After returning from Aguas Calientes the night before, we were happy to have a full day with no plans. It was tempting to fill it with other activities as there is so much to do around Cusco, but the rest was much needed. It was a boring but productive day, getting caught up on laundry from our hiking, calling home, and other logistics. We had delicious trout poke from Qura for lunch. In the early evening we met with our guide and reviewed the itinerary for our upcoming 5 day backpacking hike around the Ausangate Circuit. It would be another early pick up time which we were not excited about.

Dinner was slightly more eventful. We had ‘anticuchos’, or beef hearts. Nick found this lady’s cart and it ended up being so much better than I thought. To be honest, I was pretty skeptical since the heart is a muscle that’s used all the time. The meat was so tender. We each got a plate with two potatoes and a meat skewer. Nick choose the green classic sauce, a mistake in hindsight. Nick was struggling with his potatoes, they were too slippery on his plastic plate. His first potato flew off his plate onto the ground, I opted to move behind him, worried about what else might fly off. That turned out to be a smart move on my part. Nick tried using his stick to poke his potato to eat. Instead, the potato covered in green sauce went flying right into a girl in line’s white coat. She insisted it was okay when Nick apologized profusely, but her and friends just left and went to try and wash it in a nearby bathroom. Oops. Passion fruit soft serve ice cream from down the street ended our evening of eating.

Our pick up was at 4:20am from our hotel. For the hike we were in a group with two young guys who didn’t know each other, an American and a Canadian. I slept most of the drive to our breakfast location, Upis Community. Our breakfast was eggs and bread served on the lawn of a local family’s home near the start of the hike. At 9:00am we began our hike along the dirt road of the village. In front of us we always had a view of Ausangate mountain. There were herds of alpacas, sheep, horses, and a few llamas. The hike was short and easy the first day and we arrived to camp Upis at 12:30pm.

Nick felt like I go into too much detail with our food on these backpacking tours. So I’ll just say that lunch was a feast and delicious as usual. Camp had many alpacas roaming around, a wonderful view of the mountain, hot springs, and a puppy. The puppy loved getting scratches from everyone. During the hike we were lucky to have clear skies, but at camp it was much colder with on and off rain. It was perfect weather for a soak in the hot spring. The hot springs were operated by some local people and were the perfect temperature. They had views of the river and mountain. Our day ended with another too large meal before getting cozy in our tents. We loved our first day, but were ready for some more mileage the next day.

The second day had much more hiking, which, after the insane amount of food from the day before, we were ready for. We started hiking at 6:00am and made it camp by 1:00pm. The day started off with a small detour to the lake we camped nearby the night before, but couldn’t see. It was pretty, with many rock piles and a few chinchillas. The sun was in the wrong position to light up the lake, but at least the sky was clear. After the lake we continued making our way slowly uphill.

The trail itself was very different from the Salkantay/Inca Trail we had just completed. We always walked on dirt around Ausangate, which was so nice for the knees. Now that we’re 30 we appreciate that much more than we used to. There were views of misty mountains, lizards sun bathing on rocks, and herds of alpacas. We had two passes to summit day 2, both of which were gradual. I was thankful for the lack of steepness on the trail since we were constantly at a pretty high elevation.

After the first pass, called Arapa Pass, there were views of valleys, mist rolling off the ground, and magical vibes from every direction. The second pass, Ausangate Pass, had nice views of Ausangate glacier. The glacier was visible to us most of the day and there were also many lakes. One of the hikers in our group had altitude sickness, so Nick hiked behind with him most of the afternoon. Nick felt like it was necessary since the hiker was a bit wobbly and the guide would be so far ahead that nobody could even see him anymore.

One of my favorite sections of the day was a viewpoint where we could see a herd of alpacas, two lakes, a valley, and mountains all around us. There was a mamma dog with her puppy, likely there to watch over the alpacas. Our morning of clear skies ended at this viewpoint when it started hailing and thundering. Two hikers had died somewhat recently from lightning on this trail so our guide made us shut off our phones during the next section until the storm passed. That was a shame because the views were incredible. The second it seemed like it was just raining I asked and got permission to turn my phone back on, though.

There were several small waterfalls flowing into the lakes we hiked passed. With the rain and mist they were extra scenic. Nick and I had our rain pants and jackets, so the rain didn’t bother us. After a 7 hour day of hiking we were welcomed to camp with a giant spread for lunch. After lunch I did the classic upside down in the sink hair wash. It was absolutely freezing, but felt great afterwards.

Nick described our campsites perfectly as being the worst of both worlds. We don’t mind campsites that are primitive with no toilets or running water, we also don’t mind luxury campsites with hot showers and regular toilets. The campsites on this hike were somewhere in between and worse than both other options. There were toilets, but no seats, and they were always clogged. Lots of pooping on poop going on. It would’ve been better to just have a hole in the ground. We wondered if the campsites were like that since we were the last group our company even sends out, due to the amount of snow and risk of avalanche starting in November. Perhaps if we were there during peak season they would have been better maintained.

