Huayna Potosí in the context of Crevasse

The La Paz Department of Bolivia comprises 133,985 square kilometres (51,732 sq mi) with a 2024 census population of 3,022,566 inhabitants. It is situated at the western border of Bolivia, sharing Lake Titicaca with the neighboring Peru. It contains the Cordillera Real mountain range, which reaches altitudes of 6.6 kilometers (22,000 ft). Northeast of the Cordillera Real are the Yungas, the steep eastern slopes of the Andes Mountains that make the transition to the Amazon River basin to the northeast. The capital of the department is the city of La Paz and is the administrative city and seat of government/national capital of Bolivia.

Chacaltaya (Mollo language for "bridge of winds" or "winds meeting point", Aymara for "cold road") is a mountain in the Cordillera Real, one of the mountain ranges of the Cordillera Oriental, itself a range of the Bolivian Andes. Its elevation is 5,421 meters (17,785 ft). Chacaltaya's glacier — which was as old as 18,000 years — had an area of 0.22 km (0.085 sq mi) in 1940, which had been reduced to 0.01 km (0.0039 sq mi) in 2007 and was completely gone by 2009. Half of the meltdown, as measured by volume, took place before 1980. The final meltdown after 1980, due to missing precipitation and the warm phase of El Niño, resulted in the glacier's disappearance in 2009. The glacier was located about 30 kilometers (19 mi) from La Paz, near Huayna Potosí mountain.

The Cordillera Central is a Bolivian mountain range that divides the three river basins in the country and also has the second highest peaks in Bolivia. It is rich in minerals and starts in the north with Chawpi Urqu and the three Palumanis that were in the south up to Zapaleri, forming a border with Chile and Argentina. The Cordillera Central is divided into three sections:

• The northern section or Cordillera Real, with Chawpi Urqu and Palumani, La Paz, Illimani, Illampu, Janq'u Uma, Mururata, and Huayna Potosí, with the latter six all being more than 6,000 meters high. This section is famous because the highest meteorological observatory in the world can be found on Chacaltaya. Some of the highest ski slopes in the world can be found here also.
• The central section contains Sumaq Urqu, with the Potosí mountain range and the Paso de Condor rail station, both situated at an elevation of 4,288 meters.
• The southern section is characterized by its high rate of mineralization and large deposits of tin. Its highest summit is Zapaleri on the border with Chile and Argentina.

The Cordillera Central lies between the Cordillera Occidental and Cordillera Oriental.