Alan Davis

Peru's Cordillera Blanca is one of the great mountaineering arenas in the world, the highest tropical mountain range on earth, dense with glaciated peaks that rise straight out of the valleys above Huaraz and still refreshingly wild and uncrowded next to the bigger-name ranges. The Peru Seminar uses this setting as its classroom. It is for climbers who want to step up to larger mountains and need the skills and high-altitude experience to do it well.

The course is built around learning by doing. From a base camp in the Ishinca Valley, the team alternates training days with summit pushes, so glacier travel, cramponing, and rope skills get used on real objectives rather than rehearsed in isolation. Over the trip climbers attempt three glaciated summits - Nevado Vallunaraju, Nevado Ishinca and Nevado Urus - topping out at 18,654 feet.

It suits climbers with some mountain experience who want to build toward the Himalaya, the Alaska Range, or other major glaciated peaks. The Cordillera Blanca is an ideal place to do it: serious enough to teach real lessons, beautiful enough to make the work worth it, and undeveloped enough that the mountains still feel like an expedition. By the end you have not just a few summits behind you but a tested set of skills and a clearer sense of what bigger trips will demand.