Tulparaju, East Ridge, Hualcán, West Ridge and Other Peaks. Our group of the Salzburg section of the Austrian Alpine Club (ÖAV) made between May 22 and June 18 several normal ascents in the Cordillera Blanca. We climbed Ishinca from Laguna Ishinca up the west face, where the final ice slope got up to 60°. We climbed Pisco and Chopical- qui. We then went to the Auquiscocha valley with its splendid waterfalls. We climbed Chekiacraju (17,344 feet) and traversed to Tulparaju (16,751 feet) over the rock needle, P 5130 (16,831 feet), which lies between them and which I had soloed in 1977. Gunther Gottesheim, Hans Lösch, Hansjörg Jesacher and I did a new route on Tulparaju, the east ridge (UIAA Grade IV). We finally got to our chief objective. We climbed from the Quebrada Hualcán to Lake Rajupakinar and from there traversed slabs and glacier to camp at 17,225 feet. From there two groups climbed Hualcán (20,095 feet). Three of our party on June 14 climbed the crevassed south flank while Gottesheim, Jesacher, Lösch, Helmut Hüttinger and I made the first ascent of the west face of the West Peak (20,026 feet). It took us six hours to climb the 50° to 55° buttress to the western summit and then we continued on in fog to Hualcán’s main summit to descend the south flank.

Kurt Lapuch, Österreichischer Alpenverein