Photo: Peter Vordenberg
Truth can be an elusive prey. In The Tower, Kelly Cordes succeeds in tightening his grip on the truths and lies that make up the history of climbing on Cerro Torre. The subtitle “A Chronicle of Climbing and Controversy on Cerro Torre” only hints at the depths in which he researches the topic.
The Tower focuses on Cesare Maestri’s claimed first ascent of Cerro Torre. Maestri and his supporter and partner, Cesarino Fava, maintained that Maestri and Toni Egger, who did not survive the climb, reached the summit. Cordes does a damn good job bringing the evidence to bear. Yes, this is the same Cesare Maestri who later used a gas-powered compressor to bolt what was known as the Compressor Route up Cerro Torre—a virtual ladder up the mountain.
Maestri’s bolts were later chopped by Hayden Kennedy (RIP) and Jason Kruk, who climbed the route without them. The book focuses on these two events, thus delving into wider and deeper issues of how and why we climb and how we tell the stories we do about our climbs.
My interest in this book is not the climbing; it is our take on truth, especially when it comes to our internal storytelling. There is a place where an inner truth becomes more apparent and less slippery. These are places of adventure where fear resides: Places where, alongside the possibility of triumph and joy, there are possibilities of feeling shame, humiliation, darkness, doubt, failure, and chances of injury or death. In these places, some internal rudder shifts, a scale whose balance swings, a wooden ball rolling against a wall in a pitch-black room. Thunk. And in that moment, a truth about yourself stands so clear as to be undeniable. It may not be what you hoped to find. Then again, it may be even better than you allow yourself to hope because, in either case, there is something more important to us than truth; that is protecting the story we tell about ourselves. That inner running babble of our life’s chronicle.
This story not only describes our self, but is our self. In a way, our stories are who we are. In another way, our stories are just stories—pure smoke. And if either of those things is true, let alone both, we exist in a very fragile position, especially when we reach those precarious places of extremis. Those places where perhaps our bodies, and certainly our stories, come under threat.
This, it occurs to me, is perhaps the best deep motive behind why we climb mountains or ski down them the hard way, not because “it’s there,” but because there we can test our truths in a place that does not permit lying.
As Cordes’ book testifies, this doesn’t mean we can’t lie about it later.
In the end, the story we tell may feel way more important. But in that moment. We know a truth.
I suppose what we hope is that the truth we discover is that our stories are supportable, we are brave, we are strong, we are capable, we are exceptional.
Cordes and mountain legend of all mountain legends, Reinhold Messner, equate Maestri’s ladder to using oxygen on Everest. On Cerro Torre, the challenge, along with harsh weather, is the climb’s difficulty. On Everest, the challenge is not the difficulty of the climb but the weather and, importantly, the lack of oxygen. With a ladder, with oxygen, why not just take a helicopter to the top? The shortcut destroys the specific challenge, which destroys the whole point. Why not simply climb a lower mountain or an easier route—same challenge, fewer workarounds? The answer to that is in the stories we feel this urge to inhabit.
Photo: Peter Vordenberg
Zen Master David Loy wrote a really interesting book called The World Is Made of Stories. In it, Loy talks about our feeling of lack. From the Buddhist perspective, what we lack is an actual self, and in an attempt to exert a self into existence, we participate in a life-long string of projects to prop up this non-existent self. We don’t need to get too hung up here. In brief, because our sense of self is shaky, we participate in these projects, Loy aptly terms Lack Projects, to build and defend the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.
So, in one way, climbing mountains can be about quelling this sense of lack. Who are we? We are skiers, we are climbers. We are good at this, we have climbed this and skied that. That isn’t a very romantic motive, but that these definitions of ourselves inevitably fall flat doesn’t mean we shouldn’t climb and ski. There are exquisitely beautiful reasons for climbing mountains, and more appropriate to this site, skiing down them:
Skiing is really fun. It is flow. It demands attention and focus. It is beautiful and majestic. It is and is in raw nature. It can be shared and social. It can be very solo. Here, one can find calm and peace. It can be hard. Sometimes it should be.
And it doesn’t always have to be.
Those reasons can square pretty well with concepts of truth and understanding the reality of the self / no-self. Adventure in wild places can be a doorway to uncovering our relationship and connection to the rest of nature. Our little bodies moving around in the vastness of mountains puts a nice perspective on our finite and infinitesimal existence. Our experiences there, when approached with an open humbleness, have the potential to make the stories we create and tell healthier and more honest.
In The Tower, Cordes tells the tale of his climb up Cerro Torre. In this telling, there is fear, doubt, honesty, comradery, humor, and an ecstasy of this shared adventure told in an understated way. Also, there is success in the endeavor and a humble appreciation for the factors that allowed that success.
I was sold on the humor component. That’s all I needed to know. These cats climbed something and had some laughs along the way. There is a spirit there that sits well with me.
