Compressor Chopped?

I have no doubt that past wrongs can and should be undone, especially where both the passage of time and consensus encourages action.

A great example of that would be removing the Hetch Hetchy dam.

It seems a great dishonor to those who died trying to climb using fair means
(Egger included) to make the ascent of a truly difficult and special peak simply a question of how much one is willing to compromise or even disavow the ethics of both the climbing community and the public.

A nice article about this controversy, with some good info and interesting perspective...
climberism.com/cerro-torres…

Very interesting--I had not realized that a meeting of locals (?) just one year previous had decided by a fairly overwhelming majority to leave the bolts as they were. That definitely puts the chopping into a different light for me.

Ryan Palo wrote:The mountains are inanimate. They don't care how many or how few protection bolts get added in climbing them. These are the dire concerns of purists and egomaniacs.

The creation, in discussion, debate, or simply rhetoric, of a binary spectrum of belief and action is, when done simply as a means to dismiss another, the tool of despots.

Don't be a despot, dude.

JLP wrote: Not very interesting. His words are ripped off, incomplete and w/o citation from Supertopo and Pataclimb.

+1.

One often finds it is the locals who are doing the most damage environmentally speaking. Especially true if their destructive activities are their livelihoods.

Remember it was Argentinian guides who were guilty of the Lama/Red Bull debacle.....

Please understand that I type with a smile and am not trying at all to be obnoxious. I'd actually sworn off the forum because of the way that people fight.... so i say that specifically bringing up a point by coldfinger.

If we can write past wrongs, then do we take down the pyramids as they were built with slave labor (paraphrasing from a friend)? Roman Coliseum?

There are plenty of transgressions that we simply accept in their physical embodiment because they have become part of history. To me, the Compressor Route was one of those things. If this had happened last year I would have been for the removal. However, it had fallen into the annals of history. People had climbed the route with the bolts, and many more had failed with the bolts. It had become a part of the mountains lore.

Here is something else to consider. The route has been maligned partially not for the bolt ladders, but instead because he placed bolts next to cracks and next to obvious gear placements. Its been said he could have done it with 20% fewer bolts. So lets just say he had done it without the bolts next to cracks. It was bolt ladders like T-Trip or the Zodiac or Titan. Would we be opposed to its existence?

I doubt it. I think Maestri made a knee jerk reaction to his friends death by bolting the crap out of the mountain. I think that climbers since have made a reaction to the number of bolts and their location... with a few wanting it to be a club without any bolt ladder at all and they have used that previous point to get a movement to remove the bolt ladders.

What would have been nice is this:

The boys do their ascent and get full credit.
On the way down they chop any bolts next to obvious gear or free moves (moves on the ladders line, not pitches of a variation).
We then have the option of their Variation or the original but needing a lot more gear.

Instead, it sounds like they chopped the blankest bit.

(there is also a supertaco discussion going on.)
here is what i said there, which will fit in here well...

a few thoughts...

comparing the compressor route with the nose - (bolts)
is like apples and oranges. they are very different.

the compressor has been considered a disgrace since it was put up,
the nose on the other hand is/was not...

sure people have climbed both. but they are very different.

i love patagonia, i got to summit fitz roy, what a magical place...
sure i would love to summit cerro torre. which route would i probably try?
the compressor...(cuz i am weak)
am i mad that it is gone?(if it really is) hell no!
it just means that i should have to try hard for the mighty peak, and not follow the tame yellow brick road. another words, sack up!

that compressor route did not fit in with the ethics of the area. never did, never will. if someone put a bolt ladder up the fitz roy, would i be upset? yep. would i want it removed? yep. it would tame the peak down to the everyman/women level. keep wild places & peaks (& climbs) wild!
if you are not ready, you are not ready. if the only way you could make it up the cerro torre is by a giant bolt ladder, then maybe you better wait until you have more skill.

it is like chipped holds...(for example) let's dumb it down to our level,
so we can actually send. and so everyone knows, bolts are fine, i am not against them. it's just that the compressor route was bad style.

cheers!
cory

Sam Lightner, Jr. wrote:Please understand that I type with a smile and am not trying at all to be obnoxious..

Not a prob at all, we've spoken & share a friend from about an hour south of Jackson.

Sam--I'd just say that the dishonesty that Maestri brought to CT on top of assaulting the mountain with industrial tools really tips the scale.

Folks should know that Maestri was far from alone in the use of such methods, e.g the pulley system on the West Ridge of Everest. Also in his defense was the effect of his friend's death and his own failure on a prior attempt.

Glad to hear both of you guys making thoughtful and well written responses.
Seems like lately we're lucky to get a bikini photo post here.

vanishing spy wrote:These guys are just looking for attention. Nobody would be talking about their ascent if they simply climbed the route and skipped a lot of the bolts. They chopped the bolts to bring attention to themselves and their minor accomplishment.

I don't think they needed the added attention, most people have heard of Hayden and Jason. You would be hard pressed to find many people who consider what they did a "minor accomplishment".

david,

you are correct about some things staying...
except that when the bolts were put in, the
gear was available to adequately protect the route.

and as willa said, it was not considered "good" or
even ok style, even during that time.

Willa wrote: I don't think the bolts on the Compressor Route were really a "precedent at the time". I don't think they were ever considered good style.

True!

Messner's Take in 1971

If Maestri (or another team) fixed lines the entire way up the mountain and left them, no one would bat an eye if they were chopped. Why should an insane number of bolts be so much different?

Do the rights of bolt-drillers in unregulated alpine environments naturally take precedence over the right of bolt-choppers?

