Quick Take
- Narration: Bernardo de Paula brings measured authority to a complex narrative that moves between historical investigation and personal climbing memoir, holding both registers with skill.
- Themes: The disputed first ascent of Cerro Torre, mountaineering ethics and contested truth, hubris and obsession in extreme alpinism
- Mood: Dense, investigative, and quietly thrilling, the pace of a climber moving carefully up an uncertain route
- Verdict: One of the most intelligent mountaineering books of the past decade, meticulous research, genuine narrative drive, and a narrator who keeps the complexity coherent across nine hours.
I started The Tower on a rainy afternoon with no plans to stop, and I essentially did not. Kelly Cordes has built something genuinely unusual here: a mountaineering book that functions simultaneously as a historical mystery, a study of obsession, and a meditation on why truth in extreme sport matters more than most people outside the climbing community realize. The subject, whether Italian climber Cesare Maestri actually made the first ascent of Cerro Torre in 1959, sounds niche. It is not. The questions it raises about ego, documentation, community honor, and what we owe each other when we make claims about shared reality are anything but.
Cerro Torre itself is worth understanding before you enter this book. The peak, in Patagonia’s remote Chaltén Massif in Argentina, is considered by many the most beautiful mountain in the world, an ice-capped granite tower that draws the finest technical alpinists on the planet to its notoriously demanding conditions. Maestri’s 1959 claim, made without his partner Toni Egger, who died on the descent and could not corroborate the account, set off a controversy that lasted decades. Cordes, himself a serious alpinist, spent years researching and climbing in Patagonia to bring this story its fullest possible telling, and the result is a book that belongs alongside the best long-form mountaineering literature.
Our Take on The Tower
The research is exceptional by any standard. A climber and guide with nearly forty years of experience who had followed the Cerro Torre debate since the 1970s described finding new wrinkles in the story he had not been aware of despite his deep prior knowledge. That is the mark of genuine archival and fieldwork rigor. Cordes interviews modern alpinists with first-hand knowledge of the routes and conditions, traces the historical record through contemporary accounts, and weaves his own experience on the mountain into the narrative in a way that never becomes self-indulgent. The book reads, as one reviewer put it, like a mystery novel, except the stakes are real and the central question has been contested by the climbing community for more than six decades.
Why Listen to The Tower
Bernardo de Paula’s narration is a genuine asset. The book moves between historical reconstruction, interview-based reporting, and first-person climbing narrative, and de Paula manages those tonal shifts with enough consistency that the nine hours feel coherent rather than fragmented. The technical climbing terminology is handled without condescension to non-climbers and without dumbing down for experienced ones. One reviewer noted that the terminology does favor readers with some alpine knowledge, and occasional independent research may be required. That is accurate, but the investment pays off, Cordes uses the precise vocabulary of the climbing world because precision matters when you are adjudicating a disputed claim that turns on exactly what was possible on a given route in given conditions.
What to Watch For in The Tower
The book’s pace is deliberate, and some listeners found it slow at points. Cordes is a thorough researcher and a careful writer, and he does not rush his argument or his characters. If you are drawn to adventure books primarily for their action sequences and immediate physical drama, you will find The Tower richer in historical texture and ethical complexity than in moment-to-moment climbing tension. The route topos and photographs that reviewers praised in the print edition are absent from the audio format, which means some of the spatial storytelling is harder to follow without a visual reference. A glance at a map of Patagonia and the Cerro Torre massif before listening will help considerably.
Who Should Listen to The Tower
Mountaineering enthusiasts and alpine climbers with a historical sense of the sport, and listeners who enjoy long-form investigative narrative about contested truth in extreme endeavors. Also surprisingly accessible to readers with no climbing background who are drawn to the ethical and human dimensions of the story, the question at the heart of the book is universal. Less suited to listeners who want uninterrupted physical action or a clean resolution to the central mystery.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to know anything about technical rock or alpine climbing to follow The Tower?
Basic familiarity with climbing as a sport helps but is not required. One reviewer with no climbing background found the book captivating as an adventure story and human drama. The technical terminology is present, and one experienced reader noted it requires occasional independent research, but Cordes writes with a broader audience in mind. The mystery at the center is human, not technical.
How does Bernardo de Paula handle the historical and investigative sections versus the personal climbing memoir passages?
De Paula maintains consistent authority and measured pace across both registers, which matters considerably in a book that moves frequently between archival investigation, interview-based reporting, and first-person climbing narrative. Reviewers found the overall listening experience coherent, and the nine-hour runtime moves without significant drag despite the book’s density.
Is the question of Maestri’s first ascent of Cerro Torre actually resolved by the end of the book?
Cordes presents a thorough and strongly argued case, supported by extensive research and interviews with modern alpinists who know the mountain intimately. Whether you find the question conclusively resolved depends partly on your prior knowledge and tolerance for historical ambiguity. The climbing community’s consensus has shifted significantly since the controversy began, and Cordes documents that shift carefully and honestly.
How does The Tower compare to other major mountaineering books like Into Thin Air or Touching the Void?
Those books are primarily disaster narratives with a single expedition at their center. The Tower is more of a historical investigation with a contested central claim, closer to long-form journalism than a survival story. The writing quality is comparable, but the structure and the kind of engagement it asks for are different. It is less immediately visceral and more sustained in its intellectual demands.
