Catay, PE to Punta Olímpica, PE

16.4 mi / 4.2 mph / 3220 ft. climbing
Home: Wild camp above Laguna Cancaraca

A headwind flowing down from the mountains had started up yesterday afternoon, which we’ve noticed is a bit of a standard pattern. What’s not standard is it continuing through the night (with gusts flapping the tent), and still going in the morning. Maybe it would take us three days to get to the tunnel?

Pre-dawn alpenglow.

As good as yesterday’s trout dinner was, we didn’t want it again for breakfast, so we cooked for ourselves. I definitely had to find a wind-blocking spot in the bushes to set up the stove, and the priming alcohol we use (here 96%, available in every drugstore, vs. Heet from the auto parts store in the US) was less-interested in lighting in the cold morning at 12,100ft., and it was helpful to put a lid on the pot, but otherwise our cooking setup did fine in its first attempt at this altitude.

Shortly before we got packed up to leave, the park workers showed up and began operating the bar that blocks the roadway. We were already beyond it, so could have “snuck away”, but we’re happy to pay for the National Park, even if it’s one of the few places where Peru has realized foreign visitors have the ability to pay much more than locals. Still, US$33 for two nights, while shockingly expensive by Peruvian standards, feels right in line with US National Park entrance fees.

The ice-covered mountains of Huascarán National Park will play an even bigger role in today’s scenes than yesterday.

One additional problem caused by the strong headwind was the choking clouds of dust it kicked up from the dried-out valley. I checked satellite photos from previous years, and the de-vegetated plain only appeared quite recently. Not sure if it’s climate change, or overgrazing, but it sucked!

Rett walking through a headwind-created dust cloud.

That Japanese artwork (The Great Wave off Kanagawa), but in a cloud, in Peru.

#FindRett switching back above the valley (lower right quarter).

Cattle gathered in the flat river valley below us. The source of the dust is obvious.

Are you running, young man, because you know you’re responsible for this?

A clearer day than yesterday multiplies the effect of the much-closer mountains (though some dust is still flying down low, and here the cattle do as good of a job as Rett at revealing the massive scale of the scene).

Yeah, this is pretty spectacular.

By the time we hit the series of 27 switchbacks, lifting us up the south wall of the valley toward the tunnel, the wind had become less of an issue. It was still definitely blowing, but would now alternate between hurting and helping us with each reversal of the road. And when you’re going 4mph anyway, the wind has far less slowing force than if you’re going 20mph (though it does make the already-difficult balancing at that speed even more challenging).

Lunch, tucked into a bush for wind protection, with a view of the 22,000 ft. namesake of Huascarán National Park.

On our side of the valley, shorter but steeper Poroquingua is even more arresting.

Rett rides to Poroquingua.

Looking back down the valley from which we ascended. You can see our road on the right (and still, the dust clouds, which at least we’re now high above).

And, a handful of the hairpin curves we’ve ascended so far.

Will the switchbacks take us as high as Poroquingua? Time will tell!

Our plan was to sleep at an unbelievable spot, reported by other travelers, on the other side of the tunnel. Rett was generally positive about our chances of making it there, but in the afternoon as the air got thinner and our progress slowed even more, she began asking me to look for roadside spots to pitch our tent. Our entire time in Peru, I’ve had more altitude issues than her, including a very slight headache last night and this morning. And that was at 12,000 ft. Here we were already over 14,000 ft., and if we camped here and I was suddenly stricken with serious issues, descending immediately is the only option, and that would mean backtracking. If we could make it through the tunnel, to the other side of the pass, then descending would take us forward. It would also take us to a campsite at 15,500 ft., which would increase the risk of altitude sickness significantly, so…

New mountains come into view as we rise higher.

Terraces of ice.

And just to mix it up some more, why not a reddish mountain?

Hey, there’s me! Riding up a mountain!

It looks like we’re nearly as high as the saddle that separates Huascarán Sur from Huascarán Norte.

Heading to one of the final switchbacks, now over 15,000 feet.

Finally, after more than three-and-a-half hours of pedaling time, and far more than that in total time (with ever-more-frequent breaks to catch our breath), we completed the 14.5 miles to the tunnel entrance (something that would take us just over an hour on flat pavement at sea-level). I filled our water supply (including most of our 10L bladder) from a perfectly-placed waterfall just before the portal, we put on our rain jackets to protect from the cold and dripping, turned on our headlights, and in we went.

Entering the Punta Olympica Tunnel, at 15,538 ft. The highest we’ve ever been, on bicycles or anything else besides an airplane. It’s all downhill from here!

Rett’s glasses were still in sunglass mode, so she couldn’t even see that her headlight was in fact on, and then her hands became intensely cold as we sped downhill with me now leading. We quickly got my long-fingered gloves shoved over her hands (luckily only a few vehicles passed while we were in the tunnel), and tried to get through as quickly as possible. This became riskier near the end, where drops from huge icicles hanging from the ceiling created patches of slushy ice on the floor.

But then we were through! Back in the sunlight, and inside an entirely new bowl of mountains even more spectacular than the one we had just left.

To reach our dream campsite, we then had to head back up a gravel road for a quarter-mile (the remains of the old route over the pass prior to the 2013 boring of the tunnel). And there it was, just as advertised (thank you Timothy Tower, the Shaws, and iOverlander!) A single flat spot of cow-mowed grass surrounded by boulders, with less than a foot of space between the end of our tent and the cliff edge dropping down to turquoise Laguna Cancaraca, a hidden glacial lake performing in an amphitheater of snow-capped mountains for an audience of two.

Our tent sitting in easily the most beautiful place we’ve ever pitched it.

It makes it seem a bit silly that we did all those day-hikes to glacial lakes, never able to stay for more than an hour, while here we could spend nearly 20. Ok, it did take a bit more work to get to this one.

Though it’s a whole new perspective on this side of the tunnel, it’s not quite an entirely new bowl of mountains. This one dominating our view is the backside of Poroquingua, the super-pointy one we faced most of our way up.

Thankfully the wind had calmed on this side of the pass, but with the mountain wall setting the sun on our tent before 4pm, and our tent sitting on a cliff-edge at 15,500 feet above sea level, we needed to get bundled up as quickly as possible. By 6:30pm, after we finished our pre-cooked quinoa dinner, it was literally freezing, 32°F. Not only was this the highest place we’ve ever camped, by several thousand feet, it’s the highest place we’ve ever reached by either our feet or wheels. And it looks like it will now be the coldest night we’ve ever spent in our tent.

And it was glorious.

Unlike our rides from the ocean shore to great heights in the US Mountain West, or New Zealand, we didn’t reach this elevation fully under our own power. But we did climb 7300 feet in the last two days, a total that would have brought us twice as high as the highest road in New Zealand, or higher than the vast majority of roads in the United States. So it was a tremendous amount of work, but the reward at the end was still more than we could have ever hoped for.