Jolljepunco, Mountain summit in Vilcanota Range, Cusco Region, Peru

Jolljepunco rises to 5,522 meters in the Vilcanota Range and features glaciers with a lake situated south of its main peak. The mountain displays steep slopes, year-round snow cover, and alpine terrain shaped by glacial and weather processes.

The first recorded ascent of Jolljepunco was made in 1961, according to the Chinese Wikipedia entry; the Spanish article does not mention a climbing date. The peak lies in the Vilcanota Range, and its slopes feed auxiliary glaciers that local communities consider sacred. No further historical events are documented in the sources.

At the foot of Jolljepunco and Sinaqara, the annual Quyllur Rit'i festival was inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2011. Ukukus, named after the spectacled bear in Cusco Quechua, climb the glaciers to pray for their people's health and spend the night there. They return carrying large blocks of ice, believed to be medicinal water from the apu; residents of Moyomarca melt it into a sweet barley drink shared with everyone present.

Visitors need mountaineering equipment, altitude acclimatization, and local guidance to manage the technical ascent through variable weather conditions. Plan your visit during drier months when snow and ice conditions are most stable.

Locals also call the mountain Sasahuini, from sasawi, their name for the plant Leucheria daucifolia, plus the Aymara suffix -ni, "the one that has the sasawi". The peak is revered as an apu healer; ethnographer Juan Núñez del Prado recorded in 1970 that its task is to watch over people's health.