Peru

Some decades ago some mountaineers have dedicated the title of most beautiful mountain of the world to the summit of the Alpamayo, in the White Mountain Range, in Peru. We think that many mountains would deserve the title as the Ama Dablam in Himalaya for example, and among those must appear without question the Ausangate, in the region of Cusco.

Geography

The Ausangate ("Ausanqati" in Quechua which would like to say "the one who summons the fathers of family") culminates to 6385 m. of altitude and it is the highest summit of the Peruvian south after the Coropuna volcano in the region of Arequipa. It is the fifth highest mountain of Peru. The Ausangate is located in the Vilcanota mountain range, to a hundred kilometers of the city of Cusco. This mountain range is one of the most beautiful regions of the world for the trek and can be also counted among those of higher altitude. The majority of the passes are there at the altitude of the Mont Blanc towards the 4800 m and several passes exceed the 5000 m, of which the highest at 5300 m of altitude, the Jarihuanaco.

The massif is strewn with colored lakes of which the biggest lake of the Peruvian south after the Titicaca that are Sibinacocha and the big Turquoise lake Singrenacocha. There are gray, black, yellow, red and brown lakes on all the slopes of the mountain, most of them at the foot of the great glacial faces. Their names in Quechua generally refer to the color. The moraines, very charged in minerals, as well as some summits of less importance, are also colored. The famous "seven colors mountain", also known as "Rainbow Mountain" is only an outcrop of several veins of different colors that can be found far and wide and that crosses all the mountain range, we can see it for example at the Palomani Pass on the trek that goes around the Ausangate but also at Palcoyo and at Pallay Poncho

Apu

The Ausangate is first of all, like all the mountains of the Andes, "Apu", which means "lord" in Quechua. They are the mountains that command the destiny of the Men by distributing on their slopes the waters, pastures, animals, rocks and glaciers. It is these same Apus that one must revere unceasingly with propitiatory offerings in order to attract their benevolence or to calm their wrath and thus to avoid the diseases which are their punishments. These Apus have each one their history, their age, they are male or female, wild and furious or debonair and benevolent. In the region of Cusco the Ausangate is the patriarch, the Apu tutelary of all the region, that we can see to tens of kilometers in the round from almost all the provinces of the region, the Apu that commands to all the Apus and it is out of question to forget to invoke him during the rituals of offerings under penalty of incurring his anger. He is the Apu "who summons the fathers of the family" (the other great Apus). The Apu Ausangate is really the sacred mountain of the region of Cusco.

Ascent

The normal way to go up to the summit of the Ausangate is the way of the south plateau, which includes a wall to 60 degree that we pass generally after the installation of fixed ropes and that asks to spend or one two nights in camp of altitude. From the base camp at 4800 m it is necessary to climb the almost 1600 m of difference in altitude to reach the summit with a camp 1 at 5600 m and sometimes according to the conditions with a camp 2 at 6000 m. One of the difficulties is the snow on the summit "plateau" which can make it necessary to be equipped with snowshoes. Many other ascension routes, much more technical, have been used on all the faces.

The first expedition to conquer the summit was made by the Italian Piero Ghiglione in 1950. After two attempts he finally had to give up. In 1953 it was finally the famous Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer (the one from the movie "7 years in Tibet"!) who reached the summit with three companions. This expedition of the Akademischer Alpenverein (AAV) passed by the west ridge after a very delicate and dangerous passage of crevasses and seracs from the south. In 1966 another AAV expedition climbed the summit via the northwest ridge and the north face. Several expeditions then conquered the North East ridge (1969), the East face (1976), the East shoulder (1980), the South East ridge (1981) and by the East face and the South East ridge (1988). Since then many expeditions are organized every year by the normal route.

Trekking

There are many options of trekking around the Ausangate and in the massif that extends to the border with the Puno region in the south and crossing also the Carabaya mountain range. After the classic tours of the Ausangate in 4, 5 or 6 days it is also possible to do the High Route of the Ausangate or the crossing Ausangate Carabaya. Some variants also allow to go up from the village of Pitumarca to the big lake of Sibinacocha or to pass by the combe of Rit'iycancha and even to push on the famous "mountain of seven colors" of Vinicunca. It is possible to walk up to 12 days and more in this massif while remaining in a wild natural environment, very few people living in this mountain range.

To trek in the Ausangate and Carabaya mountain ranges to the great Quelcaya glacier, the largest ice cap in the tropical zone of the Earth, is an unforgettable experience. It is truly entering a space that is not only sacred but practically virgin and whose immensity brings us back to our true size, reminding us that we are above all walkers, which we have been for tens of thousands of years.

How to get there?

In the past and at the time of our first reconnaissance trips, it was necessary to spend a whole day on the dirt track that allowed us to get to the starting point of treks and expeditions in the Ausangate region. Very often the only accessible transport was the tanker trucks that took the gasoline to Puerto Maldonado in the Amazon. The tanks were flat and the drivers charged a small fee to travel 12 hours in the dust and hot sun to get to Tinki, a small village where the wind blew bramble balls into the dust on the main street.

Today, with the construction of the inter-oceanic road between Peru and Brazil, it takes only 3 hours to get to Tinki from Cusco. The road is the only existing means to go to the departure of the expeditions in the Ausangate.

Reading

We recommend you to read the excellent work of Xavier Ricard Lanata, "The Thieves of Shadow, The Religious Universe of the Shepherds of the Ausangate".