Conquering the Volcano of Ice: The 1939 First Ascent of Sajama

In the southwestern corner of the Bolivian Altiplano, isolated from the continuous chain of the Cordillera Real, stands a lonely giant of rock and ice: Nevado Sajama. Soaring to 6,542 metres (21,463 feet), this extinct stratovolcano is the highest mountain in Bolivia and one of the most formidable natural fortresses on the South American continent.

Surrounded by arid salt flats, boiling geysers, and ancient dwarf forests of Polylepis tarapacana—the highest-growing trees on Earth—Sajama had earned a fearsome reputation among early twentieth-century explorers. Prior attempts by experienced German and Italian teams had failed, defeated not by technical rock walls, but by brutal sub-zero Altiplano gales, debilitating altitude, and miles of razor-sharp ice penitentes.

Ghiglione and the 1939 Expedition

In September 1939, veteran Italian alpine explorer and engineer Piero Ghiglione arrived in the Altiplano determined to organize a decisive attempt on Sajama. Recognizing the need for hardened local high-altitude climbers, Ghiglione joined forces with Austrian expatriate alpinist Joseph Prem and fellow climber Wilfrid Kuehm.

Operating from the picturesque Aymara village of Sajama at 4,250 metres, the team recruited native llama drivers to haul heavy provisions across the volcanic sand dunes. Ascending through the gnarled Polylepis forests, they established Base Camp at 4,800 metres near natural thermal hot springs.

Ghiglione and Prem carefully studied the mountain’s flanks. The southern and eastern sides presented colossal, unstable ice cliffs that dropped continuous avalanches onto the plains. The Northwest Ridge, however, offered a continuous ramp of volcanic scree leading to the upper glacier cap.

The Labyrinth of Penitentes

On October 2, the climbers established a high bivouac at 5,700 metres on an exposed rock shelf of the Northwest Ridge. That night, ferocious desert winds battered their canvas shelter, and temperatures plunged past minus-twenty-five degrees Celsius.

Setting out before dawn on October 4, 1939, Prem and Kuehm encountered the most exhausting physical obstacle of their climbing lives: an endless field of nieves penitentes—sword-like blades of hardened ice carved by solar radiation that stood between one and two metres high.

Unable to walk around the penitentes, the two men had to kick and clamber over the frozen blades, bruising their knees and shins with every step. Above the penitente forest lay a continuous 45-degree slope of hard, wind-scoured firn leading toward the crater rim.

Standing on Bolivia’s Highest Apex

Gasping for breath in the thin atmosphere, Prem took the lead, relentlessly swinging his ice axe to cut steps into the bullet-hard slope. Higher and higher they climbed, the barren expanse of the Bolivian and Chilean Altiplano stretching beneath them like an endless beige ocean dotted with smoking volcanic cones.

At 2:00 p.m. on October 4, 1939, Joseph Prem and Wilfrid Kuehm surmounted the final ice rim and stepped onto the broad, snow-filled summit caldera of Nevado Sajama at 6,542 metres.

They had conquered the highest point in Bolivia. Looking westward toward Chile, they could see the twin volcanic peaks of Parinacota and Pomerape gleaming in the thin, crystalline air.

Their triumph on Sajama resolved the last great mountain problem in Bolivia and stood as a masterpiece of endurance, determination, and alpine technique in the high desert of the Andes.