Santa Cruz Trek

PeaksÁncash,Peru

Four days on foot through Peru's Cordillera Blanca, the highest tropical range on Earth, past turquoise glacier lakes to a rock notch at 4,750 metres.

September·Edge of season

Sep

September holds the dry-season clarity and keeps the high pass safe to cross, but the Northern-Hemisphere crowds have gone home. The camps at Llamacorral and Taullipampa are quieter, mules are easy to hire, and these are the last reliably rainless weeks before October's showers return.

Year-round The four-day trek past turquoise glacial lakes to the Punta Unión pass is here year-round in landscape, but walkable only in the dry season, roughly May to September.

The Santa Cruz Trek is four days on foot through the Cordillera Blanca, the highest tropical mountain range on Earth. It links the Santa Cruz and Huaripampa valleys, climbing past glacier-fed lakes stained turquoise by rock flour to a high point at Punta Unión, a rock notch barely wide enough for the path at 4,750 metres. Step through the notch and the view splits in two: the green Taullicocha lake on one side, and on the other the sheer fluted ice face of Taulliraju rising to 5,830 metres. The peaks around the route are among the most celebrated in the Andes — Artesonraju, Quitaraju, and the near-perfect pyramid of Alpamayo, voted the world's most beautiful mountain at a 1966 contest in Munich. The whole circuit sits inside Huascarán National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985. The park also holds Huascarán itself, at 6,768 metres the highest mountain in Peru. The reward is not only the peaks but the valleys between them. By day you cross open puna grassland and walk beside lakes lit almost electric blue. By night you camp under skies of startling clarity, while mule trains driven by local arrieros jingle past on paths their families have used for generations. Hiring an arriero frees your back of everything but a daypack, and it is what most walkers do. At first light the glaciers flush pink and gold, and an Andean condor may ride the thermals overhead. The trek needs no ropes and no technical climbing, but the thin air is real. Most walkers spend two or three days acclimatising in Huaraz, at 3,050 metres, before setting off from Cashapampa or Vaquería. Beyond a park fee and a bag warm enough for sub-zero nights, little stands between you and one of South America's great mountain walks.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Give yourself two or three days at altitude first — sleep near Huaraz (3,050 m) and take a warm-up hike before you start; the 4,750-metre Punta Unión turns back anyone who climbs too fast.
Start high at Vaquería to walk the route downhill — beginning from the loftier trailhead puts Punta Unión early on and leaves the long, gentle descent of the Santa Cruz valley ahead.
Come in May or late September to dodge the July peak — the same clear skies and safe pass, but far fewer tents at Llamacorral and Taullipampa and mules easier to hire on short notice.
Detour to Laguna Arhuaycocha from Taullipampa — a half-day side trip sets you right beneath Alpamayo and Quitaraju, the ice pyramids the main pass only shows from afar.
Carry your Huascarán National Park ticket — wardens check it at control points along the trail, and everything you pack in, trash included, has to come back out with you.

Things to do

1
Reach the Ichiccocha and Jatuncocha lakes
In the lower Santa Cruz valley the trail runs beside Ichiccocha and Jatuncocha, twin lakes stained deep turquoise by glacial rock flour. On still mornings the ice of the surrounding peaks lies mirrored on their surface, and the water sits an unreal blue-green against the brown grassland.
2
Walk with the arrieros
Share the trail with the muleteers and their cargo animals as they climb toward the pass. Their steady, unhurried pace has crossed these passes since long before the trekkers came, and it frees your own back of everything but a daypack.
3
Camp beneath the Taulliraju ice wall
Pitch a tent at Taullipampa, directly under the fluted ice face of Taulliraju, and spend a night high in the valley. Once the sun drops behind the peaks the temperature plunges below freezing and the sky fills with stars over the glaciers. Get out before sunrise and scramble to a rise above camp: for a few minutes the high ice flushes pink and gold while the valley floor is still in cold shadow, and nothing moves but your own breath.
4
Cross the Punta Unión notch
Climb the switchbacks to the 4,750-metre Punta Unión, a slot barely wide enough for the trail. Step through and the whole range opens at once: Taulliraju's ice wall close on one side, the green Taullicocha lake far below on the other.

Watch

Nearby

18 km