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: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 404 km round trip from La Unión - roughly 10 h 21 in the saddle. The stops in between: Segment Inka Hamash - Ayash, Chavin, Segment Tambillo - Pincosh and back through Chavin. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 4,400 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
La Union is a small market town in a high valley of the Huanuco Region, in the central Peruvian Andes, and the Huaricashash to Isco segment lies about eleven kilometres from it, in a landscape of steep terraced hillsides, eucalyptus groves and distant snow peaks. It is the same Inca road network as the neighbouring segments, but this stretch sits close to the greatest Inca site in the region.
Read the complete Segment Huaricashash - Isco write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Huaricashash - Isco is where the day begins. Next is Segment Inka Hamash - Ayash.
The high Andes of central Peru are less visited than the Cusco region, but the Incas were here too, and the old royal road, the Qhapaq Nan, runs through the mountains of Huanuco Region, with segments surviving in the hills above the towns of Llata and La Union.
Read the complete Segment Inka Hamash - Ayash write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Inka Hamash - Ayash comes up about 90 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chavin.
Three thousand years ago, priests at Chavín de Huántar led pilgrims into a labyrinth of dark stone galleries beneath a temple, where at the heart of the maze stood a carved granite pillar, the Lanzón, depicting a fanged deity. The Chavín culture, flourishing between roughly 1200 and 500 BC, spread its art and religious ideas across much of the Andes, and its temple complex in the Mosna valley is one of the most important archaeological sites in South America, inscribed by UNESCO in 1985. Look out for the cabezas clavas, carved stone heads that once projected from the temple walls, showing a transformation from human to jaguar or bird.
Read the complete Chavin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 149 km into the recorded legs you reach Chavin. 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 back through Chavin.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chavin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chavin sits at 128 km, about halfway. Next is back through Segment Inka Hamash - Ayash.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Inka Hamash - Ayash write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segment Inka Hamash - Ayash comes up about 314 km into the recorded legs. Next is Segment Huaricashash - Isco.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segment Huaricashash - Isco write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segment Huaricashash - Isco closes the day.
Segment Huaricashash - Isco → Segment Inka Hamash - Ayash is 90 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Inka Hamash - Ayash → Chavin is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chavín → Segment Tambillo - Pincosh is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segment Tambillo - Pincosh → back through Chavin is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chavin → back through Segment Inka Hamash - Ayash is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Segment Inka Hamash - Ayash → Segment Huaricashash - Isco is 90 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.