It’s 1968 when Lito sets out on a six-month 26.000 km roadtrip from California to Patagonia to climb infamous “Fitz Roy” with Yvon Chouinard – found of Patagonia, Doug Tompkins founder of The North Face, Dick Dorworth & Chris Jones.
Below is a photo I took of “Fitz Roy” towering majestically over the southern Patagonian icefield.
The first rays of the rising sun create an intense Alpenglow on one of the most iconic mountains of the world. Standing on top of this granite giant is something I’ll likely never experience but I can certainly admire the mountain from below.
And it’s thanks to Lito’s camerawork that we can still witness the group’s wild ride and the third ascent of “Fitz Roy” on film today. It’s refreshingly different to modern day mountain tales and a must see in my opinion:
A year before the expedition to Patagonia Lito published an essay that would become one of the classic pieces of climbing literature: Games Climbers Play.
“Games Climbers Play, published in Ascent, in 1967, may be the most thought-provoking essay on climbing ethics ever written.”
In this essay, Lito proposes „not a new answer to the basically unanswerable question, 'what is climbing?', but rather a new way of talking and thinking about it.“ If you’re into climbing of any sorts, this is still a must-read half a century later.
The MIT has hosted a plain text version that you can access for free HERE
Helena and I were camped with our van at the shore of Lake Chelenko in Patagonia, when I was told that Lito lives less than 5km away. He did our roadtrip in reverse over 50 years ago and captured „games climbers play“ in the mountains. He is basically a hardcore version of me and I obviously had to meet him and take a portrait.
Half a century has passed since that road trip but his passion for photography has not faded and we discussed cameras for hours. What a great person.
