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.
A 1121 km round trip from Huachis - roughly 19 h 19 in the saddle. On the way it passes Segment Cajay - Huaritambo, Huascarán National Park, Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana and Segment Lomas de Huarin - Matacocha. 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.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 47 km this is Peru Huascaran Circuit, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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.
Segment Ayash - Taulli 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 128 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 259 km into the recorded legs you reach Huascarán National Park. Next is Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana.
Five hundred years ago a runner could have passed this spot carrying a knotted quipu or a message for the governor in Huánuco Pampa, handing it on at the next post in a relay that crossed the Andes faster than a horse. This short stretch, catalogued as segment QÑ-HH-051 near Inca Misana, is a fragment of the Qhapaq Ñan, the Inca road system that linked an empire from southern Colombia to central Chile. The whole network was listed by UNESCO in 2014 across six countries, and what you find on the ground here in Ancash is often modest: a line of stone paving, a retaining wall, a set of steps cut into a slope, running across high grassland with the mountains standing all around.
Read the complete Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana, about halfway. Next is Segment Lomas de Huarin - Matacocha.
Few places in Peru feel as far from Lima as the eastern side of the Cordillera Blanca, in the Conchucos country of the Ancash region. The Inca road here was a mountain track, climbing from the valley of the Marañón up to the high grasslands, and the segment from Lomas de Huarin to Matacocha, part of the UNESCO Qhapaq Ñan listing of 2014, runs through a landscape of steep green slopes, terraced fields, small hamlets and a sky that feels very close. The towns are Pomabamba, a market town known for hot springs, and Yauya, a smaller place in a side valley, with farms and a busy Sunday market.
Read the complete Segment Lomas de Huarin - Matacocha write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Lomas de Huarin - Matacocha sits at 562 km, about halfway. Next is back through Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana comes up about 697 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 859 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Huascarán National Park. 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, late in the day. Next is 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.
The route ends here after 1121 km.
Segment Ayash - Taulli → Segment Cajay - Huaritambo is 128 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Cajay - Huaritambo → Huascarán National Park is 131 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Huascarán National Park → Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana is 162 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana → Segment Lomas de Huarin - Matacocha is 138 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Lomas de Huarin - Matacocha → back through Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana is 138 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana → back through Huascarán National Park is 162 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Huascarán National Park → back through Segment Cajay - Huaritambo is 131 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Cajay - Huaritambo → Segment Ayash - Taulli is 128 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.