I ALWAYS CLIMBED WITH SEVERITY—that is how the mountain became my friend and never hurt my climbing partners or me. I always brought home everyone who came along, and never lost a friend on rope. If you like climbing, you should continue going, but do so with respect of the mountain without presumptuousness. 

YES, I STILL READ CLIMBING NEWS, especially thanks to my dear climbing friend Vera Cenini, who I’ve known since she was 13, when she first climbed my route on Piz Badile. She cuts out articles about all the peaks that make it into news, from the La Provincia di Lecco, the daily in the town, and La Provincia di Valtellina, another paper from Lombardia. 

THE PRESS WAS NOT THERE TO REPORT MY LAST ASCENT of my route on Piz Badile, when I was 78 on the 50^th anniversary of the first ascent, so I decided that if there were a second day of good weather, I’d do it again. I announced this to the Swedish journalist Fulvio Mariani, and he came to write a piece on it. Yes, I did the route twice in one week, because I felt I had the strength to do it. 

DID CESARE MAESTRI REALLY CLIMB CERRO TORRE?
I believe if we start doubting what he did up there, we should reconsider many of my ascents, as well—for example, Mount McKinley, since there are no pictures showing I actually reached the top. I tried to shoot one and almost froze my hand. What concerns me more about the event is that I lost a good friend who was a brother to my sons—Toni Egger, who was always at my house eating enormous dishes of pasta before each climb. 

MY BEST FRIEND AND CLIMBING BUDDY was, without a doubt Vittorio Ratti, with whom I opened the Cima Ovest di Lavaredo and the Piz Badile, but who I missed when I did my fist ascent on the Walker Spur. 

On April 26, 1945, I was chief partisan, and Ratti and I were in the city center of Lecco. I was lying down with a bazooka given to my by American soldiers trying to stop some German soldiers from escaping to the Valtellina and Saint Moritz. Ratti was only holding a smaller gun, so when he fired on the Germans, they shot him dead by my side. He was one of the only ones who could keep up with me. He was very resistant on the wall. 

YES, MY PITONS WERE HANDMADE. I used to make them using a cold press so they were more resistant, without air bubbles, compared to the ones using fused metal that sometimes were more malleable. I would cut two sheets of steel into which I’d engrave the shape of half a piton on each side. Then I would heat some steel raw at 1,200 degrees Celsius. to be placed between the two sheets, which I’d then press together. And—Voila!—here it is, the piton! 

MY SECRET was definitely not genetic. My dad died working in a mine in Canada when he was 24, and he never climbed. What I had more than other climbers was that, since I boxed for three years before I started climbing, I was used to visiting the gym to do conditioning, and that built my strength. And also, well, my stubbornness—what I started I had to finish. I never came down from a mountain without reaching the top. 

MY STUBORNESS BROUGHT ME TO spend four hours on the overhanging face of the Cima Ovest di Lavaredo trying to place a piton. It just did not want to go in, but I wanted to go up, so we took the time we needed. I wanted to make a pendulum that I would use to traverse the wall, so I needed [the piton] to be well-placed—it had to make the “bell” sound, otherwise it would have come out. At the end it was so well placed I was never able to get it out; it remained there to mark the route for the German climbers who attempted the route the next day.