1985 Salvaterra & Gini Cerro Torre Historic First Winter Ascent

Italy🏔️ 1 Peak

Ermanno Salvaterra

Ermanno Salvaterra was born on January 21, 1955, in Pinzolo in the Trentino region of the Italian Dolomites. Raised in the shadow of the Brenta Dolomites, where his family ran the Rifugio Dodici Apostoli, Salvaterra became a mountain guide at twenty-four and dedicated his life to vertical granite and ice. In 1982, he made his first journey to the wild granite spires of Patagonia, beginning a lifelong love affair with Cerro Torre that earned him the title 'The Man of Cerro Torre'. In July 1985, during the brutal sub-zero storms of the Southern Hemisphere winter, Salvaterra, alongside Andrea Gini and Paolo Caruso, achieved the monumental first winter ascent of Cerro Torre via the Southeast Ridge (Compressor Route), enduring fifteen days on the mountain in temperatures plunging below minus thirty degrees Celsius. In 1986, he returned to forge the direct East Face route ('Infanito y Más Allá') with Elio Orlandi and Maurizio Giarolli. Deeply invested in the truth surrounding Cesare Maestri's disputed 1959 climb, Salvaterra led a historic expedition in November 2005 with Alessandro Beltrami and Rolando Garibotti to climb the North Face of Cerro Torre. Following the line Maestri claimed to have ascended, they completed the magnificent first ascent of 'El Arca de los Vientos' (The Ark of the Winds). Finding zero pitons, ropes, or bolt marks on the upper granite, Salvaterra reluctantly confirmed that Maestri had never ascended the upper face. On August 18, 2023, while guiding a client on the Campanile Alto in his beloved Brenta Dolomites, Salvaterra fell to his death at age sixty-eight, remembered as one of Patagonia's greatest guardians.