Huaraz
When we arrived in Huaraz, our hosts at Olaza's Guest House met us at the station. After settling into our room, Dona checked the weather forecast. It was for two mostly-nice days, followed by some not-so-nice days. Our original plan was to spend our first day acclimatizing, traveling by taxi to see the ruins at Chavín de Huantar But given the weather forecast, we worried we only had a few good days. We wanted to spend them up in the mountains; we figured we could visit Chavín during less good weather. We were a little concerned about exerting ourselves a lot by hiking higher up on our first day, but given our limited time it seemed the thing to do. So we asked our hosts to arrange a ride for us the next morning up to the trailhead for hiking to Laguna de Churup which sits at the base of Nevada Churup in Huascarán National Park. The park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We weren't all that hungry, but we wandered down to town where we split a great meal and had some outstanding hot chocolate (and crepes) at Patrice's Creperie. While there we were treated to some great music by a local troubador.
We got up reasonably early the next morning to have breakfast on the rooftop of our hotel. It looked to be a gorgeous sunny day. We enjoyed breakfast with tantalizing views of some of the surrounding mountains.
We couldn't help but notice the solar water heaters mounted on nearby rooftops. Why don't we see these on virtually every house and business in the central and southern United States? In some ways I live in a very backward country, still playing catch-up to the developing world.
Our driver met us on time and we hopped in with our day packs. The vehicle was more-or-less the standard taxi for Huaraz, an older beat-up front-wheel-drive Toyota sedan. We left at about 08:30. It is something like 28 km to the trailhead from Huaraz. Before we even left town we more or less got stuck. The road is a steep, mostly unpaved single-track, even before it leaves the town of Huaraz. There was a place where water was over-flowing from a creek or irrigation ditch alongside the road, turning the dirt to mud. I got out to push but couldn't do enough; a local guy coming down on a motorbike stopped and between the two of us we got us out of the mud and going again. After I hopped back in I couldn't help but think, "We haven't even left town yet, we've got 25km or so to go, and we've already gotten stuck." I was concerned we might not even get started on our hike.
Fortunately, in some of the really steep or mud-prone places there were two paved tracks, and despite my worries, we had no further problems. The drive to the trailhead heads pretty much straight up a ridge outside of town, then contours around into and back out of an intervening valley before continuing on up the next ridge. Along the way we got stunning views of the surrounding countryside.
There is a huge open-pit gold mine operated by Barrick Gold in the Cordillera Negra on the other side of the valley from the Cordillera Blanca. While it is an ugly scar and residents working in the mine do not seem particularly healthy or prosperous, it does offer "good" employment in a remunerative sense. Like many corporations in extractive industries, Barrick has a history rife with accusations of abuse and neglect of local people, up to and including recent times. Local people I talked to such as our taxi drivers stated that the only reason they worked at the mine was to earn enough money to buy their taxi or house or whatever else they needed to start their own business and then get out. It was not fun work, they did not feel they had healthy working conditions, and they didn't want to go back. To be sure, working in a developing country with centuries old cultural problems with regards to womens' and indigenous peoples rights cannot be easy. At the same time, company behavior is reflected from the top down, not the bottom up. If the people at the top do not condone what's happening, somewhere in the chain of command somebody is not paying attention, and that is upper management's responsibility.
I had difficulty getting my head around the fact that there were people raising crops and livestock at 3,800m (12,500') elevation. We saw animals grazing, fields being tilled, and crops being irrigated.
Somewhere along the way I realized that our driver was going to park at the trailhead and wait for us. We'd negotiated the price for taking us up and back, so that wasn't an issue; but it seemed like an incredible waste of his time to sit at the bottom in his car. On the other hand, it was his job and good money, so why not? Maybe that's a cultural difference — we come from a culture where we've come to believe that time is precious, and for many of these people, time is the one thing they have in abundance. So our driver enjoyed the sunshine in his car and read his newspaper. We headed up the trail, which went straight up the ridge in front of us.
No matter which direction we looked, we were surrounded by mountains. All of them were snow-capped except to the west, where the Cordillera Negro stood in relatively low, marked contrast to the Cordillera Blanca.
