Huaraz is one of my favorite regions in Peru. All of that because the beautiful ranges of mountains which make the landscape incredibly beautiful. The most spectacular for me is the mountain range called Cordillera Blanca, which is located in Huascaran National Park (north-central part of Anean Sierras in the department of Ancash). In the Cordillera Blanca there are more than 30 glaciated peaks over 6000 m.a.s.l. with the tallest mountain Huascaran (6768 m.a.s.l.), which is the fourth biggest summit in South America. It is the heaven for climbers and trekkers and everyone who loves big adventures.
During my stay in Huaraz I did a lot of trekkings around and I climbed 2 high peaks Yanapaccha (5,460 m.a.s.l.) and Tocllaraju (6,034 m.a.s.l.). Both mountains are very beautiful, great for climbing and completely different.
Today I would like to tell some words about reaching Yanapaccha summit, in other article I will describe my impressions about Tocllaraju adventure.
What kind of mountain is Yanapaccha?
Yanapaqcha mountain is not so high, only 5460 m.a.s.l., but not so easy too. It is more technical than for example Pisco (5752 m.a.s.l.) or Vallunaraju (5686 m.a.s.l.) which are very popular among tourists and usually climbed before more serious mountains.
For sure Yanapaccha is a great mountain to practice ice climbing. It has some technical parts with the wall around 200 meters high, where you can check your technical skills. Definitely if you have at least a little experience in climbing, or you took 2-3 days of climbing course, you can try it and for sure you will enjoy a lot. Ideal for these of you who want to try ice climbing adventure.
If you will do this one and like it, it will be not a problem to try to achieve higher and even more technical summits. My Yanapaqcha adventure took 3 days. Usually it takes 2 days, but I chose an option with one day ice climbing course, what was a perfect combination. Definitely this course helped me to feel more comfortable during climbing.
On the way to Yanapaccha summit in Cordillera Blanca, Huaraz
The trip started on the way between the start point to hike laguna 69 and between Vaqueria – the start point to do Santa Cruz trek. We had around 2,5 hours of nice trekking to our base camp. I loved that part. Was easy, light and with beautiful views.
We reached base camp around 4 pm. We had enough time to set up the tens and have some lessons about the rope knots. We spent here 2 nights.
The next all day we were practicing ice climbing and rescue system. I loved that day. I learned a lot and gained some extra experience.
We started to climb Yanapaccha in the night around 1 am.
It took us some hours to achieve the summit. The view from the top was amazing. We could see a lot of snowy peaks around, long valleys, in some of which I was hiking earlier.
Not only the way to the summit and reaching the summit is wonderful, but also the views which you can see when you come back from the top.
I do not know how the situation on the way to Yanapaccha looks like today, but some days after climbing this mountain, the crack which you can see on the picture become really huge and impossible to cross. In that time all companies stopped to organize climbing there. But maybe they have another route to reach the summit. If yes, I can highly recommend this mountain to climb.
I do not know how the situation on the way to Yanapaccha looks like today, but some days after climbing this mountain, the crack which you can see on the picture become really huge and impossible to cross.
In that time all companies stopped to organize climbing there. But maybe they have another route to reach the summit. If yes, I can highly recommend this mountain to climb.
Good luck in discovering Yanapaccha mountain in the Cordillera Blanca and also other summits close to Huaraz.
Another quite easy mountain to climb, not too technical, is Tocllaraju summit in Cordillera Blanca. You can read about that and see some pictures in my article about “ Climbing Tocllaraju mountain in Cordillera Blanca“.
