Huascaran Sur – Peru Highpoint

Huascaran Sur – Peru Highpoint

July 27, 2026
Eric Gilbertson, Nate Heald

Survey results: 6754.9m +/-0.1m EGM2008
Summit has melted down 1.8m since 2017

I’ve now climbed all 35 country highpoints of the Americas, the first person to complete this list.

July 18 – flight to Huaraz, drive to 4700m pass, sleep at 4400m
July 19 – attempt Pisco Peak, turned around by guard, hike to lago 69 instead, 4600m, sleep in Huaraz, 3100m
July 20 – rest day in Huaraz
July 21 – rest day in Huaraz
July 22 – Heli to Huascaran refugio, cache gear at 4900m, sleep at refugio 4600m
July 23 – move cache to camp 1 5300m, sleep at refugio
July 24 – sleep at camp 1 5300m
July 25 – bad weather, descend to refugio
July 26 – move to camp 1, start summit push 10pm
July 27 – summit, descend to camp 1 by 10pm
July 28 – hike down to Musho

In 2015 Matthew and I finished climbing all the North America country highpoints, and a next logical project was the South America country highpoints. However, the project was complicated because Venezuela was essentially off limits to Americans for political reasons starting around then. That meant the Venezuela highpoint and Guyana highpoint (accessed from the Venezuela side) were not possible.

Over the ensuing years I climbed the other South America highpoints, but left out Venezuela, Guyana, and Peru. In January, 2026 the US captured the Venuzuelan president Maduro, and by late March Venezuela had started issuing tourist visas for Americans.

So I decided to try to finish off my last three South America countries during my summer break, before the situation changed. Peru would be the crux, and I would save that for last to hit the ideal weather time of year (late July) and to let the other two peaks help me with acclimation. By July 18 I’d finished climbing the Guyana and Venezuela highpoints and flew to Peru.

Huascaran used to be a relatively straightforward mountain, consisting of standard glacier travel on non-technical terrain with minimal objective hazards. The main challenge was the altitude, over 6700m.

Before 2008 any independent climbers could attempt Huascaran as long as they bought a national park pass. In 2008 Huascaran National Park implemented a new rule that required all climbers to go with a local guide to climb any peak in the park. After an outcry from many mountaineering clubs, the rule was modified so that if you showed a mountaineering club membership card (like an American Alpine Club card), then you didn’t need a guide.

Starting around 2018 Huascaran began changing drastically due to global warming. The lower part of the normal route between camps 1 and 2 had many crevasses open up and icefall in the garganta section became very dangerous. Some subsequent years the normal route was essentially impassable due to open crevasses, and the only groups that summitted did so by climbing one of the more technical variations, the Scientists Route or the Escudo. But those have also been difficult to access due to opening crevasses, and also subject to increased icefall risk.

In early July 2026 groups started making the summit and it appeared this year there happened to be a feasible route through the crevasses. The guide requirements seemed to have changed, though, in 2026. Climbers posted pictures of trailhead signs that now said a guide is required for climbing any peak in the park. It appeared that merely showing an AAC membership card was no longer sufficient.

I planned to climb with Jared, and Jared recommended we climb with his friend Nate, who is a climbing guide in Peru. Jared had previously attempted Huascaran with Nate in 2022, but they had to turn around in bad weather and sketchy icefall conditions. Nate is one of the strongest climbers in Peru and has climbed most of the 6000m peaks in the country, putting up over 30 new routes. So this sounded like a good plan to me and we would certainly be allowed on the mountain with Nate as our guide.

Ideally I wanted to acclimate in advance by climbing a 6000m peak, then resting in Huaraz. Then we could try for a quick ascent of Huascaran. John Biggar had told me that two 6000m peaks nearby, Tocllaraju and Artesonraju, were in need of a good survey to see if they were really over 6000m. So I originally thought to climb one of those. The summitpost descriptions made them each seem reasonably easy. However, once I got to Peru and talked to other climbers I learned how much all the peaks have changed in the past ten years due to global warming. Both peaks were now much more technical. Several climbers had just died on Tocllaraju and nobody was guiding it anymore.

