One is Never Alone: Huayhuash with Perro and Oggy

ONE IS NEVER ALONE HUAYHUASH WITH PERRO AND OGGY Hiking and bike-packing in the Cordillera Huayhuash, Peru.

by JENNY COSSEY Security measures on local buses M y one-year career break shrank to ten months when my eldest son announced he was getting married. After a quick Google on the net, I discoverd that my role as mother of the groom was only to turn up and shut up. This would not require much energy from me and I could focus my time on organising myself for a long southern New Zealand summer in the Olivines and a four month bikepacking, trekking and climbing trip to Peru and Bolivia. In October I booked plane tickets to Lima for the following Easter. In mid December I received a preview email from Trailblazers about the new Cordilleras Blanca Hiking and Biking Guide by Neil and Harriet Pike being published in January 2015. Perfect route planning reading for my big trip after I returned to Wellington from a successful and good weather climbing trip to the Olivine Plateau and Cloudy Peak (near Mesopotania).

My new Surly Ogre (Oggy) was packed into her bike bag for the Easter Monday flight to Lima. Buying a round-theworld ticket gave me a luggage allowance of two 23kg bags, perfect for all my biking and hiking gear, tango dresses and shoes.

Robberies are a real threat on long bus rides in Peru. There had been numerous night robberies on buses from Lima to Huraz in the previous few months, including a few daring daytime ones. Local secuirty measures include all passengers dipping their index finger in black ink and placing their mark on the bus companys seating plan sheet and having your photo taken while seated. This security system had one major flaw. Drivers were able to pick up as many passengers along the route that could be squeezed standing in the aisle, these were not fingerprinted or photographed. I caught a bus from Lima (sealevel) to Huaraz, the adventure centre of Peru, 400km north at 3060m on the Altiplato. A town in the middle of the Santa River Valley, a long north to south valley borderd on the west by the snowless Cordillera Negro range (highest peak 5181m) and on the east by the Cordillera Blanca – a 200km by 21km wide range with 33 major peaks over 5500m. I based myself at Joe‘s Place in Huaraz, a honey pot hostel for climbers and mountain bikers. Up to ten cyclists camped on the tiny grass area surrounded by mature trees in a sheltered courtyard, the only hostel in Huaraz with grass. Great to meet fat wheel cyclists manufacturing amazing bike packing gear in this town. MTBers heading from Alaska to Chile, or in reverse, and tourers, including a girl who had cycled solo from Uruguay to Peru with a guitar on her front rack pointing forward like a giant compass needle.

My first local acclimatization walks were slow, painful and not very long, in late April and May, the peak trekking season is mid June to mid August. Bike packing above 3000m could be hard work after living at sea level in Wellington for years so I planned eight weeks trekking, biking and climbing in the Cordilleras Blanca to acclimatise before moving south to Huayhuash where I would be between 4000m and 5000m for two weeks. The wet season was long his year, dragging into the usual dry season months of late June and July. Snow continued to fall well into July and many climbers attempting high peaks were stopped by fresh snow drifts.

One is never alone trekking, attitude, not age, is what the young genreation is about. Educated young Europeans had no quasms about trekking with an older single woman in the mountains. My first swaray into the hills was with a German chef and an Austrain nurse on the four day Santa Cruz trek. My companions had youth and great culinary skills, I upskilled them on how to find passes in rain and snow. I walked the classic Alpamayo Cirucit in five day with a young, enthusiastic French wrestling team physiotherapist, who I upskilled in how to pack a pack and stay dry in the snow when camping. Both high altitude treks are very easy to walk independantly without the need for guides, donkeys or large mess tents. I then undertook a three day solo trip from Olleros to the UNESCO world heritage pre Inca site at Chavin via the 4700m Punta Yanashallash Pass. More snowflakes flew around my pitched tent at night and my photos were only of cloud base. Parque Nacional Huascaran is one of two national parks in Peru to charge park entry fees, a 10sol daily non camping allowed fee, or 65sols for a 21day pass that allows one to camp.

I also acclimitized with solo overnight bike packing trips around Huaraz that stretched my lungs until the first sulpur burp appeared and I knew I had gardia. Probably caught from not using strong enough water purication methods in water collected from high pastures with animals and no toilet facilites on the well worn trekking trails.

Alpamayo in cloud Gardia is a major health hazard in the park due to the high numbers of trekkers, arrieros (muleers) and mules, particulary at the end of the trekking season. The huge tablet from the pharmacy knocked the bug out of my system in a day. All drugs seem to be available at the pharmacy counter so there is not need to buy expensive drugs in NZ to bring with you.

