Alpamayo

A 5,947-metre peak in the Cordillera Blanca of Peru, distinguished by its near-perfect pyramidal shape and the fluted ice formations that cover every face. Alpamayo was voted the most beautiful mountain in the world by a survey of mountaineers conducted by the German magazine Alpinismus in 1966. The result has been disputed — Cerro Torre has the same reputation, and so do several Himalayan peaks — but the photographic record makes the case clear. Alpamayo is, at minimum, one of the most photogenic mountains on Earth.

The first ascent was made in 1957 by a German expedition. Günther Hauser, Frieder Knauss, Bernhard Huhn, and Horst Wiedmann reached the summit via the North Ridge — not the route now considered standard, which was first climbed by a Peruvian-Italian team in 1975 via the Southwest Face. The Southwest Face route is now the most-climbed line on the mountain, and it is the route responsible for the iconic photographs. The climb involves sustained 60-to-70-degree ice climbing through the fluted formations, with the route weaving between flutes for protection from rockfall and serac collapse.

The technical difficulty of the standard route is significant — comparable to the harder Mont Blanc routes at 6,000 metres of altitude. The fatality rate has been moderate, with most accidents resulting from ice collapses on the upper face during periods of warming. Alpamayo is climbed in the main Andean season from May to September, when the snow conditions are most stable.

What separates Alpamayo from other Cordillera Blanca peaks is the architectural quality of the route itself. Climbers who summit Alpamayo describe the climbing — the actual experience of moving up the mountain — as some of the best ice climbing they have done anywhere in the world. The aesthetic of the mountain, in this case, is not separable from the climbing. The lines that look most striking from below are the lines that climb best.