Despite knowing that people all over the world cultivate crops at high altitudes, I was still staggered by the amount of agriculture being practiced at high elevation in Peru. We saw small plots with gardens growing wherever we went. If you looked across a valley, the other side was inevitably covered with sloped gardens and terraces much higher than I would have thought practical.
There weren't a lot of wildflowers, but we enjoyed the ones there were.
Since this was supposed to be our acclimatization day, we resolved to take our time. We dawdled from the start, taking in the views and searching out wildflowers, then waiting for birds that never would to cooperate and sit still for a picture. Shortly after we started up the trail, a bus delivered a hoard of hikers who motored past us, all more fit and all in more of a hurry.
At the time, we didn't really know what our beginning altitude was, which was probably good. We just knew we had to go up quite a ways to get to the lake. A sign informed us that the lake was at 4,450 m (14,600 ft); the mountain, Nevada Churup, was 5,495 m (18,000 ft). And it was a small one. Dona was taking an altitude-sickness preventative medicine; I had brought some along on the trip but didn't take them.
We were surprised to see plantations of pines growing in a lot of places. As in New Zealand, native forests were losing out to monocultures of fast-growing, lesser quality species.
Looking behind us we could see the trailhead; the trail went pretty much straight up the spine of a ridge.
Before too long we came to a shelter of sorts, a roof with no sides. It had a low wall on one side, but if the weather was bad the wind was probably blowing as well and it's not clear how much shelter it would really be. Perhaps it was meant as a refuge from the intense alpine sun.
From the shelter if we looked towards Nevada Churup we could see where the lake was supposed to be. Or at least we thought we could see where it was supposed to be. I figured we might well not make it all the way, as we had already decided we would not push ourselves but just go as far as seemed appropriate.
It turned out there were three possibilities for where the lake might be; just over the first terminal moraine, just behind the rock band that rose up beyond the moraine, and even farther back behind yet another rock band. That last place did not even make it onto my radar when I looked up there, which was fortunate; that's where it really was. We just plodded upward towards the next objective, enjoying the flowers, the birds, and the views along the way.
We could see yet another shelter above us. It wasn't too far, and it made a good objective. We made it there without too much trouble.
From the second shelter the trail left the ridge and began a traverse across the hillside. We stopped to check out the flowers on a large shrub. These turned out to be the flowers I found Giant Hummingbirds visiting the next day a bit lower down closer to the Lazy Dog Inn.
The mountain was getting closer; we had to assume we were approaching the lake too.
We kept seeing desiccated orange peels along the trail, trash left by inconsiderate ... somethings. I wondered if they were predominately locals or visitors. Despite being a national park, the area is still grazed, both legally and illegally. So not all people up here are eco-tourists. There wasn't a lot of trash, but it stuck out because of the color. We even found a broken bottle at one point; I picked up what I could.
We were surprised to see lupine, looking very similar to what it does here at home.
The trail description we had read while planning our trip indicated there were a few places where cables had been placed to assist in climbing up some rocks. I had no idea how steep or difficult those places would be. I was worried we might need to turn around when we came to them. I was surprised to run into the first set of cables part way across the hillside. Dona got up them in good style, so I was pleased. It's quite a bit steeper than it looks in the photos, due to the fact they were taken with a wide-angle lens.
Finally, we came to a sign that said the lake was only one km away. That's only a bit over half a mile, so we felt like we were almost there. If it was actually only a kilometer, I must have been hallucinating; it seemed like it took forever. Maybe they measured the distance as the crow flies on a map; or maybe the altitude was affecting us more than I wanted to admit.
There were Polylepsis trees growing here and there. Their bark reminded me of the Madrone trees I grew up with around Seattle. We were hoping to see more native birds around the polylepsis trees, but we didn't see too many, and those we did see were pretty small and pretty fast, so we didn't get much in the way of pictures.
The trail appeared to top out ahead of us; I was eagerly anticipating seeing the lake as I got near.
Alas, we weren't there yet. Instead, the trail dropped down into a low basin, then disappeared into steep rocks on the other side. We could see a person at the very top, in the notch near where the small waterfalls were.