By using local public mini vans to get my bike up hills (inside, on top, inverted, under the seats,) I descended 7500m in four days around my satellite base in Caraz, a beautiful valley town 70km north of Huaraz. Rides included both cordilleras ranges and the road down from the famous Tunnel Punta Olimpica (4732m), the highest venicular tunnel in the worldthat was only paved in 2013. Better on my bike were the dirt roads with less tourist traffic, hairpin switchbacks from the snowline to valley village fields. By stopping my bike for barking dogs and using the local technique of beginning to stoop to pick up a stone, this action was usually sufficient to sent the solo, of pack of six, barking dogs fleeing. The locals obviously have a good aim and success rate at hitting dogs broadside with stones, the dogs assumed wrongly my aim would be as good. I would then be given a wide bearth and left to cycle in peace. This is one of the best areas I have ever cross country rolled in on a bike, a gem worth visiting with a good bike brought from home.

Have bike, will travel uphill.

Before I left Huaraz for Llamac100km to the south, much planning, organising and supply shopping for Huayuash was required. Llamac at the end of the public transport network had only two small hostels who were used to an older solo gringo women arriving with a bike and trekking poles, wishing to leave a good bike with a hostel owner to head off solo trekking for ten days. Then on her return to Llamac wishing to collect her bike and send her rucksac with trekking boots and poles back to a safe place in Huaraz while she solo bikepacked into areas tourists rarely go, before returning to Huraz via the coast. Most gringos come to climb one of the six peaks over 6000m in the Cordillera Huayhuash, trek the classic eight to ten day circular track around the mountain massif with a large local or international trekking company guide, arrieros and mules. Or as one of the slowly growing group of predominantly young men bikepacking three quarters of the way around Huayhuash and escaping downhill from the altiplato to the coast via Catajambo. Most bike packers generally follow the main trekking route and I was heading much further east. With my limited Spanish the organising went well with the help of diagrams, an old German 1:50,000 topo map of Huayhuash and the help of a passing English speaking Peruvian guide who gave me information about possible bikepacking routes east of my map that I hand drew on to my map margin. I had forgotten to pre loaded main trekking route GPS points from the guidebook into my GPS, hence my GPS was useless later when I needed it in whiteouts over the passes.

The southern end of this alpine circuit was used as a remote base for the terrorist group Sendero Lumineso or Shinning Path until 1992. Foreign travellers were shot at, mainly related to robberies, the last tourist killed in 2004. The seven local communities living in the Huayhuash region now charge a protection fee for conservation purposes to cross their land, weather you camp or not, which have reduced robberies of tourists. Each community fixs its own fee, the total fee to walk the circuit is currently 225 sols (NZ$100). Community ticket can be re used in the same year and there is no time limit on staying in each area. Hence I could use the same tickets for hikking and biking trips.

I caught a ride in a trek groups mini van to the start of the main trail thereby avoiding a four hour walk uphill on a compacted mud and gravel road to the first campsite below the first of the six major trekking passes (passes ranged between 4650m and 5150m). The next morning as my lungs strained up to the first pass in mule mud, a large dog started to run ahead and then wait for me. I thought it was an arrieros dog as seem to know where he was going and the mules were already on the trail, their trekking clients below me in the valley. I ignored the dog. When I turned off the main mule route to siddle and cross a side pass away from the mule route to Lake Mitacocha, the large dog stayed with me. Perro (dog in Spanish) deceided to remain with me for ten days as my companion and guard, sleeping outside my tent door every night in rain or snow. I never fed him and rarely patted him as had conjunctivitis. After a few days I realised Perro had done this trail many times before as would race ahead and then wait for me. When I walked the less frequented high routes he would follow at my heels not sure of what I was doing. Perro was a wonderful asset a few days later when I woke to 15cm of fresh snow on my tent top and 8cm on the dogs fur in the high pastures between Huayhuash and Guanacpatay. No trail could be seen. The locals know the routes and tourists generally only come in the dry season when the ground is free of snow and earth trails with horse prints are obvious as there are no vertical carins, plastic markers or shrines to mark the way to the correct ridgeline saddle. Perro seem to know the way as stayed on my heels up to a false pass with a look on his face of “I know you are on the wrong route”, then bounced ahead when the cloud cleared and I got myself back onto the correct route down to the valley on glaciated rock covered in sleet.

