Cerro Torre

A 3,128-metre granite spire in the southern Patagonian Andes, on the border between Argentina and Chile. Cerro Torre is, by widespread agreement among climbers and photographers who have spent meaningful time looking at mountains, the most beautiful peak on Earth. The mountain is a near-vertical tower of compact granite topped with a permanent rime-ice mushroom that changes shape with every storm. Photographs of Cerro Torre rarely communicate the architecture. The mountain is not large by altitude — under 3,200 metres — but the relative verticality and the atmospheric weight of the Patagonian sky give the peak a presence that exceeds its dimensions.

The first ascent is one of the most contested events in mountaineering history. The Italian climber Cesare Maestri claimed a successful summit in 1959 with Toni Egger, who died on the descent in an avalanche. Maestri's account has been doubted from the beginning. No physical evidence of the ascent was found, and the route Maestri described does not match the geology of the mountain as later studied. In 1970, Maestri returned and used a gas-powered compressor drill to install bolts up the Southeast Ridge, completing what is now called the Compressor Route. This second ascent is documented but has been considered ethically compromised — the bolt placements were aggressive even by the standards of the era. In 2012, the climbers Hayden Kennedy and Jason Kruk removed approximately 120 of Maestri's bolts during a clean ascent of the same route. The act was controversial. The current consensus among the international climbing community is that the first uncontested ascent of Cerro Torre was made in 1974 by Casimiro Ferrari's Italian team.

The mountain is climbed by perhaps a handful of teams per year that complete summits. The Patagonian weather is the limiting factor — extended periods of climbable conditions are rare, and most expeditions wait weeks for windows that do not arrive. The technical difficulty is sustained, the rime-ice mushroom on the summit is a distinct climb that has caught even strong teams just short of the top.