This forum is perfect for this debate...

Did he really climb it? There has been much speculation on his story of soloing the massive face with little gear, a thermos of strong coffee, and a 5mm rope. The picture debacle, the many who failed on this face ( Messner, Profit, Batard, among some of the failed on SF of Lhotse)

Twight talks about it a bit in Kiss or Kill, Bonnington touches on it in the postscript in Heroic Climbs, and pretty much everyone has a opinion on it. Whats yours?

I like many others want to believe it, but until someone goes up there to find what Cesen left behind as he stated, only the mountain knows.

Only Tomo knows the answer.

In climbing, one has to take people at their word about what and how they have climbed.

Taking folks’ word on anything these days is becoming a rare thing.

To debate, did he or didn’t he, sort of misses the point, because we have no facts so what the heck?

This sort of reminds me of Michael Reardon and his claim of free soloing the “Romantic Warrior”.

That started an endless debate.

Tomo, unlike Mike, didn’t have any witness to his claim so we will never know.

Next time, bring a camera.

From the various sources I've read, I don't think he did it. But there is only one way to maybe know now and that's to climb it again.

I *want* him to have climbed it. The story is fantastic and the feat would be incredible.

One of life's little mysteries...

At the time in climbing history, if there was anyone that could have done it, yes.

As Guy posted, only Tomo knows.

He says he did.

That's the ONLY thing that matters in my book...