It was a quick walk down to the bottom, where there was another shelter; then the tricky part began. There were a number of different sets of cables along the trail on the rocks going up, in varying states of repair. A few were missing entirely, but there was always another one nearby to use instead. Dona just kept working her way up; I followed, trying to provide some sort of backstop in case she slipped. It wasn't super steep, but there were a couple of tricky corners to go around, and a few slippery wet spots. In the end, she didn't need any help.
And then we were there! Wow! What a spectacle. The lake sits literally at the base of Nevada Churup. I really would have liked to have been camping and spend the night there, then hike up to the top of the mountain the next day. The lake was a gorgeous clear green-blue.
We sat down, broke out our lunch and just soaked up the view. Wow! It was worth every bit of the effort. But all too soon we had to turn around and head back.
As we hiked back down I kept looking back; I'm glad we didn't know at the start exactly where the lake was, as we might not have pushed on to get there.
We were the last people off the trail when we got back to the trailhead; there was another couple way up behind us, but I think they were camping for the night. Our driver was glad to see us. The light on the mountains was wonderful on the way back.
On the drive back we got glimpses of some of the other peaks, but I'm not certain which ones they were. You'd think it would be easy to triangulate from the map, but I don't know exactly where on the map the photos below were taken from. In any case, cool peaks, cool climbs I'm not going to have time in my life to do.
Our driver dropped us off at The Lazy Dog Inn, where we had reservations for the next four days.
This hike was supposed to happen later, after we had acclimated. We decided we should take it easy for the next day at least. I managed to find the name of a local bird guide, Jim Sykes, and gave him a call. Despite the short notice, he agreed to take us out the next day. The Cordillera Blanca is not a hot-spot for birders, so one can't really make a living as solely a bird guide here. Jim and his wife, Gladys Himénez have a touring/trekking company, Lost City Treks, and do all sorts of things besides bird guiding — hiking, overnight trekking, mountain biking, and I can't remember what else.
Jim doesn't have a car, using his bicycle and legs to get around. He has a regular taxi driver he uses, Teo, and the two of them met us the next morning after breakfast. Teo and his taxi, an aged Toyota Corolla named "Buen Cholo" ("Good old boy"), served us well over the next few days. Teo was great, and while his English was probably better than my Spanish, he indulged me and we had some great conversation along the way.
Before he was a taxi driver, Teo worked at the humongous Pierna gold mine owned by Barrick Gold across the valley. I think he said he worked there seven years, just long enough to save enough money to buy Buen Cholo to get into the taxi business.
We decided to head north and look for birds in the Llanganuco Valley, one of many east-west valleys in Huascarán National Park. Quebrada Llanganuco, the creek that flows out of the valley, cuts through a spectacular cleft in the mountains where it exits. Two 6000m peaks straddle this valley entrance — Huandoy to the North, and Huascarán to the south.
We stopped at the entrance station to pay our park fees, and caught a number of birds in the trees while we were there.
Lake Llanganuco is that deep semi-opaque turquoise blue that results when rocks are ground up by glaciers and the resulting "rock flour" is suspended in the water. Couple that with the orange gnarly Polylepsis trees and you have quite a color contrast.
The lake had a few ducks on it, and in the meadows at the head there was quite a variety of birds as well.
We hiked down a few kilometers from the foot of the lake, following the creek. We had hoped to see quite a few birds in the woods there, but we didn't see much. Perhaps the result of it being the middle of the day, or a particularly windy day.
On the return drive down the valley we stopped to see some hummingbirds.
Then back to the Lazy Dog Inn, where we enjoyed a pleasant dinner with good company.
The Lazy Dog Inn is a cool place, in a great location. Our hostess was Gina, a Canadian; our cooks were Melania and Nancy, indigenous women on whom I could try out my Spanish a little. They had three dogs, Apu ("Mountain God"), Mayue, and Runtun ("Fried Eggs"). The owners, Diane and Wayne Morris, were not in while we were there.
The next day we relaxed around the Lazy Dog Inn.
Life at this high altitude is hard. People graze sheep and cattle, but the forage appears to be slow growing, sparse, and of marginal quality. Every day they herd their animals up to pasture and back down.
