Ermano Salvaterra, Alessandro Beltrami, and Rolo Garibotti left BC on November 12th, and reached the summit on November 13th, 11:30 pm - in total darknes, overcast skies and increasing winds. They endured a second bivouac on descent and safely reached BC on November 14th. Image courtesy of the expedition team/Comar.it (click to enlarge).
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Cerro Torre North face: Salvaterra, Garibotti and Beltrami SUMMIT!
Posted: Nov 17, 2005 09:01 am EST
(MountEverest.net) What a morning: First came the news that Jasper & Glowacz summited El Murallón in Patagonia. Now ExWeb has learned that Italians Ermanno Salvaterra and Alessandro Beltrami, and Argentinean (US resident) Rolo Garibotti summited Patagonian Cerro Torre at 11.30 pm on November 13th - funny enough - on the exact one year anniversary of Ales and Ermanno's reaching the same summit via a new route on the East face last year.
New rute, alpine style
After waiting in bad weather for weeks, Ermanno, Ales and Rolo grabbed the chance at first weather window. They left BC early morning November 12.
The trio had to endure two bivouacs on the wall: One on the way up and one right below the summit mushroom after reaching the top. Salvaterra reports the climb was done in pure apine style, though a new route the team has called “El Arca de los Vientos" (The chest of winds). At the upper sections of the wall, the climbers traversed from the North face in order to join the Ragni di Lecco route.
Details and images are expected soon - the team had hoped to complete the first repetition of the controversial route opened by Cesare Maestri and Toni Egger in 1959. Retracing Maestri’s footsteps, the goal was not only to climb the route, but also check if there are pegs or other rests left by the ’59 climbers, to prove they actually climbed the wall.
In 2004, Ermanno Salvaterra, 50, and Alessandro Beltrami, 24, opened a new route on Cerro Torre. The climb on the East face was named “Quinque Annos ad Paradisum” (Five years in Paradise).
This year, Ermanno, Alessandro, and Colorado climber Rolando Garibotti, came back for the north face, to retrace Maestri’s footsteps.
Ermanno Salvaterra, born January 21, 1955, in Pinzolo (Trent, Italy), completed his first true climb – up the Torri d'Agola spires (2,850 m) in the Dolomites at only 11 years of age. In 1982, Salvaterra embarked on his first journey to the southern region of the Andes. He climbed Cerro Torre and reached the compressor sitting 50 meters from the legendary summit. One year later he went back and made it all the way to the top in tandem with Maurizio Giarolli.
A failed attempt on Makalu seemingly discouraged him from Himalayan climbing. Instead he discovered a new hobby: Speed skiing. In 1988, he set the Italian record at 211.64 km/h. But he could never forget Patagonia, where he has done 21 expeditions so far.
Salvaterra runs the XII Apostoli mountain refuge in the Dolomite Mountains near Brenta, where he also works as ski instructor and mountain guide.
Alessandro Beltrami, 24, is an alpine guide and avid rock climber. He was Ermanno’s mate on the route opened on Torre in 2004.
Rolando Garibotti, 30, is an Italian-born Argentinean living in Boulder, Colorado (US). Rolando is an expert in both high-grade-difficulty and speed climbing. His CV includes an impressive array of ascents and traverses in the Alps, Jordan, Patagonia (Cerro Torre – Fitz Roy – Anguille Mermoz), Alaska (he scaled Mount Foraker's Infinite Spur in 24 hours), Canada (Weeping Wall/Weeping Pillar and Slipstream), and Wyoming's Tetons (where he recently broke the Grand Traverse speed record).
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