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 764 km round trip from Llama - roughly 13 h 11 in the saddle. On the way it passes Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana, Segment Cajay - Huaritambo, Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051 and Huascarán National Park. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 4,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 44 km this is Peru Huascaran Circuit, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
The Inca road network, the Qhapaq Ñan, once linked an empire stretching from Colombia to Chile, and this segment, between Canrash and Torrepampa, runs through the high valleys of the Conchucos region in Ancash, east of the Cordillera Blanca. The Inca road here was a stone-paved trail, with steps, retaining walls and drainage channels, built for runners, soldiers and llama caravans rather than wheels. Much of it survives, winding along hillsides above the river valleys, and it is part of the transnational World Heritage listing for the Andean road system.
Read the complete Segment Canrash - Torrepampa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Canrash - Torrepampa is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 84 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 179 km into the recorded legs you reach Segment Cajay - Huaritambo. Next is Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051.
East of the Cordillera Blanca, in the region of Ancash known as the Conchucos, the Inca road system, the Qhapaq Ñan, crossed some of the most rugged terrain of its entire network. This segment, near the small town of Yauya, is part of the main road that ran north from Cusco to Quito through the high Andes, linking administrative centres such as Huánuco Pampa to the south. The Inca engineers laid stone paving, built steps on steep slopes, retaining walls and drainage channels, and stretches of the road can still be walked today, threading across high grasslands and past lakes at altitudes well over three and a half thousand metres. The whole network, which crosses six countries, became a World Heritage site in 2014.
Read the complete Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051, about halfway. 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 sits at 382 km, about halfway. Next is back through Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051 comes up about 513 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 585 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Segment Cajay - Huaritambo. 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, late in the day. Next is Segment Canrash - Torrepampa.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Canrash - Torrepampa write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 764 km.
Segment Canrash - Torrepampa → Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana is 84 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana → Segment Cajay - Huaritambo is 96 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Cajay - Huaritambo → Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051 is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051 → Huascarán National Park is 131 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Huascarán National Park → back through Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051 is 131 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Otutococha - QÑ-HH-051 → back through Segment Cajay - Huaritambo is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Cajay - Huaritambo → back through Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana is 96 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana → Segment Canrash - Torrepampa is 84 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.