire trip; a camera. Either way, this really did boost Maestri's fame. In the book, Krakauer talks about Sandy Pittman, a wealthy women who is trying to boost her fame even more by summiting Everest. "Upon arrival in the Himalaya, Pittman appeared to adhere as closely as possible to the properties of high society... When she reached the foot of Everest with the rest of Fischer's group in early April, her pile of luggage included stacks of press clippings about herself to hand out to the other denizens of Base Camp"(Page 123). I can understand why some people might want to boost their fame by climbing Everest in some "new untried way", but is it really worth dying for? Sometimes I think that legacy is more important to these climbers than their own families.
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The Death Zone? They should call it THE DANGER ZONE!!!
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I enjoyed reading you post, Graham, and It got me interested in what some of the most dangerous mountains to climb are. Everest is by no means a walk in the park but it only has a death rate of 5.7%. Other mountain are far more dangerous to climb and Everest is only the 10th deadliest! The top deadliest mountain is Annapurna at a death rate of 38%. That is crazy people who climb that mountain must be real ambitious or really stupid. In 2008 there where only 157 summit ascents and 60 deaths! The mountain itself is 26,545 feet tall and is also considered one of the hardest mountains to climb. I would gladly climb Everest instead of this mountain.
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