South America, Peru, Southern Peru, Sayhua, Pitusiray Broup, Cordillera Urubamba

Publication Year: 1973.

Sayhua. Pitusiray Group, Cordillera Urubamba. On July 17 I soloed the south summit of a peak in the Pitusiray group identified by local people as Sayhua.* It is called “Yucay” and given as 18,550 feet in a sketch map of the “Saguasiray Massif” on page 24 of Malcolm Slesser’s The Andes Are Prickly, although I could find no one who referred to the peak by this name. An obvious snow-filled gully on the northeast face made an easy direct line to the south summit, but from the top it appeared that the north summit was possibly slightly higher.

Alan Dane Waterman

*John Ricker in 1970 climbed a peak he found to be named Huacratanca or Sayhua Orqo, but he thought it only a little over 5000 meters. (A.A.J. 1971, p. 410.) Yucay (5650 meters or 18,537 feet) was climbed several times in the 1950s and 1960s.—Evelio Echevarría.