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Peru 1987
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The twin summits of Chacaraju from Yanapaqtsa
Here is a shot of Chacaraju taken from near the summit of Yanapaqtsa. Chacaraju is a narrow fin, here you are looking at it from the side. There is no easy route up either summit of Chacaraju.

At this point we all headed back to Huaraz, and most of the group then headed down to Cusco and Machu Picchu (although most never made it due to plane reservations cancelled). Haroon and I stayed on for a final week, and made one last foray into the Cordillera Blanca.

We were aiming for the south face of Artsenraju, but on the way in we spotted an interesting looking face on a peak called Caras III (5720m or 18,900'). There was no route in our guide on this side of Caras III.

So, to make a long story short, we did the first ascent of the south face of Caras III, a 2000 foot fluted ice face. We did it in one long day in 10 pitches of ice similar to the SW face of Alpamayo. The top two pitches had sections of ice up to 90 degrees. We rapped down the face as the sun set, leaving behind 2 ice screws, 2 pickets and about 6 pitons.

The south face of Caras III received it's second ascent in 1997. I have a photo of the face but at the moment it is lost in a sea of slides. It may eventually be added to the show.

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