Day seven of our twelve-day trek found me standing breathless at the top of a mountain pass after having climbed over a kilometer in elevation from the valley floor. Among shards of shale I bent down to discover the fossil of a seashell and realised that where I stood, at 4600m above sea level, was once under the ocean. The Cordillera Blanca - the white mountain range - is made up of an impressive collection of glacial peaks, many of which reach close to, or higher than 6000m in altitude.
The Alpamayo Circuit begins on exactly the same route as theSanta Cruz trek – one of the most popular treks in the Cordillera Blanca. However, about 3 or 4 days in the Alpamayo Circuit branches off to the left and leaves the Santa Cruz route behind, along with the crowds of hikers. It then continues around, as the name suggests, making an almost full circuit around Alpamayo, a mountain whose name in the native language means “earth river”.
The trail is one that has been used for hundreds and even thousands of years and along the way are stone walls that date back to pre-Incan times. The local people also use this land for grazing so there are hundreds of livestock roaming the valleys covering the otherwise picturesque landscape in their droppings.
There are a few optional detours that lead to milky turquoise coloured lakes cradled at the foot of Alpamayo. From those lakes it is likely you’ll hear the rumble of an avalanche being unleashed, and if you’re lucky you might get to see one.
The trek weaves up and over enough steep mountain passes to make you pretty tired of walking uphill, but the views are well worth it. In such a steep landscape, trekking is hard going. The thin air at high altitude makes breathing difficult and exhaustion easy.
For us, the end of each day was greeted kindly with a hot cup of tea and as the cold settled in for the night we curled up in our sleeping bags and went to sleep with an impossible amount of stars hanging above us.
by Rachel Mclaren
rachelmclarenphotography.com
thosewanderingdays.com
@thosewanderingdays
