Our Story
Alpine Expeditions is dedicated to giving you the most enjoyable experience on your mountain adventures. Our emphasis is on safety, the best quality services, and the best prices, all with very personalized attention.
Ricardo Peña started Alpine Expeditions in 2004 guiding clients to climb the Mexican volcanoes. He currently lives in Broomfield, Colorado where Alpine Expeditions is now based.
He has guided and climbed extensively throughout Colorado, the Argentinean, Chilean and Bolivian Andes, the Alaska Range, Mt.Elbrus and the Caucasus mountain range in Russia, the Khumbu region in the Himalaya, and Mexico (where he's originally from). In April 2014 Ricardo was climbing Mt. Everest when an avalanche killed 16 sherpas and injured many more. Ricardo helped taking care and evacuating the wounded Sherpas. Unfortunately this tragedy led to a Sherpa strike and problems with the Nepal government which meant no teams were able to continue their expeditions and Ricardo was forced to abandon his summit attempt. In 2017, Ricardo returned to Everest and climbed as far up as the south col at 26,000'. Unfortunately he was not able to summit due to extreme high winds on his summit day.
Ricardo has summited all 54 Colorado 14ers (many in winter) and is currently working on finishing the top 100 highest summits in Colorado. He has led more than 60 successful expeditions to the Mexican Volcanoes. He has climbed and guided Rainier many times, including an ascent up Liberty Ridge.
Ricardo has led two expeditions to Denali (20,320'), guided eight to Aconcagua (22,841'), as well as other expeditions to the Chilean Andes and the Cordillera Real in Bolivia. He has also guided and climbed many other major peaks in the US (including a one day ascent of the Grand Teton via the upper Exum and 49 of the State highpoints). Ricardo has wilderness medicine training and is certified as a Wilderness First Responder.
On February 12, 2005 Ricardo discovered the coat and documents of Andes Survivor Eduardo Strauch as well other previously undiscovered airplane parts, while climbing near the impact point of the famous crash, popularized in the book and movie 'Alive". While doing this he put up a first ascent up a 15,400' glaciated unnamed peak.
In December 2005, with a grant from National Geographic, Ricardo led the first and only to date complete re-tracing of the historic escape route done by Andes Survivors: Roberto Canessa and Nando Parrado in 1972. This was done in the same month as the survivors did to experience the challenge of similar snow conditions. This story was featured on the April 2006 issue of National Geographic Adventure magazine.
Ricardo has been involved in the making of many documentaries about the Andes Survivors including: 'Stranded' and History Channel's:I am Alive:Surviving the Andes Plane Crash where he did high altitude camera work, he worked as a climbing stunt double and is featured as an expert on the topic throughout the show.
Alpine Expeditions is Ricardo's guiding company. Ricardo works with different logistics teams in different countries to provide you with the best expeditions in the business.
Also in the Alpine Expeditions roster is Andes Survivor Eduardo Strauch with whom Ricardo offers their yearly expedition to the Andes.
Hector Ponce de Leon is one of the world's top high altitude climbers and also works with Alpine Expeditions on selected trips. Fernando Tijerina, one of the best up and coming guides in Mexico works with Ricardo on the Mexican volcanoes expeditions.
Bernardo Beteta is a Boulder based guide working on his AMGA certification that has been working with Ricardo and Alpine Expeditions since 2010.
For more information visit: www.alpineexpeditions.net
