Trekking the Cordillera Huayhuash, Part I

Slowly but surely, I'm making progress through the 2700 photos or so I brought back from Peru!  I posted reports on the first trek we did, in the Cordillera Blanca, here and here.

On finishing our first trek, we retreated to Huaraz for two nights and a day of recovery (and a little shopping). Somewhat refreshed, we headed back out to the Cordillera Huayhuash for our second trek. Naturally, this involved a long (4 or 5 hours) bus ride deep into the mountains on terrifying dirt roads that switchbacked down into and up out of deep valleys (because that seems to be what roads in Peru do). While other members of the party ooohed and ahhed and took pictures out the window, I concentrated on not getting carsick, as I hadn't been able to find my motion sickness pills that morning. (I had, of course, put them somewhere logical, and did find them days later). It is a testament to the skill of our driver that I neither threw up nor panicked on the drive.

First glimpse of the Huayhuash--before the pavement ran out.

We drove all the way to our first camp, to give ourselves a second rest day (some members of the party were sick and needed it). While most of us helped set up camp, our boys proved that teens are still kids--they found a box, hauled out their multi-tools, and turned it into a boat (or at least a barge) to run the rapids on the creek.

The Rio Llamac, not too far from its beginnings. Pretty tame, but still too much for the experimental craft.

The next morning we started for real, with a climb to our first pass (Cacananpunta) at 15,500'. Since we'd been hit the evening before with a storm that dumped rain and hail on camp, it wasn't any surprise that the pass had fresh snow on it.

Cold enough for ya?

Once over the pass, the hike was pretty easy, though, and ended in camp at Tuctupampa, near Lake Mitucocha, nestled under the face of Nevada Jirishanca, at over 20,000' (the mountain, not the camp).  Camp was in a very pretty valley with a meandering stream, which proved to be very deep--too deep for bathing in! That didn't stop us from enjoying the view.

Tuctupampa valley

As usual, it frosted heavily overnight, and the clear morning soon began to gather clouds. We took a detour to the lake, to get a better view of the mountains.

A lake half full of tules, and a mountain flirting with a veil of misty clouds. Not a bad morning.

The sharp-eyed kids spotted a fossil in a trailside rock, and we soon found we were surrounded by reminders that these 20,000' peaks used to be a sea floor.

Sea food, anyone?

The weather held pretty nice as we climbed on up and over Punta Carhuac (also called Yanapunta) (15,300'). A bit down the other side we stopped for lunch, while the mountain views were still great. Below, Eldest Son is watching with both interest and trepidation as Juan, our amazing cook, lays out lunch. Meals were often a challenge for ES, whose Asperger's syndrome gives him a lot of strong feelings about foods, but he ate a lot of things he never could have at home. Hunger is the best sauce, as Miguel Cervantes said. Or, as we say in our family, must be the altitude!

Looking at Nevada Yerupaja and waiting for lunch.

The big treat for the day was a field full of biscachas--relatives of the chinchilla, looking rather like rabbits with squirrel tails. They were the main wild mammals we saw, though we did see Andean foxes on a couple of occasions (at night, so no photos).

I like the tails--they look like fiddleheads.

Our camp at Lago Carhuacocha had incredible views of Nev. Yerupaja and the north side of Siula Grande (featured in the documentary movie Touching the Void).  It was also where we were as we listened to Brazil's futbol team lose spectacularly to Germany. Since the broadcasts were in Spanish, we couldn't follow them, but every time we heard that annoying "gooooooaaaaaaaal" yell, we'd holler, "quien?" and our wranglers would answer glumly, "Aleman." A bit of weather gave us a great sunset, a scenic end to our third day.

Not our dining tent. Limited camp space made this a camp we shared, along with the football (soccer) news.

I had intended to cover one more day in this post, but my computer is on the fritz and it's too much work to access all my photos off the back-up just now, so this will be the end of Part I. You can expect at least two more posts for this trek--the mountains and the scenery are worth it anyway!

©Rebecca M. Douglass, 2014