Elqui Valley and Los Corrales Valley, first ascents. In the upper Elqui Valley and on the Chilean-Argentinean border east of the town of Vicuna there seems to be a number of unclimbed mountains, all rising above very arid plains and valleys. The finest mountain in this district, the glaciated Nevado del Tapado (5,347m), was ascended in late September by Jorge Quinteros (Santiago), who was accompanying several foreign glaciologists. Earlier, in March, I made the first ascent of Peak 5,192m, which I christened Cerro Bachmann, after Walter Bachmann, the first mountaineer to explore and climb in the Elqui district (1953). The same day I descended to the Argentinean side and ascended Peak 5,163, which I named Cerro Olascoaga, after José M. Olascoaga, an Argentinean surveyor and mountaineer of the 1880s.

Evelio Echevarria, AAC