CERRO TORRE 1974

In early 1958, it was Spider Mauri and the famous Walter Bonatti who first tried to climb Cerro Torre's west face. The steep, icy flanks of the west face turned them back about 1,500 feet from the summit. Twelve years later, combatting ceaseless stormy weather, Mauri led an eight-man team to a new highpoint. But not the top. Defeated, he wrote a telegraph home in exasperation: "We have again failed to climb the impossible Cerro Torre."