The Ausangatecocha campsite location was great, though, being right along a flowing creek and next to another beautiful lake. The lake was a short walk away and we enjoyed the views of glaciers and waterfalls there. The weather was pretty cold, though, so the visit was quick, then straight back to the tent to keep warm before another massive dinner to end the day. There were some other campers, but not many.

Day 3 started slightly colder than our other mornings. There had been a snowstorm for several hours during the night (which also made it hard for me to sleep). Our tent was covered in about 10cm of snow. The green valley we camped in the night before became completely white. It was beautiful. At 6:00am, our usual hiking start time, we started making our way up our biggest pass of the 5 days, Palomani Pass. It was gradual and took a few hours. Once at the top we had amazing views in every direction of valleys, mountains, and rocks. One of the only downsides of the snow was that at the top there is a section of mountain with similar coloration as Rainbow Mountain, but due to the snow cover we did not get the chance to see it.

At the top we took many photos and our guide did a small ceremony with coca leaves. We offered them at the top, burying them facing eastwards. Our guides English was not the best so it was hard to understand everything, but hopefully the offering will bring good luck to our lives. The only other downside of the snow was the slipperiness. Nick and I handled it fine and never fell. Our guide and chef fell several times, though. One of our fellow hikers had never walked in snow before and he was struggling big time, it was pretty hilarious. I had regular trail running shoes on and he had tall hiking boots. Somehow he managed to get so much snow inside his boots leading to wet socks. He could not believe I had no snow inside my ankle high shoes. He walked closely behind me, trying to match what I did, and not slip. He slipped every 4-6 steps anyways, though.

Our guide took us off the typical route to see another lake. Instead of a gradual snow covered path, our way became a steep slippery slope straight for the lake. As the guide struggled to walk down I asked if I would be allowed to slide down. The guide and chef laughed at this, I assume because they thought I was joking. I wrapped my rain jacket around my waist, sat on it, holding the bottom through my legs, and lifted my legs up. The first slide was a major success, it was so steep I slid pretty fast down several meters of steep hillside. I would say Nick was the only other one with success at this. The other two hikers and our guide were not very good but had a great time trying to slide down avoiding the rocks in their paths. Of course when I wanted Nick to film my superior sliding abilities it was a much less steep section and my speed was pretty pathetic. The chef laughed lots, filming the others trying to slide down. I guess they aren’t out here in the snow very often because to me the slide was way better than the slow walking. The photo shows our sliding trails once the snow started melting.

After our debatably successful slide down the hill we made it to the giant rock pile standing between us and the lake. It took a lot of energy to meander through the rocks to get to our view point. Our guide said the lake was normally blue, but due to rock slides it was brown. I did not mind the color, I thought it was actually pretty cool seeing a brown lake with a glacier behind it to contrast. We were supposed to fish for trout there, but apparently when the water is not clear it is too hard to do.

The hike continued from the lake with views of lush green valleys, winding rivers, and colorful rocks. Our next long break was at another lake. That time the water was clear and perfect for fishing. The chef took a fishing line, a small hook, and a worm and headed off to his favorite fishing spot. His spot was a rock about 1.5 meters from shore, I was too scared to try and jump out there with him so I watched from shore. He caught the first trout in less than 1 minute, it was very impressive. Nick went to help the guide look for more worms. As it turns out Nick is a horrible worm finder and spent the rest of the time at the lake failing to find a worm.

After our guide brought another worm to the chef he was able to catch a second trout. The lake was a great hangout spot with many strange fuzzy fruit plants, chinchillas, and reflections of the mountains in the water. We were all excited to eat our freshly caught trout later. Our companion with altitude sickness was having a bit of a rough day on the trail, and he was so slow that it became a pretty long day. We went 9 hours between meals, rough.

The trail was relatively flat with some down once we left the lake. One of the flat parts had views of the glacier in front, with a large herd of alpacas spread out across the valley. I didn’t quite capture how beautiful it was, but it was definitely one of my favorite sections of the whole hike. I didn’t want to lose the guide so I stayed up front with him and the other hiker. Nick stayed with our altitude sickness buddy, which made me relatively confident he’d be able to find his way. Nick is quite good at navigating. Just in case I did put my hiking poles in the ground right on the trail in front of the turn off to camp.

Nick and the other hiker found their way to camp and got to see something of my dreams. As they walked past the rocks to get to camp dozens of chinchillas ran out of their way and into the rocks. I saw maybe one when I hiked in. It might have been a lesson on leaving my husband in the dust. One perk for Nick was that I had set up the inside of our tent and moved our belongings inside by the time he arrived. That meant he got to just go sit down for our late 2:30pm lunch. The fresh trout was fun and the lunch was the best one we had. It’s hard to tell if that was because we had a huge hiking day and we waited 9 hours for it, or if it was in fact much yummier.

