Day 5 - Hiking Day 2
Friday, September 26
Haku!
Soyrococha (14,715 ft.) → Collpapampa (9,842 ft.)
Hiking Mileage: 10.6 miles
Elevation Gain: 540 ft.
Elevation Loss: 5,413 ft.
Highest Elevation: 15,255 ft.
Trekking Time: 8:40 hours
5:00am wake up after a night of some (?) sleep for most of us and only one report of someone getting sick in the night. Wildland Trekking is taking good care of us - our chef and sous chef have learned what our preferred morning drinks are and they are outside our tents with hot water for tea / hot chocolate or coffee to serve us first thing at 5:00am.
The early morning was the clearest moment in the day and our best view of Mt. Salkantay, as this the day when we are most closest to it and crossing the high pass at more than 15,000 ft. Here is our camp looking up at Mt. Salkantay in the first light of day :
We had about an hour of steep up on rocky terrain (about 500 ft) to reach the pass. The clouds came in pretty quickly and it was sleeting by the time we arrived there. The trail also became crowded both with people and with horses.
We took our photos quickly as the wind had picked up as well, and then began the long descent that would pretty much be the rest of the day.
Just as we were arriving at our lunch spot, it started pouring rain. But we didn’t mind as we were in a covered area and had a bathroom available to us as well! And of course, lunch was a feast: barley soup, mango ceviche, fried yucca, cheese & chicken roll ups, quinoa with veggies, salad, and the usual coffee and tea and hot juice.
We continued our descent after lunch. The temperatures rose, the rain became more sporadic, and we shed our layers as we entered the cloud forest. And we enjoyed the flora and fauna of a completely different eco system from what we’d seen just hours before.
We arrived to our camp at 4:45, which was actually our tents set up in the yard of a private home. Our chef/sous chef have use of a space for setting up their equipment for cooking, we have a room with a long table and benches for eating, and we have toilets (fyi, we’ve been using toilet paper we brought from home throughout the entire trek in case you were wondering…). As soon as we arrived we hung our wet clothes/gear on lines to dry out, and…. it began to pour again! Thankfully we were tucked away in our tents for a quick rest before dinner.
Dinner: Yucca & vegetable soup, beef with veggies, zucchini quiche, and bananas foster for dessert!
We covered a lot of ground today! Here is the All Trails video of our trek today:
Tomorrow: The longest (and probably hardest) trekking day of the trip!