(A) Huayna Cuno Collo (5,640m). (B) Huallatani or Huayna Cuno Collo East (ca 5,600m). (C) Coricampana (5,550m) and route of 2019 ascent. (D) Anco Collo (5,460m). (E) San Luis (5,620m). Photo by Roman Siegl

Jeff Sandifort (a guide with Climbing South America), my wife Dagmar, and I spent five days during August in the southern Quimsa Cruz. We had hoped to first visit the Santa Vera Cruz Massif, further southeast, but the final section of road to our planned camp was not passable due to numerous landslides.

We then drove to the Huallatani Valley, accessible by 4WD from the Konani-Quime road via Rodeo. At the ruins of miners’ houses, about 100m above the northwest tip of Lake Huallatani, there is another tiny lake, and there we established base camp at 5,050m. The end of the valley is framed by Huayna Cuno Collo to the north and San Luis to the southeast, with three other peaks in between. We decided to climb the unnamed peak on the IGM map at 16.9866889°S, 67.3374281°W, lying at the end of the east ridge of Huayna Cuno Collo.

On August 25, Jeff and I reached the Huallatani Glacier via a narrow gully at the northern end of the valley and followed it to a col at its head, four hours from camp. On the far side a rocky face fell very steeply toward the valley to the northeast.

Above lay the south face of our unnamed peak. We crossed the bergschrund and Jeff led two 60m pitches (55° and 50°, with snow stake belays) on good hard snow, to a point close to the summit. The ridge to the summit appeared corniced, but turned out to be a narrow band of rock. There was no cairn on the top, so we built one. Our altimeter recorded 5,550m, and the overall ascent had been AD-. We descended to the col, retrieved our cached rucksacks, and went down to base camp, where our Aymara cook Valeria was waiting with a delicious dinner. There has been considerable glacier retreat in this area, as shown in the accompanying photos.

– Roman Siegl, Czech Republic

Earlier Ascents: After discussion with climbing historian Evelio Echevarria, it is most likely this peak is Cerro Coricampana (a.k.a. Coricampana Alto, approximately 5,500m). The peak’s name is a hybrid: “cori” is Aymara for golden, and “campana” is Spanish for bell; on some maps a lake in the valley east of this peak is named Laguna Khori Campana). This peak was climbed in 1926 by Dr. Friedrich Ahlfeld, a celebrated geologist, explorer of Bolivia, and founder of the Club Andino Boliviano, together with L. Partmuss and Robert Gerstmann, a well-known German photographer from that era. Photos from that trip show it’s likely they climbed from the Huallatani Glacier, as did the 2019 team.

In May 1991, Evelio Echevarria attempted the peak from the mining community of Bajaderias in the valley to the northeast, but did not find snow, only very steep, rotten rock. He retreated 200m from the summit. Echevarria went on to climb Huayna Cuno Collo East, a.k.a. Huallatani (5,620m) from the north. His motivation for reaching the summit of Cerro Coricampana was to see if he could discover documents that were supposedly left by Ahlfeld on top.