All day we only saw about 2-3 other hikers from a distance while hiking. Once it got to early evening time, though Sorapata camp had many hikers in it, much more than the night before. Relatively speaking it was still not that busy compared to the Salkantay Trek, though. The campsite was in a valley with rocks on one side, mountain on the other, and the mountain directly in front. After dinner it was straight to bed for another cold night.

We woke up yet again to a tent covered in snow, and a campsite unrecognizable from the night before. After eating some pancakes and eggs we were off on our last real day of hiking. The last pass, J’Ampa Pass, was long but gradual, typical for the circuit. I did it slow and steady (as I always do). The hiker with altitude sickness was feeling slightly better and was fueled by his morning coffee. He was up ahead with the guide feeling great. I think since the guide was used to me being first or second he thought I was struggling that day. The only thing I was struggling with was not getting annoyed when he checked in one hundred times. Nick had to remind me it’s just his job.

The trail was gorgeous with all the snow. There were small creeks we had to cross and at one point we hiked through a herd of alpaca. The contrast of the alpacas against the snow, with the mountain in the background was a photographer’s dream. A woman dressed in traditional garments was with them and was happy to receive some coca leaves from our guide as we passed by. At the top of the pass we took some photos and had a short break before continuing.

My mood definitely improved after the pass, mostly because the guide relaxed a bit. The hiker who was feeling better also had their crash so they were back to the back of the pack. That is probably what got the guide to leave me alone again. The guide was definitely on a mission to be super fast that day, more so than usual. I assume he was afraid we would get to camp as late as the day before, but who knows. We enjoyed views of brightly colored lagoons right after the pass.

The trail led to the 7 Lakes area, which is a day hike people do from Cusco as well. That area was therefore the most busy of our entire hike. The busyness really didn’t impact our experience at the lakes, though. The lakes were big with nice backdrops and colors. Our guide seemed like he was in a rush so we didn’t spend much time there, though. Once we zipped by each lake the trail turned into a dirt road leading to Pacchanta village. There were so many tiny frogs on that part of the trail, I was in heaven. We passed the day hikers and made it to camp for lunch. Along the road leading to camp was a small stream filled with so many tadpoles, explained where the frogs came from.

Camp was just a yard in the village, but it had hot springs so it was nice. After lunch we got to see some of the textile work done by the local women. They said that’s what it was, anyway, but a lot of the products felt synthetic and the patterns looked identical to the mass produced items we could see in Cusco, so that was too bad. We like the idea of supporting the locals, but didn’t find anything we liked. After the failed textile shopping experience we finally got to soak in the hot spring. There is one big famous one in the village, but that’s where all the tours go so it’s pretty busy. The one we had was just the one at camp so we had it all to ourselves. The temperature was not as hot as the first campsite, but any hot spring would do after the day we had.

Dinner was several hours later than usual that night. Luckily it was delicious as usual, but the late dinner did not leave much time for sleeping. I felt like I barely got enough sleep the entire hike, a complete opposite of Salkantay/Inca where we had 11-12 hours each night. Ausangate gets thunder and lightning storms in the afternoons, though so that’s probably why our guide wanted us hiking super early each day.

After another pancake breakfast it was time for our last ‘hike’. The itinerary used to have the hikers go another 7km the last day. There is now a road that the bus can drive on to pick up hikers from camp directly. The original plan for the last day was going to be to do nothing and wait for the bus. Nick mentioned he was disappointed to miss a day of hiking so our guide set up an activity for us, which was very nice of him. The language barrier did set the expectations too high though. Our guide said we had a 1.5 hour hike with the opportunity to feed trout at the end. Instead we had maybe 20 minutes of walking to some guys house in the village.

Nick loved the activity and thought it was hilarious. We each paid 10 soles to the house owner and got a tour of his property. His property reminded us of the yard of a hoarder. He had alpacas, dogs, hundreds of stones he liked, and knick knacks everywhere. He had stones carved to look like animals and a collection of stones he thought looked like everyday items. We saw his guitar, hamburger, and microphone stones to name a few. The man had also built a replica of the Ausangate Circuit out of stones. We did not get to feed any trout, but it was definitely better than no activity. I liked the view of the village from his house.

At 9:00am our bus arrived and took us back to Cusco. On the way we stopped at a lake for lunch. We arrived in the afternoon and enjoyed some chill time after our hike. Ausangate was one of the most beautiful hikes we have ever done. We really loved it. We both thought adding more hiking to the last day would have been perfect, but it’s hard to complain too much.