Text: Alexander Urrang Hauge
Photos: expedition members
Published: Nov 12, 2026
The memories of the magical mountains in Peru sit like an ice screw in climber Trond Hilde.
It's 1988. Big mountain climbing in Norway and the world was still in the starting pit. There were many white spots on the map. The magnetic attraction of untouched mountains was strong.
“The mountains in the Huayhuash mountain range in Peru are different” says Trond Hilde.
He is a meritorious climber, mountain biker, skier and expedition man with, among other things, many ascents in Queen Maud's Land in Antarctica. Trond Hilde talks eagerly on the phone. He is at Svalbard when we get hold of him. He works as a tour guide for other adventurers up there.
“You have the great contrasts, the special snow and ice. The characteristic chutes and snow formations. This mountain range in Peru has something special about it”, he says.
Hilde rewinds the film roll of his life back to the year 1988. He was 26 years old that summer. Studied petroleum technology in Trondheim, was a dedicated climber, brutally strong, and not least immortal – like most 26-year-olds.
The dream of the mountains in Peru beckons. Cheaper than the Himalayas. No permits or bureaucracy. Lower mountains than in the Himalayas, but just as full of myth.
The Norwegian-American Leif Norman Patterson climbed the west face of the mountain Yerupaja already in 1966.
Trond Hilde and his friends wanted to climb the same route.
These mountains rise straight up from the enormous Amazon rainforest and lie north of the equator. If you pull out a globe and a map, you can see the elongated mountain range that runs like a spine through the whole of South America, as a barrier against the gigantic Pacific Ocean. The humid air from the rainforest is pushed straight up when it hits the mountains, turning into a strange, brittle ice.
You can hardly underestimate the aesthetics that these mountains have. Just the names sound like utopian dreamlands and romances. We briefly mention Siula Grande, Chacrararaju and not least Yerupaja – Peru's second highest mountain.
Yerupaja is not just a mountain. It is also a piece of geological art project at 6,634 meters above sea level. A mountain that is constantly changing. Ice and snow season the steep mountain sides.
It's not easy to take your eyes off Yerupaja once you've got them on your retinas.
Four climbing buddies want to climb this mountain in 1988: Jonas Holmen, Gunder Svendsen, Gunnar Sanner and Trond Hilde.
“We were poor students. We had little equipment – and had to save what we could on safety devices and ice screws” says Hilde.
According to an article in the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet from 1988, written by climber and author Jon Gangdal, the Norwegian climbers chose one of the most difficult routes up Yerupaja.
Hilde himself describes the route up as exposed, steep and captivating.
“You are moving up a large mountainside of ice. You must cross a wide snowfield. The terrain and the mountains are fantastic. We also passed some large caves in the ice, where we spent the night.”
He describes the climbing route as persistently steep. The Norwegian climbers had a good progression in the mountain and followed chute formations up the ridge, which lead them all the way to the top.
Suddenly, the four young students had written an important piece of Norwegian climbing history.
“You stand on the front tags of the crampons, so to speak. I think our route was approximately 1,700 meters high.”
A few short weeks after the ascent of Yerupaja, the Norwegian climbers point out a new mountain. They fix their gaze on Chacraraju. The mountain is not only 6108 meters above sea level, but it also rises straight towards the sky like a sharp fang. There are several other expeditions in the area. Some will try, others have already turned around. Chacraraju is considered by many mountaineers to be both the most dangerous and the most difficult mountain in Peru, but Hilde has checked with local guides regarding the risk of avalanches and particularly vulnerable areas.
Gunnar Sanner has returned home. The remaining trio is joined by climber Kevin Starr, a medical student from California.
The four climbers make it all the way to the summit of Chacraraju, but on the way down something happens.
“We are standing in one of these gullies – or chutes of snow and ice. Then we hear that an avalanche is breaking loose further up” says Hilde.
“I can remember the sound of the avalanche – huge blocks of ice. The avalanche does not go down the chute we are in, but is so large that the masses are reflected into several of the surrounding chutes.”
During the rappels, all four climbers use the same ropes and belays, but just as the avalanche catches up with them, Trond Hilde and Kevin Starr are not connected to the ropes. They are standing by themselves, rigging a new belay.
“The avalanche comes with a tremendous force and takes Jonas and Gunder. They fall approximately 800 meters in height and perish.”
Hilde and Starr see their climbing companions fall to their deaths.
“Some people are gripped by anxiety and go into a kind of shock state when something traumatic happens. Others become rational, pragmatic and cold. I'm probably of the latter kind” Trond Hilde says.
He and Starr cut up their backpacks and make a kind of a rope from the straps.
And they get down.
Alive.
“It is the most dramatic thing that has happened in my life. I will never forget the climbing in Peru”, says Trond Hilde.