South America, Bolivia, Ancohuma, West Face, and Other Peaks, Cordillera Real

Publication Year: 1980.

Ancohuma, West Face, and Other Peaks, Cordillera Real. As training for a Himalayan expedition to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Club Andino Bariloche, we organized this expedition to Bolivia. The climbers were Pablo Hülskamp, Alejandro Robert, Hernán Abeledol, Gustavo Glickman, Daniel Sagalovsky, Marcelo Stucky, Ricardo Markous and I as leader. After a reconnaissance in a Bolivian Air Force plane, we divided into two groups. Hülskamp, Sagalovsky, Glickman and I entered the region west of Ancohuma. On July 28 we four made a route, involving very steep ice on Haucaña (20,360 feet), the south ridge and east face. (First ascent by South Africans. See A.A.J., 1975, p. 177.) Hülskamp and I made a new route on Ancohuma (21,096 feet). We climbed the difficult west glacier with hanging séracs and steep ice, taking three days. We climbed over P 6100* (20,013 feet) by its west face on August 3 and continued on up the west face of Ancohuma that same day. On August 4 we two made the first ascent of P 5800* (19,029 feet; 2 kms southwest of Ancohuma and 2 kms northwest of Haucaña) from the southwest. The other group climbed east of Illampu, entering the region through Coocó. On August 1 Stucky and Robert climbed P 5000 (16,404 feet; 4 kms east of Illampu). This was a peak of rotten rock. On August 10 I climbed Huayna Potosí (19,992 feet) solo.

Alberto Mario Serrano, M.D., Club Andino Bariloche

*This region appears on the excellent map, The Northern Cordillera Real, by Erwin Hein and Carl Troll, published in Berlin in 1935 from data obtained on their expedition of 1928. Hein and Troll give two peaks as of 5962 and 5782 meters (19,560 and 18,970 feet), which seem to be the two peaks climbed by the Argentines.—Evelio Echevarría.