The Sacred Mountain of Ausangate & The Three Lessons

The Ausangate trek takes 5 days and circles the sacred Ausangate mountain, It is said to be the 4^th best trek in the world.

We had met a guy called Simon in Huaraz and had discussed doing the Ausangate trek together in Cuzco, However Sarah’s ankle was still causing her some discomfort and a 5 day trek was not going to happen.

When we arrived in Cuzco we bumped in to Simon and started chatting about the trek, Sarah and I said that we probably could not do it as Sarah’s ankle was not up to it. At this point Simon told us of a yoga retreat he was studying yoga at, Sarah’s ears pricked up and she was hooked. We decided that Sarah would spend the five days relaxing at the yoga retreat and Simon and I would complete the trek.

Our problem was we could not leave until Tuesday morning and wanted to be back by Friday, 3 nights…The trek is supposed to take 4 – 5 nights….We came to the conclusion we may only make it half way and turn around.

We spent two days planning and collecting food and equipment for the trek, at 6 pm the evening before we left we were still searching for the map of the trek!! We finally found a copy at the Sothern America Explorers club that was officially closed, but agreed to sell us a map on the quiet!

Day 1 - Tuesday

Simon and I got up at 5 am on the Tuesday morning to set off on our adventure. I felt a little apprehensive leaving Sarah, it was set to be the longest we had been apart since we left on this trip in April! Sarah was however fast asleep at 5am so I didn’t even get to say goodbye.

We arrived at the start of the Ausangate trek at 10 am, our first decision had been not to start at the traditional beginning of the trek but get a taxi to another remote village and start there. What this did mean was that we would not have the normal path everyone takes to follow! This meant we needed to use all of our ‘navigational skills’ and a little help from the locals. We also decided that we were going to carry our packs ourselves; 12 kgs on our backs the whole way.

Some of the locals were very helpful some not so, you find in South America when someone has an interest in what your doing or can provide a service their advice can be taken with a pinch of salt! The first guy told us we were 4 hrs from our destination and could drive us, we knew from the map we were a maximum of 5 km away so 1 – 2 hours….

After crossing just a few valleys and speaking with locals we really started to get a feel for the size of the Ausangate mountain range and how small we were.

Map Reading... 

By 1 pm we had reached our first check point and campsite!! We were very excited at how fast we had covered the ground. We were going to climb the first pass to 4800 meters and get well on the way past the first nights scheduled campsite, we may be able to do the entire circuit in 3 nights!!

We excitedly started to walk up the valley and were running parallel to a fairly wide river that we needed to cross. The river was too wide and to fast to cross easily, safely or while remaining dry. We were now an hour from the last village where there may have been a bridge. We consulted our map, it appeared that we could cross the river at its source and we were only probably less than an hour away, so we decided to continue.

It was at this point it started to snow….the sky was dark, the clouds low and it got much colder. The river was not getting any easier to cross and we started to realise if we didn’t get across it soon then the chances of us doing the circuit were slipping away.

Finally after two hours we reached the source…….a huge glacial lake! We realised that there was no way round and we could not cross the river, we were done! We would have to walk back to the village that was now 2 hours away. We were both so angry with ourselves for letting this go so far, but the bloody map didn’t have any lake marked.

Lesson 1- if your at a village there is probably a bridge for the locals!

The walk back was much quicker than the walk up, we walked most of the way in silence each berating ourselves internally for the error. We got back to village by about 3 o clock, we knew this meant we had to camp the village side of the pass. We found a beautiful spot beneath Ausangate and setup camp.

Dinner was a gourmet masterpiece! Errrr….

We then settled in the tent at 6 pm due to the cold weather at 4000 meters. We had been up since 5 am and walked for the best part of 6 hours so were pretty tired and fell asleep very quickly. When I woke up it was still dark, so I looked at my watch….It was 9.15 pm!! This was set to be a long long night.

Day 2 - Wednesday

We awoke round 6.30am, but both refused to get out of our sleeping bags as it was super cold.  I turned to Simon and said “We can do the whole circuit you know” he didn’t seem so sure, so we agreed to see how the day went. We got up and cooked a porridge breakfast to keep us going for the day ahead, by 8.30am our camp site was packed and we were on our way.

