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.
1322 km from Huachis to Huachis, about 22 h 46 of riding. It goes by way of Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku, Segment Cajay - Huaritambo, Huascarán National Park and Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 4,300 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 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 comes up about 119 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 373 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Cajay - Huaritambo. 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, about halfway. 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 sits at 661 km, about halfway. 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 comes up about 820 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 949 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Segment Cajay - Huaritambo. Next is back through Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku, 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 1322 km.
Segment Ayash - Taulli → Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku is 119 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku → Segment Cajay - Huaritambo is 254 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Segment Cajay - Huaritambo → Huascarán National Park is 129 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Huascarán National Park → Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana is 159 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana → back through Huascarán National Park is 159 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 129 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Cajay - Huaritambo → back through Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku is 254 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Segment Tambo Chico - Taparaku → Segment Ayash - Taulli is 119 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.