The line on the mountain is still there for anyone who wants to "experience" it. It's just been stripped of some fixed gear that should have never been there in the first place. Now if someone wants to climb it they will simply have to choose to either drill some new bolts, use hooks/free moves/whatever to get up, or place some natural gear such as nuts and cams. It's not like that part of the mountain is now off-limits or something.

As far as it being "historical", as Zach Smith said "The Berlin Wall was a part of history too and we erased that".

If I'm not mistaken, Maestri chopped a bunch of his final bolts on the way down to PROVE that the bolts were nessicary.

These boys disproved maestri's assertion that the only way was bolts, seems to me like they have the right to chop them.

Also, why the hell can't anyone who is bent on clipping up bolt ladders on the torre take themselves up a bosch, or a hand drill, and do the deed of replacing the bolts?

Alan Ream wrote:I wanted to stand on it, feel it, experience it and now I can't forever... If I am lucky, I may get 3-4 opportunities in my lifetime to attempt Cerro Torre. I have always planned on attempting it by the Ragni or Spiral route but I still wanted to be able to experience Maestri's creation if only even on the way down. So -not that any of you care - but thanks for killing that dream.

This attitude, for example, is the epitome of narrow self-interest. This attitude corrodes the foundation of all wild adventure. The author's primary interest in the place seems to be his personal access so that he can engage in an activity that benefits only him. He wants to consume, not create. No talk of wildness, legacy, or stewardship. Just his own personal utility. It's not just sad, but it's pernicious.

Yes, one may be lucky to get 3-4 opportunities to attempt Cerro Torre. But one would be even luckier, blessed in fact, to know, whether or not they ever get a chance to climb Cerro Torre, that such a wild piece of rock exists at all, that is as wild as Earth can be.

Cerro Torre is not a trophy to be claimed or nationalized. It is a rare icon of geology, and its formation far precedes any boundary drawing by men. It is a pinnacle of the climbing commons, a powerful elicitor of dreams, and as such should be guarded with utmost care. The fact that such an act of egotistical vandalism was allowed to persist on such a heavenly monument, on the most beautiful tusk of earth's skeleton, is a travesty and a blemish on the alpine climbing community, including the locals, which ought to have policed this offense decades ago. Those who decry the chopping as a defilement of history fail to acknowledge the weight of the geologic history.

Anyone who considers themselves a climber wants to stand on Cerro Torre's summit. Look at it. It's mesmerizing. It IS climbing manifested. That's the problem with the Compressor Route. It was a temptress. It would be very difficult to resist the urge to use the bolt ladders to just get to the top. The allure of the summit could drive many of us mad, as it certainly did Maestri. I would climb it if I was there and it was the most convenient way up. And that's why I'm glad it's gone. It brings out the worst in us. The removal of the bolts restores some constraints to achieve the summit. Constraints inspire creativity. This is progress.

Just like abandoned tents and oxygen canisters left on the South Col of Everest, Maestri's bolts were the detritus of an ego out of control, beyond the pale. In the end, the Maestri Route isn't a historic climb so much as a historic crime. I applaud K & K for having the balls to step up and defend the dignity of Cerro Torre, which rightfully stands taller than any human.

David Sahalie wrote:maybe some Argentinians would like to come clean up El Cap by chopping some bolted routes?

If some argentinians came to el cap and drilled tons of bolts with a gas compressor, left the equipment hanging high up on the wall, and created a bolt ladder up a naturally climbable part of el cap. Me thinks they wouldn't have lasted so long.

Are these guys who are allegedly going to lose all this money so incompetent that they can't go up themselves and drill a fucking bolt? Or place a cam or nut in a bomber crack?

Part of me hopes that global warming does to the Maestri bolt route what it did to the Bonatti Pillar on the Petit Dru and sends it all crashing to the ground. Then I'm sure will we hear complaints about how that elitist Mother Nature (probably an American) destroyed a piece of history.

Killis Howard wrote:Now I'll never get to not get to the top when I realize you can't A0 the summit mushroom!

Word! Maestri didn't summit and did the climb in the WORST style imaginable (he chopped some his bolts on descent too). I see nothing to be proud of if you were to follow his line. CT is such an icon because it is so extreme. I cheered when I read they pulled off the climb and when I heard about the chop. Nobody has forgot the Holocaust, but we don't need to have Auschwitz up and running, we still have the sad history.

Since Mastri's "route" didn't reach the summit, at the end of the day all it really qualifies as is a botch job retro-bolt of the 1968 British attempt. Kind of like, for instance, it someone were to bolt their way up the North Ridge of Latok 1 to a high point above that of Lowe/Lowe/Kennedy/Donini but still short of the summit, and call it a route.

One thing that may be coloring a lot of responses here and elsewhere is that most people's perception of "bolt chopping" is based on events like the mess in San Diego, the controversy surrounding 50 Words For Pump at the RRG, etc. where 3/8 inch steel machine bolts and hangers are mangled up leaving a huge mess. If people read Rolo's post on SuperTaco and look at some subsequent pictures in the thread, the reality is that these are not "bolts" at all in the way understand them, but rather pretty crappy pins that are driven into drilled holes, and can be removed by simply pounding on them to "pop" them out. If these were pitons placed in cracks and left behind, they'd be rightly seen as what they are: booty. So why do they get protected status because they were pounded into drilled holes?

This also goes back to the laughable comparisons about El Cap/The Nose/etc. and the threats of chopping stuff there. Besides most of that being lame ass internet posturing, it's funny because plenty of that has ALREADY happened on El Cap: shitty drill jobs filled with bathooks, batheads, and Z-mac rivets have been re-drilled and re-bolted with good gear on numerous occasions.