Day 372 – Huaraz
Hike to Laguna Churup
Since we were feeling decent after yesterday’s hike to Laguna Wilachocha (Day 371), we decided to do another aclimitisation hike in Huaraz.
Today’s challenge would be Laguna Churup, which is 4,465 metres above sea level.
Getting to Laguna Churup
As per the advise from our hostel, we arrived at the collectivo point at 7am in the morning. This was along Avenida Agustin Gamarra street close to the intersection of Avenida Antonio Raymondi street. The collectivo had two empty seats that we occupied. The ride cost us 10 PEN ($4.35 AUD) per person (p/p).
Along the way, we chatted to the mainly European tourists in the collectivo. The journey took less than an hour. By the time we were at the trail head it was 8am.
Laguna Churup
At the trail head, there is a man selling tickets to the Huascaran National Park. The tickets cost 30 PEN ($13.06 AUD) p/p. Multiday tickets can be bought for the park, so it depends on what other hikes you wish to do.
The hike begins around 3800m and ascended to 660m over 3km. The signage says that the hike to the viewpoint (‘mirador’ in Spanish) will take 3 hours which is 4535m above sea level. It took us 3.5 hours, with several stops at the sheltered areas along the way. The last 400m of the trail was brutal as we were struggling to breathe. Everyone else went straight to the laguna, which requires a climb nearby a waterfall, so we were the only ones at the viewpoint.
The views of the laguna were spectaclar. The various colours of blue were incredible and I never would have thought could occur naturally.
From the viewpoint there is a short descent to the Laguna itself.
There is actually another laguna, called Laguna Churupita. The more fit people from our collectivo were aiming to go there, but we opted not to. We were too tired to hike another 1.5 hours (one way) there.
Therefore, we started our decent from the laguna, which was now getting crowded by what looked like Peruvians at 12.15pm.
We took the more direct route back, near the waterfall, which is tricky at times but do-able. A lot of puffed out people asked us, how long it will take to climb this section.
At 2pm we were back at the trailhead. We got onto a waiting collectivo and had to wait an additional 15 minutes for it to fill up. By 3pm we were back in Huaraz, and dropped off close to the pick up point from the morning.
After dropping our bags at Akilpo Hostel, we checked out the market for some groceries. We also met a Canadian physiotherapist yesterday, who we invited out to dinner with us. Restaurant Turistico Eli’s was awesome value for money as always.
We have an early morning tomorrow as we have booked a day trip to another laguna so we went to sleep early.