Peru Climbing Expeditions & Mountaineering Courses

Good acclimatisation matters before you attempt any climb in the Cordillera Blanca. You are sleeping and climbing above 5,000m, which is demanding and tiring for the body, and without enough time to adjust you risk altitude sickness or a complete loss of energy that ends the climb early.

We always recommend an acclimatisation trek of at least 4 days before you set off to climb, and we are happy to plan a programme around you with day hikes built in. For 6,000m or technical peaks like Alpamayo, we add a "warm-up" climb of a 5,000m peak to build strength and adjust further before the main objective.

Glaciers in the Andes are retreating fast — some peaks climbed thirty years ago have disappeared entirely. Conditions on the ice change every year, and even every month, so route descriptions are general only and many printed guidebooks are already out of date on crevasse hazards and approaches.

Our UIAGM guides read the mountain in the field, and we build our programmes with room to adapt: we will change a section or a high-camp plan when conditions ask for it, because safety always comes before keeping to a fixed line on paper. The best weather is usually May to September, though high-mountain weather is volatile and can turn at any time.

At base camp you have a cook, a dining tent with tables and chairs, a toilet tent, and full meals prepared with fresh produce — the same care you would find on any of our treks. Donkeys carry the heavy loads up to base camp on most mountains, so you walk in with a light daypack.

Where we use high camps, porters carry the tents, climbing rope, equipment and food, but you carry your own sleeping bag, mattress, personal clothes and climbing gear. You can hire a private porter if you would rather not. To keep the ice clean, we carry all human waste back down from the high camps using poo tubes — nothing is left on the glacier.