British Expedition to Pumasillo and Huagaruncho. Before heading for their main objective farther north, four members of the British party, George Band, Dr. Donald S. Matthews, Jack Tucker, and John Streetly, made, in June 1956, a reconnaissance in the Pumasillo (Puma’s Claw) area of the Cordillera de Vilcabamba. It appears that the mountain is incorrectly located on existing maps and given too high an altitude, 20,492 feet. Advancing from the head of the narrow-gauge railroad at Huadquiña, they headed for where they thought they might find the peak. On the summit of a 17,500-foot mountain they saw big peaks to the east but were separated from them by deep gorges. They withdrew. The expedition leader, John W. R. Kempe, and Michael Westmacott joined them. During July several of them climbed in the Cordillera Blanca above the Quebrada Parón. They explored the slopes of Pirámide, or Pirámide Garcilaso, and Artesonraju, but continual bad weather prevented their reaching any summits.

The climbers now turned their attention to their main objective, Huagaruncho, 18,797 feet. [As with many Andean peaks, various altitudes are given for this mountain. 19,292 feet is also found.—Ed.] From Huachón they established their reconnaissance base on the shores of Lago Talenga. Thence they moved across a 15,000-foot pass to the area north of Huagaruncho. In a two-day reconnaissance they found the way to bypass an icefall by climbing a rock buttress, and reached the glacier on the northwestern side of the mountain. Camp I was placed, August 6, at 15,600 feet, on the hanging glacier beneath the western col. Above the col a precipitous step forced them to traverse 100 feet onto the steep south face. It took them seven days to build a route with fixed ropes to regain the ridge, only 300 feet above where they had left it. Westmacott and Streetly reconnoitered the ridge to the next to the last bulge on August 14. Next day Kempe, Band, and Tucker, after climbing an ice wall, were turned back only 300 feet from the summit by soft snow and a snowstorm. On August 17 Westmacott and Streetly reached the others’ high point by 9 A.M., after only a 3½-hour climb along the now well-engineered route. The next hundred feet were in waist deep powder-snow. Then, an ice wall forced them left of the ridge onto the north face, up which they cut for 150 feet before regaining the summit ridge. They stood on top at 11:30. Band, Streety, and Westmacott climbed the west peak, or Peak A, about 18,000 feet, August 19. Unfortunately Dr. Matthews died, September 3, of a heart attack after his return to Lima.