If fantasies garnish any peak, they make Cerro Torre. It attracts not only the obsessed, but also the crazies. Or maybe it takes normal people and possesses them. Maybe its otherworldly beauty and inhospitable nature clashes with a hubristic inability to accept that there are some things we just can't have.

     Nothing so illustrates the need to "possess" Cerro Torre as the Italian climber Cesare Maestri's legendary 1970 siege up the Southeast Ridge, now known as the Compressor Route, absurdly done to "prove" his bizarre 1959 Cerro Torre first-ascent claim. (Despite absolutely zero proof against overwhelmingly contradictory evidence, Maestri claimed a futuristic alpine-style ascent of the daunting north face in 1959, with Toni Egger. On the attempt, Egger fell to his death with the team's only camera.) The obsessed Maestri commandeered a large team for two seasons, fixing thousands of feet of rope and drilling more than 400 bolts with a gas-powered compressor. He littered bolts near perfectly good cracks and used them deliberately to avoid natural features via extensive bolt ladders. It wasn't a case of "different standards in a different era," for the assault was globally decried (Maestri's climb was largely the impetus behind Messner's classic diatribe "The Murder of the Impossible"). And for all his efforts on that 1970 route, Maestri retreated just below the top.

     Not that this is unusual on Cerro Torre. Before our trip, we studied the peak's history: of 11 "routes," six didn't summit, and three of them simply end in the middle of

nowhere. No summit, no somewhat accepted modern definition of intersecting an existing route or stopping at a distinctly defined landmark. I can think of no other peak where this is so readily accepted. Maybe it's just a dumbing-down to fit us into a challenge we can't meet on its own terms.

     Most impressively, consider this: exclude routes that rely on Maestri's manmade path to finish, and only two routes had summited Cerro Torre. I love that. El Arca de los Vientos (Beltrami-Garibotti-Salvaterra; 2005) climbs spectacular and historically significant terrain up the north and northwest faces, covering much of the ground Maestri claimed in his 1959 charade. And then you have the 1974 Ragni di Lecco route up the West Face, rightfully known to all but true believers as the first-ascent route on the world's most beautiful alpine spire. (Maestri's fairytale would make for good fun, but it's not "all good," because he robbed his rival countrymen Daniele Chiappa, Mario Conti, Casimiro Ferrari, and Pino Negri of their rightful place in history.)

     Perhaps Cerro Torre — along with the bro-brah-brau, of course — best represents the fantasy of Patagonia. And in some sordid sense, perhaps Maestri does, too. Then again, maybe the wind just drove him crazy.