Hiking the base of Nevado Ausangate

The hike started just out of Tinki, a town about 4 hours on a bus from Cusco. We set our alarms at 4.30am that morning and headed to the bus stop (Terminal de Transportes Unancha) where we got on the next available bus to Tinki for S/15 each. As soon as we got off the bus in Tinki we had a couple taxi drivers come up to us asking if we wanted a ride to the start of the Ausangate track, Upis. “Si, por favor!”

We got dropped off at Campamento Upis which is as far as you can drive by car and was about 45 minutes from Tinki. This was a rough farm road meaning we paid S/100 total for the ride. At one point we even had to get out and push the taxi car through some mud.

We started hiking at 10am and stopped for lunch about an hour or so in since we had been up since 4.30am. We ate lunch at Upis Qocha, one of the many lakes and glaciers we saw on the hike.

From here we had to head over our first pass which got us up to 4850m. As soon as we reached the top of the pass the weather changed and we ended up walking in some seriously impressive hail. I think this, as well as eating porridge outside one morning while it was heavily snowing, are two things I look back on now and think are pretty cool, but at the time they were not fun hahaha. We were only 2 hours in at this point and I was thinking holy heck I’m not sure I can handle 5 days of this!

Note: The whole hike was above 4500m, with a pass everyday so we definitely had high altitude working against us. The first two days we felt the effects of the altitude but we came right by the final two days. Being so high meant it was seriously cold when the sun wasn’t shining!

We got to our camping spot for the night after hiking for about 4 hours, however, it had just started heavily raining prior to getting there. Luckily for us there was a small shelter we were able to wait out the rain in before we raced out and set up our tent once it had stopped. We paid the farmer S/15 each for camping here.

The next morning we woke up at 6am to clear skies and ice on the tent. The hands definitely froze packing it up. Each morning we averaged around 2 hours from the time the alarm went off to when we started hiking, I think everything is just a lot slower in the altitude and the cold.

After eating warm porridge with raisins and brown sugar, and savouring our tea, we set off for day 2 (about 8.30am). We had pretty good weather this day until about 3pm when it started raining, which seemed quite common we noticed. We hiked over our 2nd pass, reaching 4900m.

Unfortunately at the top of the pass I started to feel a bit unwell from the altitude. We decided we would cut the day short and pitch the tent a bit earlier than planned and make a game plan for the following days. I think we only hiked about 3 hours this day. We managed to pitch the tent before the rain started in the afternoon. The location was about 1km from Campamento Anantapata and we paid the farmer S/20 each.

We built up the motivation to climb out of the tent about 5pm for some dinner, our go to was ramen and tuna. Thankfully by that point I was feeling a lot better so we made the decision to continue on with the circuit, but without the detour to Rainbow Mountain, making it a 4 day hike instead of 5.

We decided to set the alarms at 5am for the last 2 days of the hike, since we were going to sleep about 7.30-8pm anyway. Day 3 morning we woke up to snow covering all of the surrounding hills and about 5 minutes after getting up we realised the clouds still had a bit more snow to give. That morning we had off and on snow as we ate breakfast and packed up the tent. Neither of us filmed it but it‘s quite funny thinking back on us sitting there each on our own rocks eating porridge while it snowed heavily around us. A shelter would’ve been nice!

Day 3 was about 16km and we had another pass, of 5050m. We passed by many farm dogs and women in their Peruvian skirts and plaited hair moving herds of llamas into new “paddocks”. We decided not to take any risks with feeling the altitude this day so tackled the pass at literal snail pace.

We walked another hour or so once down in the valley towards our new campsite. As per usual, it started pouring with rain as we were a couple of km’s from the campsite meaning we got there drenched. Fortunately this campsite had a shed we used to dry out in and cook, etc. It even had a toilet and sink which was luxury! We paid the farmer S/20 for this campsite.

As we went to bed it was still pouring with rain, but luckily when we woke up it was a clear morning. Eating our porridge as the sun warmed us up was marvellous. We were also sharing the space with a French couple who overtook us going up the pass the previous day. Listening to some of their stories they were definitely pretty hard core (and cheap). They had actually lived in NZ in 2024 working at a vineyard and a dairy farm. The whole hike we only saw the German and French couple which was pretty epic, aside from the many farmers we interacted with.

This final day we hiked 17km and the pass was 5100m. Technically our biggest day, but we were saying we actually felt the best this day - the beauty of acclimatisation. The weather was stunning as well with only some wind and cloud at the top of the pass.

We got to the town of Pacchanta about 1.30pm and we went and found somewhere to stay the night. We ended up staying at Sumaq Point which was S/65 total including a double room, towels and wifi. Since we finished so early we ended up cleaning our gear and hanging everything out to dry so we didn’t have to do it back in Cusco. The tent definitely appreciated drying out.

We asked the hostel owner if we could have showers, and he pointed to the thermal bath out on the lawn haha. Was amazing for us to not only clean ourselves but get to relax in a thermal spa after a 4 day hike. Just felt bad for the other guy in there with us cause we stank…

We woke up the next morning feeling fresh and on top of the world. We had a morning soak at 7am (our body clocks are now out of whack), and then ate our usual porridge in the sun. The taxi back to Tinki cost us S/40, and we then waited about 10 minutes for a bus to Cusco to rock up.

This is probably the best hike I’ve ever done, with a combination of scenery, isolation, but also the cultural aspect with the interactions with farmers (and their dogs) every day. I think removing the detour to Rainbow Mountain was a necessary call at the time to ensure we actually did make it around the circuit, and in good spirits. Feeling our best on day 4, which was also the biggest day, just shows the effects altitude can have, and is a pretty good indicator on how long it took us to acclimatise.

MacKenzie

Apr 17, 2025