South America 2025 – #10 – Peru – Huayhuash Trek #1

03.05.2025

This is the first day of our 8 day trek of Huayhuash. We started the hike at Cuartelhuain at around 4150m elevation. The goal for this day was to hike around 12km to the first campsite Mitucocha via the first of 8 passes named Cacanan at 4700m of elevation.

Usually we prefer to hike for ourselves but for this trek we decided to use some help, mainly because of the length and height. We booked a private tour, means we got donkeys carrying our food, sleeping bags and tents. As well as one guy taking care of the donkeys and one guide also being a cook. This gave us the opportunity to hike light and increased the possibility to complete the trek.

The Trek we wanted to do is roughly 110km in length. Every day, except one, above 4300m elevation. Every day one pass, the lowest at 4500m elevation, the highest at around 5030m of elevation.

The distance every day is not the challenge, its the height, even well acclimatized like we were.

Below is the Map from my GPS-Tracking for the whole Trek.

We arrived at the starting point at around 12PM. The drive from Huaraz was about 4h. After sorting all our stuff we started the hike at around 1PM. Weather conditions were mixed that day. Its essential to have proper rain gear with you, as it rained multiple times on the trek (mountain weather). We chose to bring reusable rain ponchos, a wise choice ;), because we often needed them.

It took us about 5,5h to reach the first campsite.