Word: salcantay
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Alberse was in Peru when Correspondent Tom Loayza was getting the story on Swiss Mountain Climber Marcus Broennimann and his conquest of formidable Salcantay (TIME, July 28). Loayza, in Lima, had an assistant stationed closer to the scene at Cuzco, two hours from Lima by plane. Loayza was trying to get a picture which another mountain climber had taken of Broennimann on the mountaintop. Loayza tried to phone Cuzco. waited six hours to get a call through. Then his assistant had to travel 60 miles along mountain roads to a farm where Broennimann was resting with injuries he suffered during...
Last week, while the big parties were still flexing their muscles, Lima learned that two Swiss mountaineers, traveling light, had grabbed off the honors for the first ascent of Salcantay...
...Dash Up. Getting ready for Salcantay, blond Marcus Broennimann, 28, a mining engineer, and leathery Felix Marx, 48, a foundry technician, bought 1,600 ft. of rope, feather-lined suits, three tents, sleeping bags, canned milk, chocolate, dried fruit and special concentrated food. At the mountain city of Huancayo, they loaded the gear and Broennimann's plump bride Susan into a pickup truck, and drove 530 miles to ancient Cusco...
...took two days of climbing to reach the 15,000-ft. level on Salcantay's eastern face-and they were immediately snowed in for three days. Six days later, they built a base camp of snowblocks at 17,220 ft. Susan stayed there; the bearded Swiss slogged on for three days to 18,500 ft. and pitched a tent for their high camp. At that rarefied height, the temperature, in the bright sunlight, 122° F.; twelve hours later it fell to -15°. Nevertheless, the climbers toiled on next day, up another 1,300 ft. to a cave...
...pain-racked feet would take him no farther. Marx rushed on for help; the Broennimanns huddled together four days and nights through a raging blizzard. Marcus feared that his feet might have to be cut off. But last week, carried to a hacienda at the foot of Salcantay, Broennimann was resting with the comforting assurance from a local doctor that amputation would not be necessary...