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 Chacas it runs 833 km to Chacas; allow about 14 h 22 of riding. On the way it passes Segment Cajay - Huaritambo, Segment Ayash - Taulli, Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku and back through Segment Ayash - Taulli. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 4,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 is where the day begins. 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.
Segment Cajay - Huaritambo comes up about 139 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Ayash - Taulli.
East of the Cordillera Blanca, the Andes break into a jumble of high plateaus and deep valleys draining toward the Marañón and the Amazon, and the Inca road ran through this country on its way from Cusco to Quito. The Ayash to Taulli segment is a stretch of the Qhapaq Ñan in the highlands of Huánuco, near the town of Llata, part of the UNESCO-listed Andean road system. It runs through the puna, the high grassland above the tree line, where the wind blows cold and the views stretch for miles over ridges and valleys. In places, the original road survives, with stone paving, retaining walls, steps and drainage channels, and walking a section of it is the best way to understand how the Incas moved people and goods across this vertical landscape.
Read the complete Segment Ayash - Taulli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 274 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Ayash - Taulli. Next is Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku.
The Qhapaq Ñan, the royal road of the Incas, linked an empire that stretched from what is now Colombia to Chile and Argentina, and in the highlands of Huánuco in central Peru one of its best-preserved stretches runs across the high puna between Tambo Chico and Taparaku.
Read the complete Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku, about halfway. Next is back through Segment Ayash - Taulli.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Ayash - Taulli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Ayash - Taulli sits at 555 km, about halfway. Next is back through Segment Cajay - Huaritambo.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Cajay - Huaritambo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Cajay - Huaritambo comes up about 694 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Huascarán National Park closes the day.
Huascarán National Park → Segment Cajay - Huaritambo is 139 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Cajay - Huaritambo → Segment Ayash - Taulli is 135 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Ayash - Taulli → Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku is 142 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku → back through Segment Ayash - Taulli is 142 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Ayash - Taulli → back through Segment Cajay - Huaritambo is 135 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Cajay - Huaritambo → Huascarán National Park is 139 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.