Discover the Huayhuash mountain range on eleven days guided tour at start in Hotsprings and at the end HotPrings. See the second-highest mountain in Peru, Yerupaja, and the Siula mountain, made famous by the film “Touching the Void.”
The Huayhuash range is 30 km long and has Himalayan features. Its peaks are morphologically speaking, much more hilly and have more difficult access than those from the Cordillera Blanca. Aligned north to south, the main range of some twenty peaks stretches for approximately 15 km, with a subsidiary range of smaller peaks stretching out to the west for approximately 15 km. Six of the peaks exceed 6000 m. Included among them are Yerupaja 6617 m, the second highest mountain in Peru behind Huascaran at 6768 m, and Siula 6344 m, made famous by the film “Touching the Void.”
The area is barely populated at all, with what hamlets there are being very small and generally only found below 4000 m. The snowline is found at approximately 4,800 m. The nearest villages are Chiquian at 3400 m and Cajatambo at 3375 m. Some mining takes place in the area, so the north of the mountains there is an unsurfaced road leading up to as high as 4750 m. In 2002, the Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture declared the Huayhuash mountain range a “reserved zone” and prohibited certain economic activities, including any future mining.
