Background

My first two hikes in Huaraz were organized; for the last day-hike I decided to head off with my friends Brian and Ineke and explore independently. Based on the recommendation of the hostel where we stayed we decided to explore the Laguna Churup… what an awesome way to end my vacations!!!

How to Get There

The owner of the hostel hand-drew us a sweet map which we used to navigate around the area. We left at 5:45am to catch a collectivo (small bus) towards Llupa, a super tiny town up in the mountains. In about 45 minutes we hopped off the bus and started hiking towards Pitec and the entrance to the Laguna Churup hike. It took over an hour and a half to get to the entrance. The route was not well marked off and we almost took a wrong turn at one point, but thanks to some very nice people we found the right track and even had some company for about 20 minutes of the hike.

The Hike

Entrance to the park was S/. 10.00 and it was totally worth it. We started hiking up some well-defined stairs with beautiful panoramic views of the whole area. This eventually leveled off and was followed by a route cutting through the side of the mountain. After a little over an hour we came to a rock formation + small waterfall which we had to scramble up to get to the final location. There were some ropes hammered into the rocks to help people get to the top, but I decided to take a different route and scrambled up independently. It was super fun. From there it was another 5 minutes or so before finally arriving at the laguna.

The Laguna Churup

The laguna, located at 4,450m, was spectacular! The water, mountains, temperature, sun, company, colors… all amazing!!! We climbed up one of the huge boulders surrounding the laguna and just soaked it all in for a while. Screaming loudly created a cool echo effect throughout the laguna which you could follow from left-to-right and back again. There were a few other hikers there, too, but nothing compared to the other organized hikes which I had done the previous days. The experience was much more peaceful and satisfying.

Getting Back

Brian, Ineke and I eventually decided to pull ourselves away from the laguna and made our way back to the entrance. Brian let me borrow his hiking poles… I normally never use hiking poles but I gave them a shot. I still prefer hiking hands-free, but it was fun scrambling back down and bombing my way back to the bottom with them. Along the way I got quite close to a large bird of prey, too! At the bottom we paid a local to taxi us back to Llupa and from there we took a collectivo back to Huaraz.

Overall Impressions

Of all of the hikes I did in Huaraz this was my favorite! Exploring independently, for me, is way more enjoyable than being sheeped along in a group + the scrambling was awesome. It was the best way to finish off a great week and a half of travelling around Peru, and Huaraz is definitely a place I will go back to at some point. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys hiking and mountains… Laguna Churup was one of the better day hikes I have done in a very long time.