Panorama Photo

In the ever-changing lighting conditions, I think that this was the best moment for the elegant snow ridge of Cerro Grande and for the seracs on the flank of Cordón Adela.

I think that it is instructive to consider in conjunction the present work, N.13317 and N.12339 in order to "study" the Grande-to-Torre section from different distances.

On February 7, 1958, Walter Bonatti and Carlo Mauri at 10.50 stand for the first time on top of the Cordón Adela, that is, on the central summit. Three days before they had performed the first ascension of Cerro Mariano Moreno, 3462 m, 20 km away in the middle of the Hielo Sur. (Six months later, on August 6, they would perform the first ascent of Gasherbrum IV)
In view of the early hour, the decide to go on to the other summits, heading first to the Adela Sur. On the descent to the following saddle, the one in direction Cerro Ñato, they spot at the col two men, namely, Cesare Maestri and Luciano Eccher who were attempting in turn a first ascent of the Adela Sur.
This meeting by chance of two teams unaware of each other has a high value in mountaineering history. Bonatti from Monza is the champion of the so-called Western-Alps mountaineering style, while Maestri from Trento, the "Ragno delle Dolomiti", is the champion of the Eastern-Alps style.
The next year Maestri will claim an ascent of Cerro Torre, maybe the most disputed issue in mountaineering history, but the first recognized ascent of the Torre will be performed not by the Ragno delle Dolomiti in 1959, but by the Ragni di Lecco, led by Casimiro Ferrari, in 1974.
Look at the dates of the Torre and compare with those of K2. Here, in 1939 Fritz Wiessner, the American born in Dresden, and Pasang Dawa Lama, reach 8380 m on the easy summit snow slopes of K2. They are very close to an achievement that would have changed the whole Himalayan history. True, it is 6 pm, but the full moon will rise and the weather is so good that Wiessner, on the rocks below, could lead the climb without gloves, "practising all the skills that he had developed during his youth in the Elbsandstein". But Pasang says "no, sahib" because there are evil spirits on the summits at night.
Also the K2, like the Torre, will have to wait 15 years, until 1954, with two Italians (Eastern-Alps representatives, this time) on the top and two others, including the 24-year-old Bonatti, shivering the whole night down at 8100 m.
One difference between K2 and Torre is perhaps that, while the former was skied down last Sunday, the latter will probably never be skied down!!
Before the meeting on the Adela ridge (presumably near the spot that I marked, although from the photo shot by Mauri it is difficult to infer the exact location), Maestri had realized the first ascent of Cerro Grande, together with Marino Stenico and Catullo Detassis (brother of Bruno, the "big old man" of the Brenta Dolomites). The south summit of Cerro Grande, however, will be named Cerro Luca after Mauri's at the time newborn son - namely, that was the last summit touched by Bonatti and Mauri in the epic traversal of that day.
Cerro El Ñato had been climbed already in February 1937 by a party of three, including Ettore Castiglioni. "Count Aldo Bonacossa, the expedition's sponsor and organizer, accompanied the team to the Paso Doblado" (Garibotti, Patagonia Vertical, pag. 80).

9 HF, Canon G1X, 90 mm equiv, f/6.3, 1/1250 sec.
Larger: http://bit.ly/2LZmeCk