Cordillera Vilcanota. Sue Tatum and I walked in a day and a half from Aguas Calientes to the head of the Quebrada Palca in the Nudo de Vilcanota, passing several small mines and arriving at Quilcaqocha. (See Hoja Macari, survey 1938, and Hoja Sicuani, survey 1939-40, 1:200,000, IGM, Lima.) From the pass north-northeast of Quilcaqocha on May 4 I climbed two of the several summits of Quilcapata solo. I started with the snowy east ridge of the lowest (c. 5415 meters or 17,766 feet) and continued up the western face of the higher (c. 5430 meters or 17,815 feet; these are comparisons with map heights for neighboring peaks). On May 5 we climbed the southernmost of three minor snowy points between Quilcapataqasa (qasa=pass) and P 5468 on the heavily glaciated south side of the massif. (The highest would probably be P 5408 of Hoja Sicuani.) On the 6th, exploiting the nearly dry north sides of the mountains, it was easy to make a solo ascent of the long west ridge of P 5468 (17,940 feet), the highest in the massif. The map calls it Chinchina. However on the south side of the Quebrada Chaca Chaca basin there is another Chinchina (Hoja Macari), P 5424. This doubtless came about by campesinos referring in time-honored fashion to mountains at the head of the valley with a 180° sweep of the hand, leaving us with two Chinchinas. The one I climbed is called Majuriti by the locals at Quilcaqocha. We left the region via the Hacienda Queggra (more correctly K’ejra*), joining a mining road not indicated on the map which took us back to the main valley. P 5443, the second highest peak of the group was called Tanua in this valley and smaller peaks to the north and a lake were called Ccoti.

John Ricker

*In the Quechua of southern Peru there are certain sounds which can not be reproduced by Spanish orthography: cc=glottalized hard c (occasionally written as kk; k' (c')=aspirated hard c; q=post-velar hard c.