The Lazy Dog Inn has sponsored a coop for the local women, providing a place for them to sell some of their work and helping them start on new projects. They had quite an array of things made from LLama and Alpaca wool.
The Inn had hand-drawn maps of some of the nearby trails. We decided to wander a ways up one called "Llaca", which according to google translate is a
"Mouse-like marsupial mammal, gray in color, large eyes, pointed snout, rounded ears and long tail. It is nocturnal and insectivorous. He lives in dry lands of Argentina and Chile."
I guess that means there are some of them in the rocks along the trail. As nearly as I can figure out, it has to be a Shrew Opossum, as they are they only surviving marsupials in the Andes.
The "Llaca" is the name of a creek; "Quebrada Llaca" means creek, or ravine, or gully named LLaca, and it is all of that — a creek, and a humongous ravine/gully, a glacial valley from which the creek eminates.
Dona headed back to the Inn after a bit, but I continued upward. I found some cool flowers along the way.
At some point I started hearing the unmistakable whir of hummingbird wings. I was surprised, as I didn't see much in the way of flowers that would attract hummingbirds. I finally located the birds, and was delighted to discover they were Giant Hummingbirds.
The sun was setting and supper-time was approaching, so I turned around and made my way back to the Lazy Dog Inn, keeping an eye out for any lingering Giant Hummingbirds.
The next day we had Teo take us to the pre-Inca ruins of Chavín de Huántar. More about that here.
After our day of R&R and a day at Chavín, we decided to take another hike, this time along the Quebrada Llaca valley which is just above the Lazy Dog Inn. We learned a road went all the way up to the head of the valley where there is a small ranger station. We weren't sure we could make it all the way up and back hiking, so we got Teo a take us up and we hiked back. While not very far, the road is rough and it took about an hour and a half to get there.
There is a lake at the head of the valley, formed by a terminal moraine that blocks the valley. A concrete spillway has been built at the exit to the lake; I believe this is an attempt to prevent the moraine being washed out and causing a catastrophic flood during high-water years, something which happened some years ago in another valley.
There was a small maintenance building at the end of the road, and a sign describing some of the birds we might see in the various habitats on our walk down the valley. Unfortunately, all the birds we saw weren't on the sign, so my identification for some of the less colorful ones is suspect.
Before starting our hike down the valley, we took a short trail across and up onto the moraine forming the dam. From there we could look down on the lake.
It was clearly the end of the dry season; the lake was very small, barely lapping at the bottom of the dam. There was a sign down at the lake shore saying the altitude was 4,474m (14,678'). That's higher than everything in the lower 48 states of the U.S., and it's only a lake.
We knew we were in a seasonally dry area, but we were stunned to find cacti growing around the lake. They were stunted, with small blossoms, but they were really pretty, a bright, colorful highlight to the generally subdued colors.
We headed down off the moraine to start our hike down the valley and were rewarded almost immediately by seeing some really cool birds. We found, got pictures of, and could identify Tit-like Dacnis, Hooded Siskin, Plumbeous Sierra-Finch, and Bright-rumped Yellow-Finch; we saw a few others but didn't get photos.
Dona got some great pictures of this raptor that kept flying right over her; perhaps it was hoping we would scare out some smaller birds or rodents so it could pounce on them.
The colorful birds seemed to be hanging mostly on the steep slope of the moraine itself, where there were more shrubs and small trees. We worked our way down the valley, enjoying the wildflowers.
While we were in a National Park, there is still some grazing going on. I think some of it is historical and specifically allowed, although I don't know for sure. On our previous hike to Laguna Churup, we encountered some fences whose purpose was to restrict livestock access; we did not see anything like that here.
As we got a little further down the valley we found quite a few Andean Flickers. They were pretty fun to watch, and not particularly shy.
The sun had been poking in and out as we hiked down, but as we neared the "gates" where the valley opened up it started dumping corn snow. Once we were through the gates the valley opened up and more peaks came into view; I'm can't identify all of them, unfortunately, but they are all cool. I wish I had spent a year or two down here in my youth climbing some of them.
In case you didn't detour there already, here's a link to our visit to Chaví de Huántar. The morning after our hike down the Quebrada Llaca valley, we left Huaraz and headed to Machu Picchu.