One last hike..

Well, you know I had to do it... One last hike before I left my beloved Ancash. For the last year I had talked to my San Marquino friends about going to Rahupampa, meadow of snow-capped peaks, at the end of Carhuazcancha. (Avid blog readers will remember that Carhuazcancha was the site of a 19 hour hike in 2007!) Well, Rahupampa was not quite as intense (only about 14 hours) but still not for the faint of heart. :)
We started this mess at 1am in the morning. This time we drove to a town called Acopara and started the hike from there. About 9am we reached the park limits... Oddly enough, no park rangers at this isolated entry point.


We stopped for meals at the various huts that we passed along the way. My friends who were from here always knew who each hut belonged to... Although this was inside a national park and very isolated in general, many farmers let their cows or horses wander in this valley and sometimes daily make the hike to check on them. It took them a lot less time than it took us to make the same hike..

We were looking for snow capped peaks but the regular mountains were still a sight to see...

As we turned the corner, I was a little worried. We were making this last minute hike during the beginning of rainy season and clouds are a big part of, well, rain. I wasn't sure if we would see those mountain peaks after all our hard work!

But, it turns out we had nothing to worry about! At least for a while.. :)

We finally made it to the glacial lake. This lake is called Maparaju lake and lies at the base of .... (wait for it)..... Maparaju.

Then we hiked over to another lake before making our descent back to civilization and a nice, icy shower!

This stream is the beginning of a river called Yurayacu or Whitewater. The water that flows from the glaciers and the sediment that it contains gives it this white-blue-ish hue.

One last waterfall before hitting the road!

We got to the town where the car was parked around 4pm. We left around 6pm because the driver wanted to play in a volleyball game so we sat around and waited for him to finish. Because, really, who wants to walk another two hours when you could sit two hours and catch a ride?