Quilcayhuanca Valley

Quilcayhuanca is the valley people walk when they want the Cordillera Blanca without the traffic. It starts at the same Pitec trailhead as Laguna Churup and runs east as a classic U-shaped glacial trough, flat-floored, several hundred metres wide, grazed by cattle, with walls rising to Andavite and Cayesh and the Tullparaju glaciers at the head. The walking is gentle for the first two days - almost no gradient along the valley bottom - which makes it an unusually forgiving multi-day route, and the standard circuit continues over the Huapi pass at about 5,000 metres into the Cojup valley and back to Pitec, a three or four day loop. There are lakes on side branches, Tullparaju and Cuchillacocha, both dammed for flood control after historic glacial lake outbursts. The valley is boggy in parts and river crossings can be awkward.

The landscape

• The trough - a wide flat glacial valley floor with grazing cattle.
• Cayesh and Tullparaju - the ice peaks and glaciers closing the head.
• The lakes - Tullparaju and Cuchillacocha, both engineered against outburst floods.
• The Huapi pass - the 5,000-metre crossing into the Cojup valley.

When to go

May to September. Two days out and back, or three to four for the loop over Huapi into Cojup. Camping is self-supported; there are no huts.

Things to know

Boggy ground on the valley floor and river crossings that rise with rain. The loop pass is at 5,000 metres and needs acclimatisation. No infrastructure, no reliable phone signal, cattle throughout. Fewer people than Santa Cruz, which is the reason to come.

Nearby

Laguna Churup shares the trailhead; Huaraz is below.