Twin summits
Snow and ice.
Carlo Brescia — CC BY-SA 4.0 · I´mThEJoKer GELA — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Carlo Brescia — CC BY-SA 4.0 · sergejf — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Uwebart — CC BY-SA 3.0
Huascarán is Peru's highest mountain, a pair of massive summits clad in snow and glaciers above green valleys in the Cordillera Blanca. Towering walls of rock and ice rise above fields and pastures on the lower slopes, under clear blue skies in the dry season. Its southern summit reaches 6,768 m, the highest point in Peru, in the northern Andes and in all of the Earth's tropics, and the fourth-highest mountain in South America. It lies in Yungay Province, Áncash. Local Quechua speakers call it Mataraju, meaning «twin snow peaks». You see it from the Callejón de Huaylas valley, from the road to the Llanganuco lakes below it, and from Huaraz on clear days. Climbing it is a technical mountaineering expedition that needs experience and guides. The summit is about 46 km in a straight line north of Huaraz. Even the valleys are high, so acclimatise for a few days before any long walk, and the dry season from May to September gives the clearest views.
Snow and ice.
The valley below.
At its foot.
Cordillera Blanca, Yungay Province, Áncash Region
It is a technical climb needing experience and guides.
Huaraz, the valley and the Llanganuco road.