My goal for the acclimation peak was an easy climb with near-guaranteed success, since my primary objective was really Huascaran. So we instead decided to climb the 5700m peak Pisco, which is considered one of the easiest peaks near 6000m. Other groups use this to acclimate for Huascaran and it seemed just about high enough to work.

Nate thought we could do that without anyone checking that we had a guide, so we decided to give it a shot. On the night of July 18, Jared, Rein, and I drove up to a 4700m pass between Pisco and Huascaran then found a pullout on the other side at 4400m to sleep. I’d already climbed to around 5000m in Venezuela a few days earlier, and Jared and Rein had already driven to nearly 5000m recently, so we had a head start on acclimation.

July 19
The next morning we packed up and drove back over the pass to the Pisco trailhead. There were a bunch of cars and vans parked there since it’s also the trailhead to the popular Laguna 69 hike.

We started down the trail, but soon encountered a gate and a guard station near a bridge. The guard asked for our guide documents. I showed him my AAC card but he pushed it away and said no. He said we could not pass without an authorized guide. We tried to argue and offered him a bribe but he wouldn’t take it.

We called up Nate and we couldn’t figure out any way around it. It was too last minute to arrange a guide to go with us. There was another development, though. Apparently on July 15 a team of three climbers had gone missing on Huascaran and rescue teams were up looking for them. The family of one of the climbers had contacted Nate and asked him to lead a rescue team up.

We offered to join him for the rescue mission as volunteers. So the new plan was to go directly to Huascaran to help with the mission. We no longer had time to acclimate on any peak in advance. We’d just try to do a few rotations on Huascaran and go up.

We drove back to Huaraz that night.

July 20
The next day we learned more details about the events. On July 14 a team of three Peruvians and a team of two Czech climbers had climbed up the Escudo route on Huascaran. The Czech team was faster and reached the summit, then tried to descend the normal route. The Peruvian team skipped the summit and cut across directly towards the normal route.

During the descent a whiteout set in and the Czech team got off route to the east. One climber fell in a crevasse near the summit and nearly dragged the other in also. But the climber arrested the fall a few meters from the lip of the crevasse, and the other was able to climb out.

Lower on the mountain around 6400m they encountered a large overhanging crevasse and rapped down past it, then met back up with the normal route and hiked down to camp 1.

Meanwhile, the three Peruvians got lost in the whiteout above. The Czech team texted them a GPS track of their route to follow down. However, the Peruvian team was not able to locate the rap anchor, and did not set one of their own. Instead, they encountered the large crevasse and started traversing to the east.

Darkness set in and they likely decided to bivy and wait until sunrise to continue. On July 15 in the morning they found a snow bridge across the crevasse and tried to cross. However, it broke and dragged them all into a 100m deep crevasse at 6400m.

By the night of the 14th word had gotten out that the climbers were missing, and other climbers raced up to help. One group left Musho at 2am July 15 and hiked straight up to Camp 2. Other groups were supposed to be helping support by bringing food and supplies to camp 2.

However, the rescue was not well-organized and the support team did not show up. So the rescue team could not make it up above camp 2 to the scene of the fall.

Other climbing teams were still moving up on their summit pushes, including a three-person team on July 16 consisting of a guide, porter, and client. As this team was climbing up through the garganta a serac released. The guide ducked behind a wall, but the porter and client were hit. The client was badly injured and the porter was killed.

On this day the family of the missing climbers paid for a team of police officers trained in mountaineering rescue to be helicoptered up to the Huascaran Refugio at 4600m. Also, the guide association was organizing guides on the mountain to help with the rescue.

During the helicopter transfer, one of the two police helicopters was damaged and was left on the helipad at the refugio, inoperative. The other still worked, but could only fly up to 4600m and no higher. So it could shuttle people to the refugio but unfortunately could not directly transport rescuers to the accident scene.

Unfortunately there was friction between the police and guides, and eventually the guides all left the mountain without reaching the accident scene. The police were not sufficiently trained to climb into the technical terrain above camp 1.

Because of the death of the porter between camp 1 and camp 2, it was decided that only rescuers or police should be allowed on the mountain. So on July 20, the police issued a statement that it was recommended that no climbers enter the area between camp 1 and camp 2 for the next 15 days. It’s not clear why this area was targeted, when the accident happened at 6400m, well above camp 2.

