CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
827 km from Casma to Casma, about 14 h 16 of riding. On the way it passes Huascarán National Park, Segment Cajay - Huaritambo and back through Huascarán National Park. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 4,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Cerro Mucho Malo, the Hill of Much Evil, is the name locals give to the ridge on which Chankillo's thirteen towers stand, and the name probably refers to the difficulty of the terrain, bare, stony and exposed. It is a long, low spine of rock rising above the plain, and the towers run along its crest, a procession of squat stone structures with stairways and small chambers at the top. From the plain, the ridge looks small. From the top, it commands a wide view over the valley, with the green strip of the irrigated river on one side and the empty desert on the other.
Read the complete Cerro Mucho Malo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cerro Mucho Malo is where the day begins. Next is Huascarán National Park.
The Cordillera Blanca is the highest tropical mountain range on earth, and Huascarán National Park protects most of it: dozens of peaks over six thousand metres, hundreds of glaciers and glacial lakes, and high valleys of grass and rock. Huascarán itself, at 6,768 metres, is the highest mountain in Peru, a twin-summited giant of ice and snow that dominates the Callejón de Huaylas, the long valley of the Santa river below. The park was listed by UNESCO in 1985, and it is one of the great mountain landscapes of the world.
Read the complete Huascarán National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Huascarán National Park comes up about 312 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Cajay - Huaritambo.
Few riders ever get this far into the Conchucos, the deep valleys on the eastern side of Peru's Cordillera Blanca, and that is half the reason to come. The label refers to a stretch of the Qhapaq Ñan, the Inca road network that ran for thousands of kilometres along the Andes, here crossing between the hamlet of Cajay and Huaritambo, whose name preserves the word tambo, the waystation where runners and travellers on imperial business could rest, eat and change loads. Parts of the paving, retaining walls and drainage channels still survive on slopes where it is hard to imagine anyone building anything at all.
Read the complete Segment Cajay - Huaritambo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 412 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Cajay - Huaritambo. Next is back through Huascarán National Park.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Huascarán National Park write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Huascarán National Park, late in the day. Next is Cerro Mucho Malo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cerro Mucho Malo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Cerro Mucho Malo. That is the ride.
Cerro Mucho Malo → Huascarán National Park is 312 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Huascarán National Park → Segment Cajay - Huaritambo is 100 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Cajay - Huaritambo → back through Huascarán National Park is 100 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Huascarán National Park → Cerro Mucho Malo is 312 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.