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.
From Casma it runs 971 km to Casma; allow about 16 h 43 of riding. It goes by way of 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. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Chankillo stands in the desert of Peru's northern coast, in the valley of Casma, and it is among the most puzzling ancient sites in the Americas. Here, more than two thousand years ago, people built a vast ceremonial complex on a barren plain: a hilltop fortress of concentric walls, a temple, plazas and a long ridge of towers. The people who raised it lived in the early centuries before the Inca and long before the Spanish, and their culture left no writing. The complex is a UNESCO site, and it is regarded as one of the oldest solar observatories in the Americas.
Read the complete Chankillo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chankillo 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 373 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 484 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 Chankillo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chankillo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Chankillo. That is the ride.
Chankillo → Huascarán National Park is 373 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Huascarán National Park → Segment Cajay - Huaritambo is 111 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Cajay - Huaritambo → back through Huascarán National Park is 111 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Huascarán National Park → Chankillo is 373 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.