:: In the unclimbed face

In November 1985 when we left Ljubljana airport only a few people believed that we could do what we planned: the first route in the East face of Cerro Torre. Although a very strong team from 'the eighties' was on the way: Francek Knez and Silvo Karo in the first rope party, Janez Jeglic and Slavc Sveticic in the second, and Peter Podgornik and me. Leader was Stane Klemenc, doctor Borut Belehar and camera man Matjaz Fistravec.

Rio Gallegos was our starting point, and from there we took a bus to the west, over the Patagonian pampa 1 . Two days later we already admired sunrise 2 at the tower we wanted to climb. We had to use every hour of good weather, so we immediately discovered the way to the base of the east face, where we dug out the ice cave 3 - the best thing to hide from storms, snow and avalanches. Famous Patagonian weather came very soon, and after storms 4 we always had to wait a day or two until the snow was cleaned off the wall...
We started to fix ropes in the lower part of the face, where we followed a deep gully 5 , sometimes overhanging, with poor possibilities for protecion. After 400 meters we reached the smooth slabs in the middle part 6 , very exposed to ice falling from the mushroom at the top. Hooks were very useful in some pitches (less than five bolts - on belays - were used in the whole route). On the fragile and expanding flakes 7 we climbed to the left to reach cracks 8 leading to the headwall. But the weather turned bad again and we had to spend many days and nigts in the ice cave 9 , taking care about our equipment and waiting for sunshine. By Christmas about 800 meters of the wall was climbed.
After three weeks, the weather improved and we started again for the final push 10 . Last 150 m we climbed the Maestri route 11 and on January 16, the climbing team 12 enjoyed the Cerro Torre summit view. El Cumbre ! We only missed Slavc, who broke his finger while training in the base camp...

After the climb we didn't go home immediately. But slides from Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro don't have very much with climbing. OK - just one, showing 'the artists' at Buenos Aires piano party 13 ...