The first part of the day would see us climb to 4800 meters to the Arrapa pass, we walked pretty quickly and half way up the snow began to fall once more, the clouds rolled in and conditions were bad again. Despite all this we got to the pass within an hour and a half. Unfortunately at this altitude (with it snowing) visibility was poor and the path extremely hard to follow, the ground was white and most tracks covered. We even had to turn to the untrustworthy semi-topographical map!

More map reading...

Even more map reading....

We followed the ridge for an hour until we rounded to the next valley and sprawled before us was rocky peaks and craggy mountains, a walkers dream.

We were making un-believable time, or so we thought, our next camp site was supposed to be some glacial lakes, we would be there by 12 o clock! As we descended into the valley it began to dawn on us that we were not quite as far as we thought, but an hour behind.

The day was turning into highs and lows; thinking we were doing well then being disappointed we were not as far as we thought. We could not make a decision whether to go for the full loop or turn back. We agreed that by lunch time we would make a decision. The snow was getting heavier and heavier and we were almost making the path up, scrabbling over rocks and sliding down banks with 100 ft drops to the lakes below us.

By lunch time we had to make a decision, turn around for a 25 km 2 day walk back to the start point of the town of Tinke, or continue for a few hours then camp, followed by two 17km days…..and two 5000 meter passes… and what about this bad weather?

We made the decision after much discussion that due to the weather conditions and poor map and time we had to turn back.

We trudged back heads low in silence, I was so disappointed we could not continue and felt we had failed even though we never originally intended to do the whole loop. I realised on this trip that I often let ideas run away with me and get disappointed when they don’t happen, even if the idea is a dream more than a reality.

There was some form of camera trickery here im not that short.

We finally setup camp around 3 pm, overlooking one of the glacial lakes in a beautiful spot surrounded by snow, I relaxed and Simon practiced some Yoga.

At sunset we climbed to a nearby peak to get 360 views of the valley, we were awe struck by the views and tranquillity of the valley, there is a good reason this is one of the best treks in the world.

Can you see our tent bottom left...

Can you see our tent bottom right...

We agreed to wake up at 6 am the next morning for a hard days trekking back as far as we could to Tinke.

Day 3 - Thursday

It was so cold that night!!! Snow carried on falling on the tent and the temperature dropped and dropped. By 5 am we whispered to each other and decided we would pack up camp and walk as far as we could until the sun rose then have breakfast in the sun.

So we started to pack up the tent, while doing this our water bottle began to freeze and it took several attempts to pull the tent poles apart which we frozen together!!! Just touching the poles burned my hands.

We hiked for about an hour up to a pass where the sun was starting to appear, the sun on our frozen hands and faces was like a warm bath. We settled down to another gourmet breakfast of porridge, and as we had decided to turn back we could eat like kings, we each ate 200 grams (c.1000 calories) of porridge, no mean feat!

The sky was almost clear with a few floating clouds passing quickly leading to picture perfect views.

We retraced our steps back along the ridge to the 4800 Arrapa pass, this time the sky was a perfect blue with only one or two clouds, the views were perfect! The mountains and glaciers in all their beauty were there for us to marvel at, and we did for some time.

We then trekked back down the valley to our first campsite and onwards. By about 12 pm we realised we were starting to get low on water….it was a 2 km trek to the nearest glacial river….we really didn’t want to divert that much, we were within 4 hrs of Tinke and being able to get the bus back to Cuzco to sleep in a real bed. We found a small river that we followed up the valley and managed to get some water after some scrambling over rocks. The water was not the cleanest and not ideal. We purified it and decided we would use it as the backup and for cooking.

Lesson 2- get water when you can before getting low.

'What you looking at!'

Victory is ours!

After a long 3 hours we arrived back in Tinke, we had covered 20 km’s and descended 1000 meters. We were exhausted!

Our next obstacle was to find a bus back to Cuzco. We asked several locals and were told the bus was 4 pm, great only 45 mins to wait J

4 Pm came and went…..we were then told 5 pm……..Brilliant the bus arrived!!! But we sat on it until 6.30 until it actually left!!!

We rolled in to our hostel at 10.30 pm dirty, smelly and very very tired and extremely hungry!!! Food was a high priority! Sarah was extremely surprised to see us rock up and even happier after we had showered and bagged our dirty clothes for de-contamination.

So to sum it up the Ausangate trek was beautiful, but a few things had worked against us which meant we didn’t complete the whole loop, but it was an amazing few days.

Lesson 3 -you don’t always need to please your ego to have an amazing experience.