White Fortress of El Cocuy: Kraus and Tamayo on Ritacuba Blanco in 1942

The Glaciated Crown of Boyacá

Stretching along the jagged crest of the Cordillera Oriental in northeastern Colombia, the Sierra Nevada del Cocuy is a breathtaking alpine wonderland. Featuring more than twenty snow-capped peaks strung along a thirty-kilometre glaciated chain, El Cocuy represents the largest continuous ice reservoir in northern South America.

At the northern apex of this frozen fortress stood its undisputed monarch: Ritacuba Blanco (5,410 m), known in the indigenous U’wa language as Ritak’Uwa—the white peak of the spirits. Unlike its southern neighbour Ritacuba Negro, which presented dark, shattered rock precipices, Ritacuba Blanco was draped in a colossal, sweeping western glacier sheet that angled steeply toward an airy summit cornice.

Following his triumph on Pico Cristóbal Colón in 1939, Colombian alpine pioneer Erwin Kraus resolved to conquer El Cocuy without relying on foreign expeditions. Joining Kraus was Guido Tamayo, an exceptionally tough Colombian mountaineer, and companion Heriberto Degen. Together, they organized an entirely domestic assault on the highest peak of the Eastern Cordillera.

“Ritacuba Blanco appeared before us like an immense white sail frozen against the sky, commanding the silence of the high cordillera.” — Erwin Kraus, Ascensiones en la Sierra Nevada del Cocuy (1943)

The Assault of April 3, 1942

In late March 1942, Kraus, Tamayo, and Degen arrived in the remote mountain town of Güicán. Loading their gear onto pack mules, they ascended through steep paramo ridges dotted with blooming frailejones to establish a staging base at Kanwara (4,000 m).

From Kanwara, the three climbers shouldered heavy packs containing hemp climbing ropes, steel crampons, woolen clothing, and Kraus’s beloved glass-plate cameras. Navigating vast boulder fields, they established an assault bivy on the western moraine at 4,600 metres beneath the gleaming snout of the glacier.

On the freezing pre-dawn of April 3, 1942, roped together in the crisp mountain air, Kraus and Tamayo stepped onto the glacier. The ascent demanded steady, rhythmic crampon work up continuous 35- to 40-degree firn ramps. Kraus took the lead, probing snow bridges over deep crevasses and cutting steps where equatorial sun glare had hardened the firn into brittle ice.

Standing on the Knife-Edge Cornice

Above 5,200 metres, the slope steepened to 45 degrees. The thin air of the Eastern Cordillera burned their lungs, but the weather remained miraculously clear. Reaching the final summit shoulder, the climbers encountered a heart-stopping sight: a narrow, wind-sculpted snow cornice perched over a vertical drop of more than one thousand metres plunging down the sheer eastern rock faces toward the vast, green plains of the Casanare llanos.

With utmost caution, balancing on the knife-edge arête, Erwin Kraus and Guido Tamayo hauled themselves onto the true summit of Ritacuba Blanco at 5,410 metres.

The emotional triumph was overwhelming. For the first time in history, native Colombian climbers stood victorious upon the supreme summit of the Cordillera Oriental. Kraus captured magnificent photographs of the surrounding Cocuy spires—including Pan de Azúcar, El Púlpito del Diablo, and Ritacuba Negro—before commencing a safe descent. Their 1942 conquest proved that Colombian alpinists were masters of their own icy cordilleras, inaugurating the golden era of mountaineering in El Cocuy.