Nevado Veronica East Face, Cordillera Urubamba, Cusco

A few years ago in September 2021, a swiss client and I had an adventure on Nevado Veronica east face that joined the normal route at the shoulder of the NE ridge around 5,500m. At the time I thought to go up the ice directly on the east face, but my client wanted to finish on the normal NE ridge route so we went there. https://publications.americanalpineclub.org/articles/13201216176

Humberto R. a young Bolivian who lives in Lima, had contacted me to climb Nevado Veronica as a good next step in his progression as a mountaineer. Humberto was open to trying this line on Nevado Veronica East face I had spotted in 2021. My local friend Leo Rosalio (Lasunayoc, Nov. 2022) also had some free time so I asked him if he wanted to help me port and cook and climb!

At the end of April 2023, we made it to the same camp as in 2021, and spent a day ice climbing.

On April 29th, 2023 on Nevado Veronica East Face

we left at midnight and made our way up onto the glacier. Instead of going through the broken lower glacier we were able to get into a ramp and then in a chute that got us onto the upper glacier below the final headwall on the east face.

We warmed up at dawn and began the final headwall in the sun with great snow conditions.

From below the top out looked straightforward, but a hidden bergschrund cut off the summit slopes. I explored out north but the huge seracs hung over an abyss.

We followed the schrund south and rounded a corner that brought us to the final summit slopes with no further difficulties but deep snow that slowed us down for a while.

At noon we enjoyed the summit for a while since it wasn’t cold, but the clouds had rolled in and covered the surrounding mountains.

We descended the upper NE ridge to the glacier at 5,500m, but it was slow going and we arrived back at our tracks at dusk and turned our headlamps back on.

The rest of the descent in the dark was slow and tiring but we made good anchors and arrived back to camp at 11:30pm. The next day we descended back to the road without incident and were home in Urubamba by the afternoon!