Note: the media misrepresented this statement as saying the mountain was closed. In fact, the official order only *recommended* climbers avoid the area between camp 1 and camp 2. It did not prohibit entry to this area or any other area.

The association of porters then recommended that no porters go to the mountain since it was too risky.

The result of this was that the mountain was essentially empty above camp 1 by July 21. And the missing climbers had still not been located six days after the accident.

The police had drones that they flew up to take footage near the accident scene, but the drones were limited by altitude and by the fact that the police could only operate them from up to camp 1 and no higher. They needed line of sight to see the drones, so the drones couldn’t get as close as needed to the accident scene.

The family independently contracted and paid a team of three climbers to go up during this time, and on July 21 the team was able to hike to near the point where the accident happened and take pictures. It was too risky for them to rappel into the crevasse, though, and they didn’t have a drone for more detailed footage. They couldn’t find evidence of the missing climbers, but also weren’t able to see all possible areas without a drone.

On July 21 we discussed with the family that we could go up with a drone to the accident scene and film as much as possible to look for evidence of what happened. If anyone was alive we would try to rescue them, but chances were slim so long after the accident. We said we would just volunteer and didn’t need any payment. If we could tag the summit on the side that would be sufficient payment. They agreed that was fine. It appeared nobody else wanted to go up, even if paid, so we were the last ones who wanted to help.

July 22
We took a taxi to Carhuaz by sunrise and met the police and the family. We then loaded gear into the helicopter. All the seats were removed and it could take at most two passengers at a time.

Nate and I got in first and had a fun ride up to the refugio at 4600m in just 7 minutes. There we met Daniel, who had made it to the accident scene the day before. He showed us all his pictures and gave all the beta needed to get to the scene.

The helicopter then took some police down, and shuttled Jared and our remaining gear up. We then hiked our gear the short distance up to the refugio and started organizing.

If we had been allowed to climb Pisco earlier, we would have been acclimated enough to start directly up Huascaran. But since we had been turned around by the guard, we were not acclimated. That new rule requiring guides on Pisco was really detrimental to the search and rescue effort.

To acclimate for 6700m we would instead have to make a few rotations on the lower route of Huascaran. In theory, we could tag 6000m on the Huascaran route, then do a Russian rest at the refugio, then move up. However, in practice that was not practical. The route above camp 1 above 5300m is very dangerous with icefall. That’s where the porter got killed a few days earlier. So at most we wanted to move through that just once. That meant we could tag just 5300m at the highest before the summit push.

It would be possible to bring overnight gear up and camp a night at camp 2 at 6000m before pushing for the summit. However, that was also risky. That would require carrying more gear above camp 1, which meant moving slower through the garganta and being in the danger zone longer. Ideally we wanted to make a summit push directly up from camp 1 and back to move as fast as possible through the danger zone.

With all these constraints the best plan we had was to try to do a few rotations to camp 1, sleep there to get very well acclimated to 5300m, then hope that was sufficient to tag 6700m.

Nate had already been climbing a bunch of 6000m peaks recently, including putting up a new route on Hualcon the previous week, so he was very well acclimated. Jared and I were not, though.

Generally when I climb high altitude peaks I tag an elevation within 700m elevation of the summit, then go down to basecamp for a Russian rest. Then I’m sufficiently acclimated to tag the summit. That worked well for all the 7000m snow leopard peaks and 8000m peaks like K2 and Broad. This time, though, I’d basically be off by a factor of two, only tagging an elevation 1400m below the summit before taking a half Russian rest (the refugio is not as low as I’d like), then going for the summit.

I didn’t have any data to know if this could work, but I decided to give it a try. That day we moved a cache of gear up to the edge of the glacier at 4900m, then descended back to the refugio to sleep.

July 23
The next morning we carried our remaining gear up to the edge of the glacier, then picked up our cache and moved it all to camp 1 at 5300m. That area is the last safe place before getting into the icefall danger area. The west face of Huascaran is full of loose seracs that can fall off at random times. So it’s important to put camp far from those.

We set up the tent and sleeping bags, then descended back to the refuge. We were climbing high and sleeping low as much as possible.

July 24
We moved up the next day to camp 1 and I was feeling pretty well-acclimated. That afternoon we tried to rest in the tent in preparation for a 10pm start.

