The Cordillera Blanca is an extensive mountain range in Peru with snow-covered peaks above 6000 m.a.s.l. Going back thousands of years, multiple civilizations made the region their home before the Incas invaded in the 15^th century. After the Spanish conquest defeated the Incas a century later, wealthy land-owners took over the area and forced the local Quechua-speaking population to work as serfs.

Though Peru declared independence from Spain in 1821, indigenous populations continued to face discrimination and exclusion in their own land. In this context, a German-Austrian expedition around the geographer Hans Kinzl first arrived to Peru in 1932 to map the Cordillera Blanca