This book presents the history of mountaineering on Mount Aconcagua (9,692 meters above sea level), the highest peak in the Western Hemisphere, as well as a history of the mountain itself. It traces mountaineering routes from Mendoza, Argentina, to Aconcagua’s summit, with analytical stops at the base camps, Inca mummies, and memorials along the way. The book locates these routes within broader trajectories of neocolonial scientific and adventure expeditions, regional and national identity and economy, and flows of global capital and tourists. Joy Logan argues that Aconcagua mountaineering both constructs and disrupts how modernity and globalization have shaped concepts of identity (including nation, gender, and ethnicity), tourism, and adventure.
Joy Logan shows how mountaineering’s roots are largely masculine and Anglo- European in origin, from nineteenth- century scientific expeditions to Dick Bass’s 1983 ascent that made Aconcagua part of a new, global Seven Summits route. Throughout the book, the author provides...
