Peru
Huayhuash Circuit
Days circling peaks that puncture the sky at 6,000 metres, far from any road.
The pass crests near 5,000 metres and the world below becomes ice, rock and turquoise lakes arranged like a proof that geology can show off. For a week and more, the Huayhuash Circuit traces the base of six-thousand-metre peaks, and the only sounds are boots, wind, and the distant crack of glaciers calving into silence.
The Cordillera Huayhuash is a compact, ferocious range on the Áncash-Huánuco border, circled by trekking routes of roughly 130 kilometres over eight to twelve days — several passes above 4,500 metres, camps by mineral-coloured lakes, and above it all Yerupajá, at over 6,600 metres Peru's second-highest mountain, with Siula Grande beside it carrying the shadow of Touching the Void. This is expedition trekking, not trail tourism: community fees fund the territories crossed, arrieros and their mules carry the logistics with route knowledge passed through generations, and acclimatisation, weather and exit options gate every day. The reward is proportionate — days of glacial architecture on trails a fraction of Peru's visitors ever reach, and nights under stars at 4,500 metres.
Solo
Peru's ultimate trekking commitment — a week-plus of self-reliance at extreme altitude where remoteness is not a side effect but the experience.
Friends
Hauling each other over passes and collapsing beside turquoise lakes forges bonds gym friendships never will — discussed honestly before departure.
- Roughly 130 kilometres and eight to twelve days circle the compact range.
- Yerupajá — over 6,600 metres, Peru's second-highest — towers directly over the trail.
- Siula Grande carries the story of Touching the Void beside the route.
- Arrieros from the range's communities run the logistics their families always have.
Arriero camp cooking — lentil soup, fried trout, endless mate de coca under frozen stars.
Quinoa soups at high camps, planned with the team down to the last fuel canister.
Skippers Canyon
New Zealand
A gold miners' road carved into sheer cliff, best driven by someone else.
Ala-Kul
Kyrgyzstan
Turquoise water at 3,500 metres, earned on foot through a pass that steals your breath.
Jebel Toubkal
Morocco
Before dawn, headlamps climb scree towards North Africa’s 4,167-metre roof.
Tingo María
Peru
A cave inside a sleeping-woman mountain where oilbirds shriek in the dark.
Millpu
Peru
A chain of electric-blue pools threading a pale limestone gorge in the high Andes.
Chicama
Peru
A left-hand point wave of legendary length, peeling down a bone-pale desert shore.
Gran Vilaya
Peru
Hundreds of unexcavated Chachapoya ruins scattered through days-deep cloud forest.