Perro at the top of Paso San Antonio (4850m), the descent is diagonally right via bluffs to the valley It snowed or sleated all day, and I stayed in my tent most of the afternoon, waking the next day to still white clouds capping the surrounding peaks and another 10cm of snow on my tent. I was wondering if it was wise to cross the hardest (but not highest) pass, Paso San Antonio (4850m) without a GPS in another white out and knee high snow with no surface features to indicate a trail. But Perro seemed happy and broke trail for me through the snow, floundering to his midrift and then lay waiting in the snow at the top of the pass as I trudged up in knee deep in fresh snow following his footprints, or crashing into thigh deep drifts. Avalanche warnings creeped into my mind as I zig zag steeply down the lea slope during a brief cloud clearing before faded sunlight gave me the faint furrow shaddows in the snow of the trail as I weaved under rock bluffs and above cliffs down into the Sarapacocha Valley. A trekking group greeted me with tea in their mess tent, they had crossed the day before with no snow and under a blue sky.

The sun appeared mid day and I wandered up the Sarapacocha Valley, made famous by Joe Simpsons epic on Sivla Grande (6656m), shinning white in a blue sky above me. Thinking of Joe brought back memoreis of climbing with him on the Sarre Roof aid route in Italy the summer prior to his Andean trip. An epic that included me tying him off while leaving him dangling in space at the lip of the climb, a full rope length above me, while I climbed up the descent route to throw him a rescue rope from above as trains passed under him on the Italain to France railway line. This was my third day of climbing ever.

Sarapacha Valley The weather improved over the next few day and finally I saw the peaks in their glory, the turquoise lakes of the tourists’ brochures and sixteen condors soaring together on uplift winds above the ridges. Due to the snow I stayed an extra two days on the circuit; glad that I had brought so much food and had Olivine Plateau weight training trip practice to carry it. My dwindling supplies were supplemented by a kitchen sale of some food basics from the

Snowy peaks and turquoise lakes Carrying Oggy on horseback chef with a trekking group. I was thus able to visit less well known side valleys and enjoy the splendour and solitude away from the popular mule route and noise in sunshine. The guidebook was great at giving side option routes including walking the water race route on the final day back to Llamac, another day away from the mule trail.

The hostel owner in Llamac was very relieved to see me as I was two days late. He informed me that Perro was a Llamac dog and an hour later his owner appeared, whistled and Perro was gone. I had got used to his companionship, but now I had Oggy to keep me company. An evening to repack into bikepacking mode and negotiate with an arriero to carry my bike on horseback over the first trekking Qaqanan Pass - a mule pass I had already walked over and knew it would be a grade five push and carry with a bike.

A mining company is slowly building a road to link the two valleys further upstream which will reduce the need to cross this first pass on foot, greatly increase accessibility to the region for tourists in the future and majorly changing who visits the area.

After the pass I said goodbye to the horses and pedalled east, beyond the edge of my map and the trekking circuit for two days. I knew I was slightly remote as men would come and shake my hand when I arrived in villages and the food was almost the cheapest I had bought in Peru.

The towns’ loud speaker systems played local music all day to the whole village. When I asked to camp near a house I was photographed on the farmers’ phones and sent via Facebook to their family and friends. People may cook over wood fires with dirt floors but nearly everyone had a cell phone and many choza (huts) had a solar panel stick on the roof with a wire poked through the thatch to an internal light bulb.

I returned to my map and the main trekking trail near Huayhuash (a summer hamlet as well as the name of the mountain range). After three hours of pushing my bike up muddy trails and wondering why I was doing it according to the look on the local men on horses, I was passed by a young local lad (carrying nothing) who said nothing but helped me push Oggy over a large rock jam. Stopping for lunch I shared my food and inquired if he would push my bike up to Portachuelo de Huayhuash (4750m). He agreed saying it would take us an hour. Two hours later we arrive but it was the best 20 sols I have ever spent. The downhill roll to the hot pools was barely rideable but I had the hot springs to myself and could admire the glaciers in peace.

The roll to Cajatambo was pure bliss, endless kms of gentle downhill, a small ridge to ascend before a steep roll into the valley. My brake pads were not sounding good so I opted out of the last few thousand metres of tight, steep descent via zigzag and gorges to the coast and rode in a minivan with better brake pads. Definitely one of the most scenic narrow roads I have been on and a fast bike descent would have been brilliant but terrifying due to the local traffic. The minibus was a safer option and I was back in Huaraz that evening ready for my next adventure, climbing a local peak with far too much snow on it and rock climbing in the amazing sport boulder fields of Hatum Mackay. There is so much to see and do in Peru, but my visa was close to expiring and it was time to head towards the volcanoes and salt flats of Bolivia.

The best 20 sol uphill push I have ever had