Salcantay, Salkantay or Sallqantay (in

Quechua Quechua may refer to: *Quechua people, several Indigenous ethnic groups in South America, especially in Peru *Quechuan languages, an Indigenous South American language family spoken primarily in the Andes, derived from a common ancestral language ...

) is the highest peak in the

Vilcabamba mountain range The Vilcabamba mountain range is located in the region of Cusco, Peru, in the provinces of Anta, La Convención and Urubamba. It extends between 13°10' and 13°27'S. and 72°30' and 73°15'W for about 85 km.

, part of the

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

vian

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

. It is located in the

Cusco Region Cusco, also spelled Cuzco (; ), is a department and region in Peru and is the fourth-largest department in the country, after Madre de Dios, Ucayali, and Loreto. It borders the departments of Ucayali on the north; Madre de Dios and Puno ...

, about west-northwest of the city of

Cusco Cusco or Cuzco (; or , ) is a city in southeastern Peru, near the Sacred Valley of the Andes mountain range and the Huatanay river. It is the capital of the eponymous Cusco Province, province and Cusco Region, department. The city was the cap ...

. It is the 38th-highest peak in the Andes and the twelfth-highest in Peru. However, as a range highpoint in deeply incised terrain, it is the second most

topographically prominent In topography, prominence or relative height (also referred to as autonomous height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling ...

peak in the country, after

Huascarán Huascarán (), ( Quechua: Waskaran), Nevado Huascarán or Mataraju is a mountain located in Yungay Province, Department of Ancash, Peru. It is situated in the Cordillera Blanca range of the western Andes. The southern summit of Huascarán (Huasc ...

Salcantay's proximity to Machu Picchu makes trekking around it an alternative to the oversubscribed

Inca Trail The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu (also known as ''Camino Inca'' or ''Camino Inka'') is a hiking trail in Peru that terminates at Machu Picchu. It consists of three overlapping trails: ''Mollepata'', ''Classic'', and ''One Day''. ''Mollepata'' is ...

; this is known as the Salkantay trek.

History

The name ''Salkantay'' is from ''sallqa'', a

word meaning wild, uncivilized, savage, or invincible, and was recorded as early as 1583. The name is thus often translated as "Savage Mountain". Directly to the north of Salkantay lies

Machu Picchu Machu Picchu is a 15th-century Inca citadel located in the Eastern Cordillera of southern Peru on a mountain ridge at . Often referred to as the "Lost City of the Incas", it is the most familiar icon of the Inca Empire. It is located in the ...

, which is at the end of a ridge that extends down from this mountain. Viewed from Machu Picchu's main sundial, the

Southern Cross CRUX is a lightweight x86-64 Linux distribution targeted at experienced Linux users and delivered by a tar.gz-based package system with BSD-style initscripts. It is not based on any other Linux distribution. It also utilizes a ports system to ...

is above Salkantay's summit when at its highest point in the sky during the rainy season. The

Inca The Inca Empire, officially known as the Realm of the Four Parts (, ), was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political, and military center of the empire was in the city of Cusco. The History of the Incas, Inca ...

s associated this alignment with concepts of rain and fertility, and considered Salkantay to be one of the principal deities controlling weather and fertility in the region west of Cuzco.

Mountaineering

Salcantay is a large, steep peak with great vertical relief, particularly above the low valleys to the north, which are tributaries of the Amazon River. The standard route on the mountain is the Northeast ridge. Accessing the route typically involves three days of travel from

. The climb involves about of vertical gain, on glaciers, snow, ice, and some rock.

Climbing history

Salcantay was first climbed in 1952 by a French-American expedition comprising Fred D. Ayres, David Michael Jr., John C. Oberlin, W. V. Graham Matthews, Austen F. Riggs,

George Irving Bell George Irving Bell (August 4, 1926 – May 28, 2000) was an American physicist, biologist and mountaineer, and a grandson of John Joseph Seerley.Claude Kogan Claude Kogan (1919–1959) (née Trouillet) was a French mountaineer who, after climbing a number of peaks in South America, turned to the Himalayas. After notable feats such as the first ascent of Nun Kun, Nun (7,135 m (23,409 ft)), she ...

, M. Bernard Pierre, and Jean Guillemin. All except Oberlin, Riggs, and Guillemin reached the summit. Two years later

Fritz Kasparek Fritz Kasparek (3 July 1910 – 6 June 1954) was an Austrian mountaineer who was on the team that made the first successful ascent of the Eiger north face. Kasparek gained his first alpine experiences on the ''Peilstein'' in the Wienerwald and in ...

fell through a cornice near the summit on the NE ridge. On June 17, 2013, Nathan Heald (USA), Thomas Ryan (USA), and Luis Crispin (Peru) made the summit at 10:30 am after nine hours of climbing from a high camp at 5,500 m. on the NE ridge. This made Crispin the first Peruvian climber to summit the mountain. The team took a reading of 6,279 m, S 13° 20.027’, W 72° 32.596’, on a GPS device. On July 31, 2013 a second team led by Nathan Heald (USA), consisting of James Lissy (USA) and Edwin Espinoza Sotelo (Peru) made the summit by the NE ridge. This makes Heald the only person to have summited the mountain twice.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5GR-mkHbOxE
''Barrabes, Revista de Esqui y Montaña'', 3 October 2013 Due to glacial retreat, the route is now calculated to be graded D on the French adjectival scale.

References

;Sources * *

History

Mountaineering

Climbing history

See also

References

Further reading