Nomenclature in the Huayhuash. Since the Cordillera Huayhuash was first surveyed in 1927 by the American Geographic Society expedition, confusion over peak names and heights have surfaced. In cases where confusion over peak names exist the AAJ has turned to the ascension record to determine what has prevailed over the years and by which name the peak has generally become known. Transliteration of Quechua to German and English has also added to the confusion. For example, in the case of the prominent peak located midway between Yerupaja and Jirishanca, we have chosen to use the name of Yerupaja Chico (instead of El Toro), as it first appeared on the 1939 Kinzl/Schneider map, and we retain the name of El Toro for Yerupaja Chico’s South Summit, since that name also has a long history of use. Peak heights are more complicated. Until the appearance of new topographic maps at the scales of 1:100,000 and 1:25,000, the 1939 map was the authority on the subject. Jan Kielkowski’s guidebooks, published in the early 1990s, introduced peaks heights that are slightly lower; they are based on IGN maps. Jill Neate, in Mountaineering in the Andes, has generally used the heights published on the 1939 map. The 2002 Alpine Mapping Guild map of the range attempted to resolve this issue by using IGN heights when available and those from other sources when not.

Martin Gamache, Alpine Mapping Guild, AAC