Our weather forecast had been for light snow showers clearing by evening, then a clear night and clear morning the next day. However, we were in a super El Nino event, where weather in Peru is notoriously difficult to predict.

By noon it started snowing, and didn’t let up all evening. The mountain was stuck in a whiteout above us, and navigation would be impossible.

We kept sleeping though the night, and the next morning it was still snowing.

July 25
We decided to leave all our supplies at camp and descend back to the refuge to wait out the storm. Luckily we all had enough buffer time in our schedules to wait for better conditions.

We went light back to the refuge and loaded up on a good lunch and dinner. We then got a good night’s sleep.

July 26

The next day was sunny with a good forecast moving forward. So we hiked back up to camp 1 with additional food. Jared wasn’t feeling well and went back to the refuge, so it would be me and Nate for the summit push.

About 8-12 inches of snow had fallen, which was both good and bad. It had unfortunately covered all the previous existing tracks, meaning we’d have to both route find and break trail. That was bad. However, it had also blanketed the seracs, slightly melted in the sun, then refroze. This would likely hold the seracs in place and reduce icefall risk while we were passing through the garganta. That was great.

We got the GPS track from the Czech team and a bunch of pictures from Daniel to help us with the route.

That afternoon we took a nap, then got up in the evening, ate some ramen noodles, and started up at 10pm. Our goal was to hit the summit at sunrise, then once there was enough light we’d reach the accident scene and fly the drone around. Then we’d return to camp 1 to sleep.

I took the lead to start. It was a little tricky route finding while breaking trail in the dark, but luckily the full moon was out to help. I had to weave around and jump over a few crevasses, and occasionally found slight traces of the old route.

At one point I reached an enormous crevasse and the route appeared to go straight across. Nate took over there and descended on a narrow snow bridge, then we ice climbed up a wall on the other side.

Beyond there we crossed below a serac fall area, but the route dead ended at a crevasse too big to jump. It appeared it had opened up a lot just in the past few days! Luckily we found an alternative route tiptoeing over some icefall debris that had clogged a different part of the crevasse. It was sketchy and we hustled through the danger zone under the icefall.

I then led the way up a steep face, then traversed to a short step. We climbed up a 10ft vertical WI3 step, crossed another sketchy crevasse we had to jump, then reached the garganta.

In this area we had to move fast from safe zone to safe zone. We basically simulclimbed up three pitches of WI2-3 ice as quickly as possible, and luckily no ice chunks fell. I was happy to not have an overnight pack there.

We then cut left up one more steep snow slope, and reached the bench that leads to camp 2. I led the way traversing and breaking trail. We still had to move fast because that whole traverse is also below unstable seracs, with debris strewn over the route. Nate took over near the end up a steep and deep face, and I regretted not bringing my ascent plates. They would have made things way easier.

On the top I took over and we soon made it to camp 2 at 6000m. It had taken around 4 hours, since we were moving slow breaking trail and route finding. I think two hours would be normal if following a broken trail.

The camp was windy and on a side slope above a crevasse. It did not seem like a pleasant place to hang out. We hiked over towards the north summit before finding a place where the crevasses pinched off. Then we made a hairpin turn back towards the south summit.

At the edge of the col we started up a steep icy slope that leveled out at a few sketchy snow bridges. We belayed each other across those, then front pointed up the next slope using our tools as dagger placements.

At the top of this slope we crossed a snow bridge to a small sloping ledge above a crevasse. Here will built an anchor and I belayed Nate across an ice slope. Above me the slope appeared to be like a house of cards of ice chunks frozen together, and each time Nate swung his tool I could feel the ice above me flex and creak. It was not confidence-inspiring, and I breathed a sigh of relief when he rounded the corner and put some distance between us.

I climbed the ice and then we reached an interesting ledge feature. There was a huge 100ft vertical ice wall to our right, a cliff to the left, and a narrow ice ramp going along the wall up and left. We simulclimbed the ramp putting occasional screws in, then reached a big snow ledge around 6100m. Just then the sun was rising and Huascaran north was very colorful.

