Condoriri Region, Cordillera Real. My wife Irene and I left La Paz on August 17. From a point 20 kilometers from the end of the road north of Lake Tuni, we made our way up the valley which runs due south from Condoriri and reached Base Camp in 3½ hours in the Condoriri-Aguja Negra Cirque, 100 meters from the snout of the largest (Tarija) glacier. From Base we climbed to a col between Huallomén and Tarija in four hours over a gentle glacier. There we set our high camp, some 150 meters below the summit of Tarija (5060 meters or 16,601 feet), first climbed in 1959 by Alfredo Martínez and Douglas Moore. On August 24 we ascended our chosen objective, which we named “Fabulosa” (5370 meters or 17,618 feet), which lies southeast along the ridge between Tarisa and Cerro Bruja. To reach it, we traversed Tarija, descending rocks beyond to reach the sharp, corniced northwest ridge. After reconnaissance on Condoriri’s glaciers and two days in La Paz, we were reinstalled in Base Camp on August 31, a party of four, Arnaldo Gonzalez (Valparaíso), Alfredo Martínez (La Paz) and we two, but summer rains broke and heavy snow buried camp for two days. Thereafter the mornings were often fine before afternoon snowstorms. Three of us climbed the lower, east summit of unclimbed Cerro “Ilusión” in a heavy storm, ascending via a hanging glacier to the saddle and an unstable snow ridge. We named it "Ilusioncita”. Two days later we four made the second ascent of Aguja Negra, scaling the western face to gain a notch two-thirds of the way up, where we crossed to the northeast face, on sound rock and without great difficulties. On September 4 we climbed Cerro “Ilusión”, a fine prominence of rock and snow perched on a dome of ice (5290 meters or 17,356 feet). After a day of preparation, we climbed heavily loaded in deep snow to set camp on the Condoriri Alto Glacier. The next morning three of the party broke trail to the bergschrund at the base of Condoriri’s southeast face. The next day, the 8th, beyond the schrund the gully led out onto difficult, iced rocks, by which the south-southwest ridge was reached. On the exposed, steep knife-edge of bare ice, we had to cut steps the whole way to the top (5656 meters or 18,556 feet). (The relative heights of the summits were estimated and altitudes calculated from that of Condoriri. This reduces the height of Aguja Negra, previously estimated at 5400 meters.)

Keith Whitelock, Academia Nacional de Alta Montaña de Chile