Peru 2024 Pt 5: Getting High in Peru

To read the previous posts about our Peru trip, click here.

Ayahuasca is a psychoactive plant, crushed and drank in a ceremonial style led by a guide (shaman); it is popular in the Amazon region of Peru. We're nowhere near the Amazon though, with one of the great ranges between our location and the nearest ayahuasca experience. While I could talk about the importance of ayahuasca at length (I do have a couple anthropology degrees), that isn't the type of high we're trying to get here in Peru. You can go down that Google rabbit hole on your own time... No, we're here to get altitude high, and boy have we!

A good acclimatization plan is integral to any mountaineering trip over 12,000 feet. While many people climb 14ers in the US in a day, it isn't usually without some amount of altitude symptoms. We're trying to reach over 18,000 feet this week, so our acclimatization plan has to be efficient and effective. The city of Huaraz, the jump-off point of mountain climbing and trekking in the Cordillera Blanca, is roughly 10,000 feet (which is around the hight of most high camps on Shasta, as an example. It's a great place to spend a few nights getting super used to sleeping at elevation while getting higher in altitude each day.

On Sunday, with much of the city shut down in the morning for church, we took a taxi up to the Lazy Dog Cafe. It sits at just under 13,000 feet, has awesome views of the country side, and really good food (we haven't had bad food here yet). It's only open on Sundays, but I would recommend it to anyone who is able to check it out, just make sure to wear pants because the gnats will bite your ankles. After some good local microbrews, a pitcher of lemonade, some cuy (look it up), and quesadillas, we walked the 5 miles back down the hill to our hotel.

On Monday, we went rock climbing at one of South America's best climbing crags - Hatun Machay. Sitting at about 13,800 feet, it has over 100 bolted routes and hundreds more potential routes. According to a Climbing Magazine article from 2018, there were once around 300 bolted routes in this area but many gave been cut down. We wanted a fun, relatively easy climbing day, so we stuck to some 5.8 and below climbs (beginner grades). At altitude, you huff and puff much more than normal, but the area was a dream and we all had a ton of fun!

It was Matt's birthday and while him and I ran off to explore the other parts of the crag (climbing area), we found a super cool looking short route we wanted to try. The other guys were done climbing, so we set it up quickly and had a go, with Matt leading the sport route and cleaning most of it, and me top-roping it bit cleaning the anchor. It was as interesting as it looked!

We came to town and had steaks of a local animal variety and pisco sours before picking up a cake for Matt. Acclimatization day 2 was a real banger.

Day 3 of acclimatization had us going to one of the many alpine lagunas to get to 14,600 feet. Laguna Churup is a really pretty lake that takes a few hours to hike to. The hike includes several short climbs and scrambles (chained hand rails are provided and maintained by the park service) and climbs over 2,100 feet over about 2 miles. Miles, Nate, and I jumped in and promptly crawled right back out (I measured it at 43 degrees Fahrenheit) prompting some Italian hikers that were there to not be shown up by us Americans.

We met a Peruvian woman who had recently graduated from medical school and was moving on to her residency but was spending some time with her boyfriend who also works as a doctor in Huaraz. She had been in the bus with us on the way up and we hiked down with her, making sure she made it down all the chained sections safely. Making friends while hiking and climbing is one of the best parts of these hobbies!

We got back to town, had an awesome dinner, and started sorting gear for the next week of climbing with 2 mountains in mind to climb. Read the next posts to see how that turned out!

All photos taken by members of the group and used with permission.