Santa Cruz & Climbing Vallunaraju
Santa Cruz & Climbing Vallunaraju
Best time: May to September
Timing: 7 days
Grade: moderate / difficult
Experience your first mountain climbing in the vallunaraju which is suitable for beginners. The Santa Cruz trek is a good trek for an acclimatization and is one of the most popular circuits in the Huaraz Peru.
Located in the Cordillera Blanca mountain range, which begins approximately in the middle of Peru and runs south down towards Bolivia and Chile, the majority of this National Park region sits above 4000 metres above sea level.
ITINERARY
Day A: Arrive Huaraz
Day B: Acclimatisation walk
Day 1: Drive from Huaraz to Cashapampa - 3 hours. Walk up the Santa Cruz Valley, following the river to camp at Llamacorral (3750m)
Day 2: A steady walk up the valley to our camp at Taullipampa (4250m). During the walk up the valley you see Santa Cruz (6259m) and also Alpamayo (5947m) comes into view. We walk past two lakes, first the small Ichiccocha then the larger Jatuncocha. From our camp we have views of more high peaks – Taulliraju, Paria, Artseonraju, Rinrijirca.
Day 3: Optional extra night at Taullipampa. Visit Alpamayo Base Camp, the lake Arhuaycocha, climb Centillo Peak or rest day
Day 4: Climb to the pass of Punta Union (4750m) from where there are very close views of the surrounding mountains. We also look back down the Santa Cruz Valley from where we have walked. From the pass descend past two small lakes to camp in the Quebrada Huaripampa.
Day 5: Walk down the valley Quebrada Huaripampa, then climb up to the settlement of Vaqueria 4 - 5 hours walk. We then take a car over a high pass Portachuelo and down a steep zig zag road to our campsite Yuraccoral near the beautiful lake Llanganuco - 2½ hours by car, then after having lunch we continue straight to Huaraz 2 hours more.
Day 6: In the morning we leave Huaraz on a private minivan to Llaca valley up to the hut, and then we pack our climbing gear to then continue hiking up on a steep path to Moraine Camp for 3 hours accompanied with our porters who will help us to transport our mountain equipments up to Moraine Camp (4800m).
Day 7: We start very early in the morning, we walk for 20 minutes to the glacier then we put our climbing gear on and then we continue on a fairly steep climbing (30º - 45º) all the way up to the Vallunaraju summit(5686m). then we descend to the moraine and pack our gear to go to the route where the car will be waiting for us to drive us back to Huaraz.
Day 8: Return to Lima
Contact: info@peruviantreks.com for more information and pricing on these Peru treks and climbing