A short ways along the wide snow ledge we reached the top of the ice wall and a mellow slope opened above. At about this elevation I noticed my energy level plummeted and I could barely take three steps before needing to rest. This was 800m above my highest previous point, so above the magic 700m number I expected to be acclimated to.

It was pretty clear I was no longer acclimated, and could not move fast. I tried forcing food down but it was challenging, which is consistent with me not being acclimated.

Nate continued leading and I tried my best to keep up, but it wasn’t pretty. I felt terrible for being the slow poke but there was nothing I could do about it.

We made slow and steady progress, and eventually found the place where Daniel’s tracks diverged left. We continued up towards the summit, and would check out that spot on the way down.

Higher up I tried taking over trail breaking briefly to be a little helpful, but I was too slow for it to make sense. So Nate broke trail from about 6500m up. At one point near 6600m we encountered a very thin snow bridge, and crawled across on belay to distribute our weight.

After many false summits we at last reached the summit at 11am. Amazingly there was no wind and the skies were clear with excellent views. I was partly surprised I’d made it. Maybe all my pressure breathing had helped, since at least I didn’t have a headache. But that had made me very dehydrated.

I quickly mounted my Trimble DA2 on a tripod and started logging data. We rested for 30 minutes and I forced down as much food as possible. I verified with my sight level that Huascaran Norte was indeed shorter. Some maps label it the same height as Huascaran Sur, but that is incorrect.

By 1130am we started down, and made much faster progress. We crawled back over the sketchy snow bridge and downclimbed back to near the accident zone. The wind was still low and Nate flew his drone around the zone to capture all possible angles. He didn’t see any additional evidence, and it appears the crevasse the team fell in was extremely deep. Too deep to even see the bottom from the drone.

There wasn’t much more we could do and it would not be safe to try to rap into that bottomless crevasse. Nate called the family and gave them an update and then we started down.

We downclimbed some steep sections and rapped others on picket anchors. At the ice wall we rapped on a v-thread anchor then downclimbed back to the col.

By the time we reached camp 2 it was 5 pm, and luckily not windy. I was pretty dehydrated, so we took a break to melt snow and watch the sunset. It was also smart to wait until darkness to descend the garganta when it would be more frozen up and stable.

By sunset we started again, and hustled through the serac zone to the garganta. There we made four quick rappels and then were through the danger zone. We didn’t hear any debris fall, which was great.

We jumped the sketchy crevasse below the garganta, then rapped off a picket down the 10ft step. We then downclimbed and hustled across the last major icefall zone and tiptoed across the last sketchy snow bridge.

At the big crevasse we had to descend into there was no existing rap anchor and the snow was too icy for a picket anchor, but too aerated for a solid v-thread. We took a while trying to figure out what to do, but finally Nate found a stronger patch of ice and made a v-thread anchor there to rap off.

We then climbed out of the crevasse and followed our tracks back to camp by 10pm for a solid 24-hr push. I had taken a few Dex pills on the descent so I could hustle through the icefall zones without losing my breath. Back at camp, though, I found myself hyperventilating and not able to get my respiration rate down.

At first I decided to just pack up and hike down to the refugio, or worse hike down to Musho. But Nate convinced my to try to relax and I eventually got my respiration rate down. I think this was a side effect of taking several Dex pills, that respiration rate goes up when resting and leads to hyperventilation. Ideally I would have just gotten myself properly acclimated before going for the summit, but that hadn’t really been possible.

I was too lazy to cook dinner so just skipped it and went to bed.

July 28
We hiked down the next morning to the refuge and reported our findings to the police. Jared and Rein were there, and a donkey guy with two donkeys had hiked up to meet us.

We loaded up the donkeys, then hiked a few hours down to Musho. We then drove to Carhuaz and talked to the police there about our findings. We then drove back to Huaraz for the night.

I processed the summit measurements and found Huascaran Sur is 6754.9m +/-0.1m EGM2008. This means Huascaran has melted down 1.8m since the last GNSS measurement taken in 2017. So Huascaran is melting down on average 0.2m per year.

With this climb I’m now finished climbing all 35 country highpoints of the Americas (23 countries in North America and 12 in South America). I’m the first person to complete this list, and it took 16 years, starting on Denali in 2010.

© 2026, egilbert@alum.mit.edu. All rights reserved.