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 Quinuabamba it runs 1180 km to Quinuabamba; allow about 20 h 20 of riding. The stops in between: Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana, Huascarán National Park, Segment Tambillo - Pincosh and Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 4,300 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
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.
High on the eastern side of the Cordillera Blanca, in the Conchucos valleys of Ancash, a stretch of the old Inca road crosses grassy ridges between Cotocancha and the heights known as Alturas de Torre. This is part of the Qhapaq Ñan, the vast Andean road network that tied the Inca empire together, inscribed as a World Heritage Site in 2014. The main trunk here ran north from Huánuco Pampa towards Cajamarca, and in places you can still see stone paving, retaining walls, drainage channels and steps.
Read the complete Segment Cotocancha - Alturas de Torre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Cotocancha - Alturas de Torre 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 177 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 324 km into the recorded legs you reach Huascarán National Park. Next is Segment Tambillo - Pincosh.
This is high, remote country. The Tambillo to Pincosh segment of the Qhapaq Ñan crosses the puna of the Ancash and Huánuco highlands, east of the Cordillera Blanca, at altitudes of around four thousand metres, part of the stretch of the Inca road that ran north from Cusco through the Andes towards Quito. The road here was the main artery of the empire, with tambos, way stations, every day's walk or so, where travellers, messengers and armies could rest and find supplies. Tambillo, the little tambo, suggests one of those stations. Today, the road survives as a stone-paved path with retaining walls and drainage channels, crossing open grassland, wetlands and passes, and it is one of the best-preserved sections of the network, listed by UNESCO along with the rest of the Qhapaq Ñan.
Read the complete Segment Tambillo - Pincosh write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Tambillo - Pincosh, about halfway. Next is Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata.
The Qhapaq Ñan, the great road network of the Inca Empire, ran for thousands of kilometres along the Andes, linking the capital Cusco with the far corners of an empire that stretched from Colombia to Chile. In the department of Huánuco, in central Peru, one of its best preserved sections crosses the high puna between the administrative centre of Huánuco Pampa and the valleys to the north, and the segment between Taparaku and the Tambo de Llata is part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site inscribed in 2014.
Read the complete Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata sits at 592 km, about halfway. Next is back through Segment Tambillo - Pincosh.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Tambillo - Pincosh write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Tambillo - Pincosh comes up about 701 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 853 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Huascarán National Park. 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 Cotocancha - Alturas de Torre.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Cotocancha - Alturas de Torre write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 1180 km.
Segment Cotocancha - Alturas de Torre → Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana is 177 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana → Huascarán National Park is 146 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Huascarán National Park → Segment Tambillo - Pincosh is 153 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Tambillo - Pincosh → Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata is 112 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Taparaku - Tambo de Llata → back through Segment Tambillo - Pincosh is 112 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Tambillo - Pincosh → back through Huascarán National Park is 153 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Huascarán National Park → back through Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana is 146 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment QÑ-HH-051 - Inca Misana → Segment Cotocancha - Alturas de Torre is 177 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.