CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
curated scenic road. Cordillera Blanca, glacial lakes, high passes. From Huaraz it runs 293 km to Huaraz; allow about 7 h 19 of riding. It goes by way of Yungay, Yanama and Chacas. The highest point is about 4,750 m. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 5 km this is Peru Huascaran Circuit, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Huaraz sits at about three thousand metres in the Callejon de Huaylas, a long, high valley between the Cordillera Blanca and the Cordillera Negra in the Peruvian Andes. The Cordillera Blanca rises along the east side, white with glaciers, and holds the highest tropical mountains in the world, including Huascaran, which at 6,768 metres is the highest peak in Peru. On a clear morning the whole range shows over the roofs of the town, an almost unreal wall of ice. Huaraz was largely destroyed in the great earthquake of 1970, which killed tens of thousands across the region and buried the nearby town of Yungay under an avalanche from Huascaran. The modern town is mostly new, a busy, practical place for trekkers and climbers.
Read the complete Huaraz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Peru Huascaran Circuit point 1 sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Peru Huascaran Circuit point 2.
Peru Huascaran Circuit point 2 comes up 29 km in. Next is Peru Huascaran Circuit point 3.
58 km in you reach Peru Huascaran Circuit point 3. Next is Peru Huascaran Circuit point 4.
Chacas is a mountain town that carves its own doors. Wooden balconies, panelled doorways, carved window frames and religious statues are everywhere, and the work is not tourist craft but a living tradition taught in a school of woodwork started here by an Italian priest, Ugo de Censi, who arrived in the Andes in the 1970s and decided that young people needed a trade as much as a prayer. The result is an unusually handsome little town on a high Andean slope, with a church well worth stepping into. Yauya is the nearest larger place, about twenty kilometres off, and Carhuaz about thirty-three.
Read the complete Chacas write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Peru Huascaran Circuit point 4, about halfway. Next is Peru Huascaran Circuit point 5.
Peru Huascaran Circuit point 5 sits at 116 km, late in the day. Next is Peru Huascaran Circuit point 6.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Huaraz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Peru Huascaran Circuit point 6 comes up 293 km in.