This book also contains some very sad moments. And since its publication, two main protagonists, Hayden Kennedy and David Lama, have died.
Photo: Peter Vordenberg
There is something in these losses, this grief, that ties together why we climb and ski, our fragile bodily and spiritual position, and the importance of truth. The ability to remold our experiences to support our story is what makes our grip on truth so slippery. Yet when we choose to get out there, we choose to put ourselves in a position to see it, to face it. Which, if we sign up for a big challenge, seems a large part of the point. It’s not unlike opting for climbing in a particular style. The concept of a fair means ascent is oft written about by Cordes and others. We can ascend by fair means, or we can take a helicopter to the top. And since that’s the case, it isn’t the top we’re after but the experience and all it has to offer, including the experience of our mind: our thoughts, fears, joys, doubts, triumphs. The elements of our minds that emerge within the experience can be seen, lived, accepted, relished, battled with, and embraced head-on. To experience the climb or to ski in a style as fair and honest as possible tightens the grip on truth to levels rivaling Mr. Spock’s pinch (Mr. Spock’s pinch would be a great name for a climb, maybe one on Tufa). Or they can be ignored, manipulated, and twisted. A spiritual helicopter—there and back, having learned nothing. And if it is a lie we tell out loud, as well as believe, it is worse because we drag others into a falsehood they may feel obligated to live up to.
At the time of Maestri’s attempts at Cerro Torre, Italy was in a serious slump. This was post-WWII, and Italy was collectively seeking a story that could help rebuild its national pride. More than one man’s hubris was in the balance. That a person’s or a nation’s self-esteem could depend on getting to the top of a mountain starkly illustrates the greater problem.
Like the tyrant Sysiphus, we must keep going back up the mountain, never satisfied, and worse, as insufferable pricks and liars because we are trying to hold our independent exceptionalism above the churning waters of other-ness, above the mass of greater humanity or even nature itself. I am a “special me” is a story we desperately want to be true.
Yet, come a thousand successes, it is a story that never feels well enough supported. And that is because even having climbed this or skied that; we are still simply members of that greater mass of humanity, not separate from, but little expressions of nature itself. The rutted path of our habits becomes more and more worn-in as we try over and over again in our attempts to prop up an illusory puppet-self. We return again and again to the same bat-shit crazy projects like climbing this or skiing that, buying this car, working that job, getting a societal pat on the back just for hitting the reliable endorphin buttons. Any such attempt cannot long succeed.
But damn it, skiing and climbing are fabulous pursuits; beyond flow and harmony and the deep comradery of a worthy challenge, they can potentially lead us to beautiful, if hard truths. Our successes no more define us in any permanent way than our failures. The project must go on.
And if you challenge yourself often enough, long enough, you will encounter some uncomfortable truths, including the truth of our membership, not above, but within greater humanity.
Truths we can know only when we don’t avert our eyes when the demon rears its shaggy head. If, when it does, we let the storying stay quiet for a minute and hold our gaze steady. Go toward it. Embrace it. Hold it tight. The truth is less writ in stone when faced. The monster will take up permanent residence under the bed if not invited out into the light. For example, if you are too ill-prepared or scared at this time, you can prepare and come back ready next time. But not if you don’t face the reality that you must prepare better first. In this way, the truth is ephemeral, like our stories, like ourselves.
Living the entirety of the experience depends on relaxing the grip on our story. A few weeks back, I had planned an objective with a few friends. As the day neared and conditions looked acceptable, I began to feel a lot of anxiety. I was developing plans to back out, finding reasons for not doing it, reasons that could have kept my story intact while preventing me from seeing my fear through. The feelings of fear grew and flowed through me in a most uncomfortable way. I stayed with them and found them diminishing the closer we got to our objective. Clicking into skis was better than driving up the canyon. The fear eased even further, skinning up the approach. Noting conditions and being in the company of my partners brought even more peace. Nearing the line, the fear took on a tone of positive focus and eagerness. The storying dissipated with the fear, and I was completely in the experience, attentive and clear-headed, able to be aware of potential dangers and experience the joy and beauty of skiing completely.
Cordes’ book hooked me up with the idea that what we are doing is looking for truth through the full experience of our endeavors, rather than creating and supporting a narrative by accomplishing them.
The Tower pushed me to stick with my fear as I prepared to ski this particular line. It was an experience that made this thing, which I’m calling truth, clearer.
Truth isn’t an absolute so much as the entirety of the moment. Truth is fear rushing through you. Truth is fear giving way to calm and peace. Truth is this moment’s crystalline reality. Truth is your current ability, and it is expanding that ability, learning, and growing. Truth is where you are right now, not how far you can go. A truth worth exploring. And the greater shining, brilliant, and inescapable truth is that we are all in this together.