The Tower

A Chronicle of Climbing and Controversy on Cerro Torre

By: Kelly Cordes

Narrated by: Bernardo de Paula

Patagonia's Cerro Torre, considered by many the most beautiful peak in the world, draws the finest and most devoted technical alpinists to its climbing challenges. But controversy has swirled around this ice-capped peak since Cesare Maestri claimed first ascent in 1959. Since then a debate has raged, with world-class climbers attempting to retrace his route but finding only contradictions. This chronicle of hubris, heroism, controversies, and epic journeys offers a glimpse into the human condition, and why some pursue extreme endeavors that at face value have no worth.

©2014 Patagonia (P)2023 Tantor

Pie-tons? Really?

Next time use a narrator that remotely understands the sport. Listening to this narrator was painful.

Interesting, exciting, insightful

Loved this book, the history, the research. It was obvious a lot of research went into this book. It was so well written & conclusions did not feel jumped to. I appreciated getting all sides of the stories. So interesting & so we’ll written. I couldn’t put it down once I started.

Great book - struggling narration.

Awesome story and writing by Kelly Cordes. Unfortunately the narrator clearly did not do his diligence as he mispronounces numerous climbing terms such as piton and arete throughout the book.

Great story and writing. Narrator doesn’t know how to pronounce climbing terms.

Great book, well written, well narrated with the caveat that if you’re a climber the continual mispronunciation of terms like piton and arête may drive you insane. (To be fair it’s possible it wasn’t those specific words, but there are a variety of climbing terms that are loan words from other languages and the narrator straight up mangles them). Anyway, great book, well worth a read or listen.

Interesting, well written and narrated

A good piece of climbing history, the author has in my opinion written a well researched and thorough book about a niche part of climbing history. You probably need some climbing background to fully appreciate the story but I think it would still be enjoyable to a layman willing to look up a few things.
Excellent narration as well.