Cesare Maestri

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cesare Maestri (born 2 October 1929) is an Italian mountaineer and writer.

He was born in Trento in the Italian region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol. He began climbing in the Dolomites, where he repeated many famous routes, often climbing them solo and free,^[1] and put up many new routes of the hardest difficulty, for which he was nicknamed the "Spider of the Dolomites". He became an Alpine Guide in 1952. His notable solos include the Solleder route on the Civetta, the Solda-Conforto Route on the Marmolada, and the southwest ridge of the Matterhorn in winter.

In 1959, Maestri, together with Cesarino Fava and Austrian guide Toni Egger, travelled to Patagonia to attempt the north-east ridge of the unclimbed Cerro Torre. The three climbed up a steep corner below the Col of Conquest (between Cerro Torre and Torre Egger), then Fava turned back and Maestri and Egger headed for the summit. Six days later Fava found Maestri laying face down and almost buried in the snow. They returned to base camp and claimed that Maestri and Egger had reached the summit but Egger had been swept to his death by an avalanche as they were descending.

In 1970, Maestri returned to Cerro Torre and climbed a new route on the south-east side of the mountain, the "Compressor Route", so-called because he used a petrol-driven compressor to power a drill that he used to place a ladder of bolts up a blank section of rock. However, he failed to reach the summit on this attempt, defeated by overhanging ice.

Some climbers doubted Maestri's account, notably Carlo Mauri, who had failed to climb the mountain in 1958. The criticism was taken up by British climber and writer Ken Wilson, editor of Mountain magazine. The critics pointed out that Maestri's description of his route is detailed and accurate up to the high point where Fava turned back, but vague and impossible to trace on the mountain thereafter; and that bolts, pitons, fixed ropes and other equipment abandoned by the 1959 expedition is plentiful up to the col, but absent thereafter.^[2] However, Maestri has consistently maintained his version of events.^[3]