Following Ghosts Up the Wall: Two Gen Z Climbers Chase a Legendary Andes Route

Icicles, a main feature on the west face of Cayesh, Cordillera Blanca. Photo: Dane Steadman As a teenager, Dane Steadman saw a video on YouTube that he never forgot. It showed a wild climb that combined vertical rock, strange snow features, and precarious icicles, done by two guys he had never heard of named Steve House and Marko Prezelj. He had never heard of the peak, either: the west face of Cayesh in the Peruvian Andes. Today, Steadman is in his twenties and a recent Piolet d’Or recipient. Prezelj and House are in their late fifties. Those old enough to have followed Prezelj and House’s careers started reading about them in magazines, bought their books, and studied their online reports in the early years of the internet. Contemporaries of Dane Steadman sometimes found inspiration for their first vertical steps from this pair. The climbers’ camp at the base of Cayesh’s west face. Photo: Dane Steadman Twenty years later Steadman is currently in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca. Last week, he suggested to his climbing partner and fellow Piolet d’Or winner Cody Winckler that they venture up a valley called the Quebrada Quilcayhuanca to give that same west face of Cayesh a try.
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