Taken from Mountaineering in the Andes by Jill Neate Peru RGS-IBG Expedition Advisory Centre, 2Nd Edition, May 1994
Taken from Mountaineering in the Andes by Jill Neate Peru RGS-IBG Expedition Advisory Centre, 2nd edition, May 1994 PERU The Andes of Peru form one of the world’s great mountain playgrounds, visited by many hundreds of climbers from all around the world during the past sixty years. They are very extensive, comprising twenty or more separately identifiable ranges, and are thought by many to offer a very good alternative to climbing in the Himalaya. The finest are the Cordilleras Blanca, Huayhuash, Vilcabamba and Vilcanota. Roughly speaking, north of the central Peruvian mining town of Cerro de Pasco the Peruvian Andes are made up of three parallel cordilleras (Occidental, Central and Oriental), separated by the Marañon and Huallaga rivers. The Blanca and Huayhuash ranges are situated in the Cordillera Occidental which is the only one of significance to mountaineers in this sector of Peru. South of Cerro de Pasco the Andes continue as two distinct cordilleras, the Occidental near the Pacific coast, and the Oriental on the fringe of the Amazon jungle. They are separated by an elevated and arid plateau, broken up by various depressions, the largest of which contains Lake Titicaca astride the Peru-Bolivia border. In southern Peru the finest peaks are situated, almost without exception, in the Cordillera Oriental, principally in the Vilcabamba-Urubamba and Vilcanota ranges. Although isolated climbs were made by the Incas, the Spanish conquistadores and others, including several attempts on Peru’s highest peak Huascarán in the first decade of the twentieth century, Peru’s mountaineering history really dates from 1932, when the first of three D.™.A.V.
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