Huayhuash Wandering
Just over 500 kilometres northwest of Machu Picchu, in central Peru, lie deserted tracks meandering through Quechuan farming hamlets in an isolated pocket of the Peruvian Andes, a place where perfect campsites in the shadow of majestic 6500 metre spires overlook turquoise alpine lagoons. Mark Watson joined Touching the Voids’ Simon Yates on a remarkable journey to navigate a track described by besthike.com as ‘arguably the best hike in the world’
Words and images by Mark Watson
Where I find myself just happens to be pronounced ‘why wash’, and that is the question I ponder as a crystal-clear brook softly gurgles past me. I cannot ever remember having seen clearer water. The occasional trout splashes a tiny fireworks display of sunlit water drops upstream, where the last light hits the sparkling silver rivulet snaking its way towards a distant glacier. ‘An invigorating dip’ is what my British trekking companion Sheila would call it, but I am from convict stock and so stick with simple language, ‘It’s going to be ‘bloody freezing!’
Don’t get me wrong, I can’t think of a more picturesque spot to wash off a week’s worth of dust, mud, sweat and embedded scree shards. Surrounding my natural bathtub is the Peruvian Andes’ Cordillera Huayhuash, where 6500 metre peaks jut up from colossal glaciers and glass-like alpine tarns mirror the snow-capped summits. I am in desperate need of a bath, but the temperature was 20°C an hour ago, now I am guessing it is lucky to be ten degrees and I expect the next hour will see the mercury fall to below zero.
And so I ponder, ‘why wash?’
But then I consider when I will next have the opportunity to soak away a week’s worth of weariness under the first star, while overlooking a panorama of magnificent spires trailing spindrift high into a cloudless Andean sky? Perhaps never.
I jump into the icy torrent.
It took two weeks to find this majestic bathtub: a flight halfway around the world, a lengthy bus journey on dodgy roads and the circumnavigation of an entire Andean mountain range, but good things don’t come easy and this certainly is ‘good’.
Bordering Ecuador and Columbia to the north, Brazil and Bolivia to the east and Chile to the south, Peru is best known for its ancient Incan history, Amazon rainforest and Machu Picchu – where more than 2000 visitors a day wheeze and gasp their way to 2500 metres above sea level to glimpse this ancient Incan wonder. Little do many know that only 530 kilometres to the northwest, and a further 2000 metres towards the stratosphere, lie narrow burro (donkey) tracks meandering through Yosemite-sized vertical slabs of limestone and ice in a rugged but picturesque walker’s paradise.
Surprisingly the Cordillera Huayhuash remains the property of the Quechuan mountain people and doesn’t have any World Heritage or protected status. Camping and grazing fees are paid directly to villagers, and arrieros (donkey-drivers) supplement their minimal farming income with that of the emerging ecotourism industry.
The 12-day Huayhuash circuit is not for the faint of heart. Each day averages six to eight hours of negotiating valley streams, steep inclines, rocky passes and vast scree slopes. Mountain sickness is a real threat and not to be taken lightly, with the route most days sitting somewhere around 4500 metres above sea level and passes up to 5000 metres, where oxygen intake is less that half that at sea level. However, the risks are worth the reward of circumnavigating this dramatic 30-kilometre-long pocket of the Andes, home to Peru’s second highest mountain Yerupaja (6617 metres) and five further peaks exceeding 6000 metres.
The area remains relatively unexplored by Westerners, but this is changing as ecotourism has an effect on the traditional lives of the Quechuan farming communities. The change brings both positive and negative transformation to a region still recovering from a revolutionary past. In the 1990s the entire region was closed to travellers when it became one of the last remaining strongholds for the Sendero Luminoso (aka Shining Path), a revolutionary group intent on turning Peru into a communist state. Prior to the 1990s the region was mostly visited by mountaineers looking for challenges in the vast glaciated terrain and vertical ice and snow flutings characteristic of the regions dramatic peaks. In the mid-1980s the area became the stage for one of climbing’s most harrowing tales, that of Simon Yates and Joe Simpson’s near death experience on Siula Grande (6344 metres). Simpson’s book, Touching the Void, quickly became a best seller and later an award winning film.
However, the new millennium has offered up a new future for the Huayhuash. A playground of immense beauty and ruggedness, the Huayhuash is definitely no ugly-duckling sibling to Peru’s famous Cordillera Blanca and Inca Trail but rather a ‘yet to be discovered’ Cinderella.
You can read the rest of this story in Wild no 123
