Day 4: Tuctubamba to Huecrucocha via Alto de Pucaraju

Hiking time: ~ 4.25 hours
Elevation gain: 540 m/1772 ft
Elevation loss: 790 m/2592 ft
High Point: Alto de Pucaraju 4640 m/15,223 ft
Campsite: Below Huecrucocha 3850 m/12,631 ft

It was cloudy when I woke up this morning and I was hoping that would bode well for sunrise. And it did. As the sun rose, the clouds over Taulliraju turned glowing shades of pink and it was a beautiful morning. Our good morning continued when Joel made his delicious pancakes for breakfast. We ate and packed up and it was time to start our hike for the day. Today would be one of our easier/shorter days. I liked that we were already at the base of our climb to Alto de Pucaraju - we would be fresh for our climb and it would be an easy hike down from the pass. After an hour of climbing our crew caught up and Joel offered the horse to Norah. She rode for a little bit, which greatly improved her mood. We made it to the pass under two hours, which I thought was decent considering how tired I felt the day before on Punta Union.

It was cloudy when we reached the pass, but not windy or cold, so we were able to sit for nearly an hour on the pass enjoying the terrific views. The first three days of our hike were concurrent with the very popular Santa Cruz trek and accordingly there were a lot of traffic on the trails. We diverged from the Santa Cruz route this day and we would see only a handful of other hikers the rest of our trek. While Punta Union was full of people the day before, we had Alto de Pucaraju to ourselves (as we would the rest of the passes on our trip).

We had a number of switchbacks coming off of Alto de Pucaraju and then an easy traverse around the valley to a view of Huecrucocha, which was bigger than I expected. We had a short walk down to the end of the lake where we took another hour break (this side of the pass had more blue skies and sun). It took us about two hours to get to the lake from the pass and then another ten minutes to walk down to our campsite below in the valley. We camped at the confluence of two valleys in a pampa where many of the local farmers had their animals, which entertained us for most of the afternoon. By far our favorite was a roving band of nine piglets. So cute!

We had plenty of time in camp to enjoy our afternoon tea and taquitos, watch the animals, read, play Uno, and soak in the sun. Cesar collected some wood for a fire and after dinner (potato soup, fried chicken breast, rice, and french fries) we enjoyed a campfire and watched the stars appear. After several nights of an early moonrise, it was nice to have a late moonrise so we could see the stars. Beautiful night skies - one of my favorite things about the backcountry!