Nevado de Huila, Central Cordillera, Pico Mayor. Guillermo Cajiao led our Colombian-American expedition of nine. Our purpose was to make a film asking the Colombian government to declare the nevado and surrounding area a national park. We left Cali on January 28 and over the next two days filmed the archaeological site of Tierradentro. At Irlanda, last town before the nevado, we hired 14 porters, and drove to a small army post two miles from the trailhead. We started into the forest on February 1 and reached snowline in four days. Our route across the páramo took us below the glacier that descends between the north and central peaks. We camped directly beneath the latter (Pico Mayor). Other parties attempting Pico Mayor have bypassed the heavily crevassed glacier from above. After several days of high winds and clouds, Greg Beliveau and I made the fourth ascent of Pico Mayor (c. 5365 meters, 17,602 feet) on February 9. We passed near a fumarole at 17,225 feet whose sulphur fumes gave us some trouble. Other members of the expedition were Pacho Magaña, Jaime Guzmán, Bill & Jean Bullard, José Cristóbal Colón, and Steve Coombs. Huila is the only nevado in Colombia completely surrounded by virgin forests and páramos. Park status appears forthcoming, but complete protection will require new legislation. If park laws are not tightened and enforced to prevent exploitation, Colombia’s highest volcano and last mountain wilderness will be doomed to logging, burning, and colonization. On February 23, the Germans Hubert Frank and Eric Meindl (age 65!), and the Austrian Guide Franz Kröll made the fifth ascent of Pico Mayor by the standard route. Frank believes the broad west summit is lower than the sharper summit 200 meters to the east. He estimates the difference between the two is no more than 5 to 10 meters. Ascents to the east summit have been made by the Poles (A.A.J., 1976, p. 478) and by the two separate Frank parties in 1977; all other ascents appear to have been to the west summit. I returned to Nevado del Huila during Holy Week with an excursion from the Campo Abierto Club. We left Bogotá at four A.M. Through split-second timing in making connections between buses, trucks, etc., we arrived at the army post by eight that night. From the post (9500 feet) we hiked in ten hours to snowline (14,750 feet) beneath Pico Norte. An attempt on that peak failed 200 meters below the summit for lack of time. We switched our goal to Pico Mayor and packed to a 16,000-foot snow camp on the west flank. On April 6, Sergio Gaviria, Hubert Frank, José Joaquín Henao, and Fraydell López made the sixth ascent of Pico Mayor in soft snow. On April 8, Frank, Gaviria, and Miguel Angel Afanador made the third ascent of Pico Norte (c. 5300 meters, 17,389 feet). The ice cliffs near the top were virtually identical to those encountered by Edwin Kraus’s second party in 1944—the only access through the cliffs was a steep, narrow ramp. On the summit, the three climbers were struck by lightning several times, but luckily were not hurt.

Pieter Crow, Green Mountain Club