Lecco Spiders Walter Bonatti and Carlos Mauri first attempted the West Face of the 10,280-foot South American peak in 1957. The pair got a short way up the route before they realized it was beyond their ability and equipment. Fellow Spider Cesari Maestri claimed to have reached the summit of Cerro Torre via a route on the north ridge with partner Toni Egger in 1959. When Egger died on the descent, taking the camera with the summit pictures to his glacial grave, other climbers challenged Maestri's story. After several groups of skilled climbers attempted the route unsuccessfully, Maestri returned and nearly reached the summit by using a compressor and bolt gun to drill bolts into a new face. To this day, Maestri's claim of first ascent is open to debate. It wasn't until two teams of Lecco Spiders reached the summit in 1974 during a massive, two-month expedition up the West Face that the peak was considered successfully climbed.

The Jackson climbers' trip to Patagonia was a much more bare-bones, self-supported effort, with the trio saving and borrowing money just to come up with the airfare. Jackson resident and former Jackson Hole Mountain Guide Norm Larson accompanied the three climbers, providing base camp support while undertaking other efforts.

Surprising success

"I don't think any of us thought we'd get on top," he said. "We didn't really think the factors would work in our favor. In general, the weather there is terrible. It's very windy and very wet and it's far enough south that even at those modest elevations it's winter-like."

Nearly all of the climbing took place on snow and ice, Carman said, with winds pummeling the trio during their ordeal.

"The West Face is the windward side, so the face just gets plastered with snow and ice, which makes it a unique face to climb," Carman said. "We used lots of snow stakes, ice pickets and ice screws, but by and large we didn't even see the rock. You can't fall off and you realize there's no margin of error."

The climbers got lucky when clear weather on their first day allowed them to get halfway up the near-vertical, ice-clad rock face. Finding a spot to dig an ice cave, they waited out a storm for the next two days. The team ended up spending a week on the mountain but only climbed for half of that time, spending the rest holed up waiting for storms to break.

The final day of their ascent, the trio climbed through a storm, uncertain of their route, which they had only seen in a handful of photographs.

"The visibility was only a few feet, but it turned out the route finding wasn't as hard as we thought," Carman said. "The climbing was fantastic, beautiful and fun and in places scary and challenging. There were also some unknowns involving getting around the summit mushroom."

Carman led the final pitch, traversing across a bulge of honeycombed, unstable snow and ice that capped the top of the impressive spire. He credited the team's success to good weather and said he was equally inspired by the sheer beauty of the mountains surrounding him.

"It was the most beautiful climbing I had ever done, before or afterwards," Carman recalled with a smile. "Those mountains are like mountains out of a fairytale. When I was on Everest a few years later, it was beautiful but nothing like the mountains in Patagonia."

Feted in Italy

Bragg now lives in New Hampshire where he works for the Marmot outdoor clothing company.

Wilson died in a climbing accident in the southern Utah desert in 1987.

During his stay in Italy, Carman gave two slide shows and spoke about his experiences and memories of climbing Cerro Torre in roundtable discussions with some of the Italian pioneers. He also socialized with club members, whom he described as warm, spirited people. During formal ceremonies, members of the Lecco climbing club wore bright red sweaters with four white bands and a spider patch. Late one night, one of the young climbers took off his sweater and presented it to Carman, a gesture of genuine respect.

"What made the trip great was the social component," Carman said. "Most importantly, it was interesting and fun to be part of the community at large there and meet the families and have dinner in their homes. They are extremely warm, friendly and gregarious people."

Carman plans on giving a slide show and presentation on his climb of Cerro Torre in the next few months. He hopes that he built a bridge between two very different climbing communities, and also feels honored that, for a second time in his life, he was able to celebrate Cerro Torre.