Day 1: Cashapampa to Llamacorral

Hiking time: ~ 4.45 hours
Elevation gain: 860 m/2822 ft
High point and campsite: Llamacorral at 3760 m/12,336 ft

We’re off! We were picked up at Apu EcoLodge at 8:00 and met our guide, Cesar. We were already acquainted with our cook, Joel. He did a great job cooking on our Huayhuash trek two years ago and we were happy we would be trekking with him again on this trip. Staying in Caraz made for a shorter drive to the trailhead in Cashapampa and it took us about 1 hr 15 minutes to get there. The road was more straightforward than other roads we had driven - some longer traverses along the mountainsides instead of a ton of slow switchbacks. Along the way we had nice views of the blue skies and puffy clouds above the Cordillera Negra and as we got closer to Cashapampa, a good look at the verdant farmland.

We met our arrieros (or muleteers or donkey drivers), Tony and Elmer, in Cashapampa and waited while the crew got organized, the arriero union conversed, and we checked in with the park ranger. We hit the trail at 10:30 am and would arrive at our Llamacorral campsite around 4:00 pm (I didn’t really pay attention to our breaks today, so did my best guess at our general hiking time). We had over 2800 feet in elevation gain and most of it came in the first half of the hike. As we entered the canyon and started to climb we were reminded of the Grand Canyon with the river, high cliffs walls, and desert flora such as cacti. After several hours the trail leveled off and while there were some small ups and downs, overall the rest of the way was fairly level. The trail paralleled the river and there were often some nice cascades and pools and some neat trees and plants. As we neared Llamacorral, we would get a peek at the big mountains.

Today was pretty mellow as far as scenery, but it was still a pleasant hike and a good first day on the trail. Llamacorral was in a pretty valley and we camped a little beyond the corral. Every night we had soup and a main dish and today was my favorite soup - a very tasty pumpkin soup. For our meal we had fried chicken breasts, french fries, and garlic rice. Tonight was our first introduction to tari sauce - crema de aji or a yellow hot chili sauce (available on Amazon - lucky for us!).

As a fun side note, we met a group of Canadian hikers on the trail and stopped to chat for a few minutes. They asked how old Norah was (10) and when we mentioned she did the Huayhuash two years ago, they realized they had seen a picture of Norah from their guide when they were talking about kids on the trail (Norah was definitely a curiosity on the Huayhuash trek at age 8). We were joking that Norah was “Huayhuash famous”. One of the hikers had his thirteen year old daughter with him and they were planning on climbing Pisco, which we thought was pretty cool.

Day 2: Llamacorral to Alpamayo Base Camp (plus side trips to Moraine Camp and Laguna Arhueycocha)

Hiking time: ~ 5.25 hours
Elevation gain: 440 m/1444 ft
High point/campsite: Alpamayo Basecamp at 4200 m/13,780 ft

Side trips: Steve to Moraine Camp (4875 m/15,994 ft) and Kathy to Laguna Arhueycocha (4400m/14,436 ft) - about 25 minutes to get to the lake

We decided to get an earlier start today at 7 am to allow Steve time to hike up to the Moraine Camp once we got to our site at Alpamayo Base Camp (I know that 7 am is probably standard to many hikers, but Norah is most definitely NOT a morning person, so we tended to get a later start to keep the peace). It was clear skies and the sun hit the valley as we started hiking and it was a very pleasant walk. The first two hours or so were easy walking through the valley. We saw a lot of birds and peeks at the big mountains. The map shows two lakes; Lagunas Ichiccocha and Jatuncocha and we learned the first lake we approached, L. Ichiccocha, no longer exists. Six years ago an avalanche happened that sent a large wave of water down the valley and it broke the small dam at the lower lake and it drained.

We took a few short breaks here and there, but mostly hiked steady and made decent time. The final part of our valley walk was a broad, sandy flat where the wind was blowing. It was a unique landscape amidst the mountains and neat to walk through. At the end of this section we reached Quishuar where we would turn north to hike up to Alpamayo Base Camp. We took a longer break here on a grassy knoll in the company of some Andean bluebirds before starting our climb for the day (which was modest at 1444 feet). As we climbed the views just got better and better - mountains all around. The climb deposited us in the mouth of a valley and we had an easy walk from here to camp. It took longer than normal though because we stopped constantly to ooh and aah at the views.

We got to camp around 1 pm and were happy to have a beautiful afternoon in camp. Joel fixed noodle soup for a snack then Steve and Cesar left to hike up to Moraine Camp. Norah had decided she had enough hiking for the day, so I left her in camp to do the short hike up to Laguna Arhueycocha. Beautiful lake, although pictures were tough because it had clouded over significantly by the time I got there. Steve had some terrific views from much higher at Moraine Camp.

The clouds cleared somewhat by sunset and we had a lovely evening. We especially liked the alpenglow on the tip of Artesanraju (which is supposedly the mountain in the Paramount logo). After sunset we had dinner: vegetable quinoa soup, fried trout, baked potatoes, and vegetable medley. We lingered after dinner because it was an early moon rise and a full moon, which nicely illuminated the glaciers and mountains. It was a very beautiful scene by moonlight. We didn’t dilly dally too long though because once the sun goes down it gets very cold, especially at higher elevations, and we crawled into our sleeping bags for another good night of sleep in the mountains (sunset was around 6 pm and we often were in bed after dinner - we certainly got a lot of good sleep on this trip!).