France, 1998, 1st edition. 128 pp, 100+ glorious color photos. In French. The authors climbed many of the great peaks of the Cordillera of Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador, and recorded on film the marvellous scenery. Even though the official decsription below does not refer to climbing, this is 90%+ a climbing book. We have long felt that one of the greatest gaps in mountaineering literature are modern photo books of the Andes, and this book partlt helps fill that gap. Large format hardcover, DJ, New.

 

Translated by computer from the publisher's website:

 

For millennia, the Andean mountains have been the domain of the sacred. To the Indian, they have been the subject of veneration taking a wide variety of forms: ritual offerings on the high peaks, imprecations sorcerers, pilgrimages group on the edge of glaciers, immolations, sacrifices, etc. ...

With the first explorers from Europe early in the nineteenth and until the middle of the twentieth century, the Andean mountain terrain becomes the discovery of curious and talented naturalists, in the wake of Humboldt, Darwin ... But also that of capitalism, the hell of mine, source of wealth to the proverbial time of the Colony ...

Today, the Andean area is a revival of traditional practices that varnish Catholic was unable to recover completely. As scientists, they are back on glaciers in the Andes to try to read the future of our planet.

Summits sacred Indian civilizations discovered the latest climate, authors, glaciologists and andinistes enthusiasts, we lead on them in a visual and literary journey to the heart of secret intimacy of the Andes, the detour unknown paths and beautiful ascents.