Hooray Huaraz!

For one of the highest mountain ranges in the world, the Cordillera Blanca is surprisingly accessible. In contrast, the Himalayas always seemed far away and unapproachable. From a distance, they looked fake—like a backdrop painted on the sky—and it takes a 14+ day hike just to get the basecamp of the famous peaks (Everest, Annapurna, etc). I much prefer the Cordillera Blanca, where within a few hours of driving and hiking from Huaraz you can be at the base of a 6,000 meter peak. Huaraz is also surprisingly tourist-free for such proximity to mountaineering greatness. My theory is two-fold: first, the town of Huaraz is nothing special to look at, since it has periodically been completely destroyed by earthquakes (the last one was in the 70’s); and second, the 30 hours of cumulative bus time between Huaraz and Cusco position it well outside the tourism radius of a 2-week vacationer.

During our four days in Huaraz, we hiked to three alpine lakes and drove through the canyon connecting the Cordillera Blanca and Cordillera Negra. The high alpine lakes are pretty crazy because after hiking the equivalent of a fourteener (the lakes were at about 4,500 meters) there is another layer of mountains looming above you. I thought it might be kind of repetitive spending three days in a row on day hikes to lakes, but each trail and lake and landscape was a little different, and each day was my favorite for some reason or another.

Lake Parón was my favorite for the peaks behind the lake. It is surrounded on all sides by 5,000+ meter peaks, including at least two above 6,000 meters. Though the day was a bit cloudy, we caught some glimpses of the big mountains and enjoyed the musical stylings of the park ranger who was randomly playing a saxophone in the middle of the Andes. 

Lake Patron, 4155 m

The hike itself was a little frustrating, first because it proved impossible to access the trailhead by public transportation (villagers come to the city in the morning, not the other way around, so there were not enough passengers for a van to make the return trip); and then because the distance to the lake kept changing. We got estimates between 9km to 15 km, one hour of hiking to four hours. The high end turned out to be most accurate, with a full four hours and 15 km of hiking from Parón Pueblo to the lake. On the way down, we got lucky and a Peruvain family on a weekend road trip picked us up and spared us the last 6 km of the descent.

Lake Churup was my favorite for the trail leading to the lake. The first section of the trail is about an hour and a half of beautiful hiking through the pastures between the town of Llupa and the “town” of Pitec (does four huts make a town?). When we got off the bus in Llupa, a 77-year old man happened to be starting the commute to his pasture on a donkey, and invited us to walk with him. When we reached his pasture, he passed us off to another 70-year old man walking all the way to Pitec.

Patchwork Pastures

From Pitec, the hike is two hours straight up the ridge, quickly gaining over 600 meters. The last 40 meters or so is a straight vertical wall with a little assistance from some bolted cables (though cold, wet cables are not the most helpful things in the world). I surprised myself by how easily I hopped from rock to rock to ascend/descend the wall—I’m not sure if it was recovering from the year of injuries or just generally growing up a bit, but I trust my body to get itself safely up and down things so much more than I used to. Scrambling is much more fun when you’re not terrified of falling. 

Scrambling down

Lake 69 was my favorite for the lake itself. We went on a day trip to Lake 69 with a tour group out of Huaraz, since during the low season there is not public transport that far. I’m glad we took the organized route after two days solo because it freed up more brain space to just enjoy the surroundings. We stopped at various viewpoints and other alpine lakes on the way to the trailhead and luckily had the best weather of the three days (though still overcast at times). The trip didn’t have a guide, just provided transportation and a detailed map for the hike. Ironically, Lake 69 is the only lake of the three we did listed as a two-day hike in Lonely Planet, but it was the shortest hike for us, taking only 2.5 hours to ascend. The lake is a beautiful turquoise that stands out even more because of the grey crater surrounding it. On the way down, we had some amazing views of Chacaraju (6112m), the peak whose base is at the lake.

Lake 69

Big mountains!

Huaraz will definitely go down as a highlight of the trip for me. After the bummer of our Choquequirau non-starter, I loved just having a few days to enjoy the mountains far far away from the parade of gringos that is Cusco. Both Cole and I had an off day (different days) we had to push through, and I think surviving those made the lakes and peaks even more satisfying.