Ausangate

PeaksCusco,Peru

A 6,384-metre glacier peak the Quechua treat as a guardian spirit, feeding the river that waters Cusco, with the striped Rainbow Mountain on its flank.

September·Edge of season

Sep

September holds the dry season's last clear, firm-trail days as the nights ease off their midwinter cold and the crowds thin. Rains are still weeks away, but the first afternoon clouds begin building over the high passes late in the month.

Year-round The glacier-capped sacred peak, its rainbow ridge and glacial lakes are here year-round; the dry season, May to September, is the window for trekking and pilgrimage at 5,000 metres.

Ausangate is an Apu to the Quechua who live in its shadow — a guardian mountain spirit believed to protect the region's llamas and alpacas. Its glacier crown reaches 6,384 metres, the highest in Peru's Cusco region and the fifth-highest in the country, and on a clear day you can see it from Cusco itself, 100 kilometres away. Its glaciers feed the Vilcanota river, which waters the valleys all the way down to Cusco, so the mountain is treated as a source rather than a landmark. On its lower flanks sits its unlikely modern fame: Vinicunca, the Rainbow Mountain, a ridge banded in copper-red, mustard and deep turquoise. Those stripes are mineral layers that lay buried under glacier ice until a warming climate stripped the snow away. Almost overnight an anonymous slope became one of the busiest trails in the Andes. The oldest way to know the mountain is the Ausangate Circuit, a hard trek that loops the whole massif over several days. It rarely drops below 4,000 metres and crosses wind-scoured passes above 5,000. You walk past glacial lakes that shift from emerald to turquoise, high meadows dotted with grazing alpacas, and hamlets of Quechua shepherds who still weave and wear the region's vivid textiles as everyday clothing. Hot springs along the route thaw the freezing nights. Most visitors gather somewhere else entirely: more than a thousand hikers a day now climb the Rainbow Mountain ridge at 5,200 metres. Push past them into the Red Valley beyond and the crowds vanish into a bowl of deep crimson rock. The massif also carries Qoyllur Rit'i, the star snow pilgrimage, which gathers in a valley under a neighbouring glacier. Everything here happens above 4,000 metres, where the air is thin and the nights freeze even in the dry season.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Come in the dry season, May to September — skies stay clear and trails firm, while the wet months from December bring cloud, mud and colours dulled on the ridges.
Acclimatize before you climb — the trails run between 4,000 and 5,200 metres, so spend two or three days in Cusco first and let coca tea ease the thin air.
Rainbow Mountain draws over a thousand hikers a day — set out at first light to reach the ridge before the tour buses, then escape into the emptier Red Valley beyond.
Start early, before the weather turns — mornings on the high passes are clear and calm, but cloud and wind build by early afternoon and can swallow the views.

Things to do

1
Ride horseback into the highlands
Ride out with the local arrieros, the horsemen who handle the pack animals on the circuit, along the same tracks they use across the high pasture. It is a practical way to cover ground above 4,000 metres, where walking uphill is slow, thirsty work, and the route climbs past glacial lakes toward passes over 5,000 metres.
2
Camp by a glacial lake
Pitch a tent on the shore of one of the circuit's glacial lakes, whose water shifts from emerald to turquoise as the light changes. Above 4,000 metres the temperature drops hard the moment the sun goes, so you need a proper sleeping bag. In return you get a sky with no light for miles around, and at some stops a hot spring to thaw out in before bed.
3
Climb to the Rainbow Mountain ridge
What makes this hard is not the distance but the height: the ridge stands at 5,200 metres, so the walking is slow and deliberate and you stop more often than the ground would suggest. On the crest the bands are close enough to read one at a time. Then keep going past the viewpoint into the Red Valley, because the crowd stops at the ridge and the crimson bowl beyond it stays empty.

Watch

Nearby

12 km