The major massifs of the Cordillera Vilcabamba were ascended in the 1950s and 1960s. The last of these to be climbed was Nevado Padreyoc (5,771m, 13°22'39"S, 72°44'31"W, a.k.a. Quishuar or Kiswar); Japanese climbers Tetsuju Kawada and Takeshi Rito ascended its north face in 1965. An Australian team repeated the north face climb in 1969, but it had no known ascents since then. While some things have changed—the glacier and, notably, the new dirt road from Santa Teresa to Yanama over Yanama Pass (4,600m)—the massive east and south sides of the mountain remain completely untouched.

In June 2021, Kody Boos, my brother Taylor Heald, Andres Marin, Anna Pfaff, and I teamed up to climb Padreyoc. The northern approach via Yanama Pass seemed to offer the simplest access to the glacier. From Urubamba we drove over Malaga Pass (4,400m) then descended barf-inducing roads through a twisting jungle of thick, humid air, plantations of tea, mango, banana, and coffee, and dogs sunning themselves in the middle of the road. From Santa Teresa (1,500m), we gained altitude rapidly, nervously crossing many landslides from the rainy season. After a few hours, we parked the trucks at a curve just below Yanama Pass and spent the night.

The next morning, we found a cow trail traversing below Puerto de Yanama (5,596m, a.k.a. Quellucocha) and Yanaccacca (5,700m), which extend from Padreyoc’s northwest ridge. After five hours, we found a nice camp (4,800m) a few hundred meters below the receding glacier. We left the tent at 12:15 a.m. on June 26. Half an hour later, we donned crampons and began climbing up and right toward the northwest ridge. After a few hundred meters, crevasses began to block our route. Some of these were totally solid ice, though only 50cm wide, while others were like an icy web veiled in snow. Eventually, we navigated to a broad snowfield below the northwest ridge.

At dawn, the cornices atop the face lit up one by one. Looking northwest, the sharp, difficult-looking Yanaccacca crowned the ridge, with Lasunayoc (5,936m) behind, its summit like a giant ocean wave. We climbed 60° slopes of hard snow well below the crest to avoid any danger of a cornice collapse. Just below the summit, we pulled up under a giant overhanging serac. Around the corner, a final 60° slope led to the wide summit plateau at 9:30 a.m. I climbed up a four-meter-tall cornice to make sure we tagged the highest point (900m, AD+).

Instead of descending our route on the northwest ridge, we decided to rappel straight down the north face and rejoin our tracks near the crevasse field. It was careful work remembering which bridges we crossed. Once out of the danger zone, Anna and Andres went ahead at a faster pace while I stayed with Taylor and Kody. We made it back to our tents around 4 p.m. The next morning, we hiked down to the trucks and then relaxed in the sleepy town of Santa Teresa.

— Nathan Heald, Peru