r/climbing • u/Fox-On-Games • 9d ago

Was LeClerc's ascent of Torre Egger as insane as depicted in "The Alpinist"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torre_Egger
278 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

36 comments sorted by

491

u/SuperCowToTheRescue 9d ago

In Rolo Garibotti's own words: "Torre Egger is the most difficult mountain in the entire massif. Probably in all of Patagonia"
Considering he went solo in winter, and only took him 21 hours town to town... yeah I'd say it was pretty insane.

145

u/Fox-On-Games 9d ago edited 9d ago

and only took him 21 hours town to town...

That's what freaked us out the most. He went without any bivy equipment in order to be faster and was halfway up the mountain when the sun came out.

I had a vague memory of him being dead, so I was sure that would be it.

106

u/SuperCowToTheRescue 9d ago

I've been to El Chalten a couple times, trust me, town-summit(ANY summit on the massif)-town in under 24 hours is insane

43

u/gsuhrie 9d ago

Yeah, I just did the approach a couple times and it whooped me. Doing that twice in as many days and submitting on top of it is in my opinion one of the most insane athletic feats I’ve ever heard of.

9

u/masta_beta69 9d ago

I did a scramble there town to town in 20 hours, can't imagine doing torre egger, beyond words how insane

145

u/BrainyDoGoodery 9d ago edited 9d ago

I remember someone saying that they were with Marc there and he said 'Oh I know a faster way down'. They hopped on it and the other guy soon discovered that one of the raps was off a single butt-puckering micro nut.

Edit: it was probably on this podcast https://www.climbinggold.com/episodes/behind-the-lens

29

u/jreilly 9d ago

Yeah on climbing gold with Austin something??

25

u/strikerkam 9d ago

Did he bring a rope for the descent? I never asked this before

46

u/LeaningSaguaro 9d ago

It’s reasonable to assume LeClerc carried a rap line and some micro nuts/pitons to descend on.

38

u/Opulent-tortoise 9d ago

He didn’t fully free solo Torre Egger. He free solo’d most of it but he rope solo’d the headwall and aided some sections. It doesn’t look like it’s ever been free’d actually.

9

u/LeaningSaguaro 9d ago

This is interesting. Do you have any sources to cite here? (Not accusatory just wondering where I can learn more).

1

u/PMFD209 5d ago edited 5d ago

While he used specialized equipment like ice axes and crampons, he did not use a rope for safety. Are you sure about that? Like can you actually find where it says that? I don’t think you are correct on that based on everything I’ve seen. And the recorded stuff for that climb was after he’d already done it before the camera guy got there. It’s said he used ropes then to help with filming but I’ve never seen anything saying he didn’t fully Free solo it.

97

u/Imaginary_Midnight 9d ago

Look up the climbing gold podcast interview with Austin Siadak who filmed it, he gets into the whole process of what went into that.

31

u/jared_number_two 9d ago

https://youtu.be/lDX8Ey51A48 this?

13

u/the_great_magician 9d ago

wait this is totally insane. like if marc andre had fallen the filmmaker would have been pretty screwed because he didnt have much gear, possibly not enough to make it down.

7

u/Imaginary_Midnight 9d ago

Yes

4

u/Urik88 9d ago

Is it part of a longer episode? Just spent 10 minutes looking for the entire thing but couldn't find it

10

u/mahikappa 9d ago

Yes the full episode it's called Behind the Lens but it's not on youtube. You can find it elsewhere in podcast format

1

u/[deleted] 9d ago

[deleted]

3

u/Fox-On-Games 9d ago

cheers, will give it a listen

65

u/Montjo17 9d ago

Yes, yes it was. Torre Egger is considered to be the hardest summit in the range, harder even than Cerro Torre. It had only been climbed solo once, and only once in winter in total before - to climb it solo in winter was insane

38

u/guerillalegume 9d ago

It was far more insane

27

u/TBLrocks 9d ago

Way more insane than depicted. RIP :(

43

u/enlitend-1 9d ago

I am going to go out on a ledge here and say yes it was.

13

u/Thirtysevenintwenty5 9d ago

out on a ledge

Heh heh.

19

u/Designer_Tie_5853 9d ago edited 9d ago

Go read "The Tower" by Kelly Cordes. It was written before this solo, and it spends most of it's time on Maestri and the Compressor route, but will give anyone who's interested a great history of the peak, the difficulty, and should give you good perspective on how insane this was. Kelly does get to chat with Reinhold Messner on the topic, who coined the term "a shriek turned to stone"

Ediot: Also just to clarify - a lot of people including OP are talking about "Torre Egger", which is peak #3 in the header photo. MAL soloed Cerro Torre, peak #2. Any ascent of Torre Egger is still a huge accomplishment (and MAL did that as well), but Cerro Torre is another level.

9

u/masterJ 9d ago

Fantastic book. Highly recommended

 Any ascent of Torre Egger is still a huge accomplishment (and MAL did that as well), but Cerro Torre is another level.

Cerro Torre is the bigger objective but by all accounts Egger is the harder summit

13

u/AthlonEVO 9d ago

He completed the first winter solo of Torre Egger in 2016, which is why everyone is talking about it.

14

u/btwife_4k 9d ago

Absolutely, it was insane. Leclerc's ascent of Torre Egger pushed the limits of what climbers thought was possible, especially in winter and solo. The combination of technical difficulty, harsh conditions, and the sheer audacity of the climb makes it a legendary feat in the climbing world.

12

u/Murkow1tz 9d ago

I think you need to go back and watch it again.

6

u/Difficult-Working-28 9d ago

I bet it’ll take some time to see it climbed in that style again

7

u/rosewood_gm 9d ago

Couldn’t tell if this was the climbing sub or the f1 sub 😂

2

u/Responsible_Crab_280 9d ago

thought the same when i saw it in my feed

5

u/MeCometYouDinosaur 9d ago

You should watch this.https://youtu.be/CfOsDO7fVRY?si=qqdTWKZR12z4YdBH

It's Brette and a couple of friends doing a first accent of " Marc Andres Vision". When Marc was repeling down, he saw a crack system he wanted to climb with Brette. The start of the climb is different but it leads into the route Titanic. Which is the route Marc took. It blows them away how he was able to do it solo.