Panorama Photo

Who are those wonderful mountains that sometimes appear in the SW, I was thinking during the last days of the Alpamayo - Santa Cruz trek. While there, I did not realize how far and how high they were. In particular, I did not recognize the Huascaran, which from this side looks so different from its known aspect from Huaraz. But my attention was fully captured by that incredible two-summit mountain, a sort of Schreckhorn with a dramatically improved Lauteraarhorn nearby.
Only later, after crossing the Llanganuco and seeing sceneries like the one portrayed in N.26027, I had everything clear. That was the Chacraraju, literally, the "mountain similar to a ploughed field", by far the most difficult of all the 6000 m summits in the Andes.
As I learnt later at home, this double mountain is tightly bound with the name of a single mountaineer: Lionel Terray. The climbing parabola of this man developed for 18 years, from the second ascent of the Eigerwand in 1947, until a fatal fall in the Vercors.
In 1950, together with Rébuffat, he saved the lives of Herzog and Lachenal, who were returning badly frostbitten from the summit of the newly-conquered Annapurna.
In 1952 he was in the party of Guido Magnone which realized the first ascent of the Fitz Roy in Patagonia. Then, instead of going home, he continued northwards across the Andes, also summiting the Aconcagua, and then joining in Peru two Dutch guys who were his usual clients. He guided them to a first ascent of the Huantsan, highest summit of the southern Cordillera Blanca - find it, equally impressive, either in N.26195 or in N.26074.
In 1955 he was one of the first two men to stand on the top of Makalu, 8463 m. In the reconnaissance of the previous autumn he had also secretly performed a secret first climb of the nearby Chomo Lonzo, 7804 m.
In the Huantsan adventure of 1952 he had been enchanted by the Peruvian mountains, so he was delighted when in 1956 his two favourite clients employed him as a guide for two ascents in the region of Cuzco. But, when the Dutch clients went home, he joined a team of other professional French climbers to attempt what, since the time of the Huantsan, had become his main dream, namely Chacraraju. They we able to climb the highest, West summit, but it was there that Terray developed a new dream, that of ascending the East summit, who looked even more challenging (still today it is rated ED+).
So, in 1962, after co-leading the first ascent to the 7710 m Jannu, the most difficult Himalayan peak climbed at the time, he was back to Peru, together with Guido Magnone, to conquer the "impossible summit", which required no less than 2000 metres of fixed rope.
Then, in 1964, came the conquest of the rock and ice pyramid of Mount Huntigton, in Alaska, before the death in the "innocuous" Vercors.

Position: -8.91780 -77.55399
Larger: https://bit.ly/33a5YUx