Nameless Peaks of the Andes

This expedition made use of a digital elevation model of the Andes developed by the Earth Observation Science Department of the University of Leicester. This enabled them to identify all mountains in the Andes over a specified height, and they found a total of 110 independent peaks over 6000m, and 1129 over 5000m. They selected 20 peaks, believed to be unclimbed in the modern era (ie not including possible Inca ascents), mainly in the Puna region, which encompasses northern Argentina, the adjacent Chilean Andes, and extends into southern and western Bolivia. In spite of extreme weather they reached the summits of 12 mountains, six of which they believe to be unclimbed. Inca ruins were found on several of the summits. They plan to return in 2016 to continue their explorations.