Hiking the Santa Cruz Trek - Camping in the Andes of Peru

Hiking and wild camping the Santa Cruz Trek in Huascaran National Park, Peru. The Santa Cruz Trek is a 45km trek from Vaqueria (3500m) to Cashapampa (2900m), via Punta Union pass (4750m). The Santa Cruz Trek is normally done in 4 days and 3 nights, and is popular with tour groups and guided hikers, often with donkeys that carry your gear! We completed the Santa Cruz Trek is 3 days and 2 nights 'self supported' without guides or porters, leaving us with the flexibility and freedom to enjoy the Peruvian wilderness and 'wild camp' at night.

The Santa Cruz Trek showcases amazing scenery of the Cordillera Blanca range in the Peruvian Andes. We saw spectacular peaks along the trail, including Taulliraju (5830m), Alpamayo (5947m) Quitaraju (6036m), Artesonraju (6025m), and Santa Cruz (6259m).

The classic Santa Cruz Trek is 45km in total, but we added in a 6km detour to see Laguna Arhuaycocha. This detour gave spectacular views of Alpamyo, Quitaraju, and Artesonraju - I would highly recommend the detour, even if you have to take your backpack off and pick it up on the way back.

Before the hike we spent 4 whole days acclimatising to the altitude, doing day hikes. This served as a 'warm up' multiday hike for Cordillera Huayhuash (video soon)

Starting in Vaqueria and finishing in Cashapampa meant 600m less to climb overall, which made finishing the hike in 3 days much easier. We also relied on public transaction (Colectivos, which are small vans that are like shared taxi-bus), which meant that we didn't start the first day until mid-morning, and needed to finish the third day as early as possible to get back to Huaraz.

Getting from Huaraz to using Colectivos was straight forward, but the journey from Yungay to Vaqueria was very bumpy along the mountain road. The Colectivo from Cashapampa to Caraz was quite scary along a narrow track that had sheer cliff face on one side. Below is how we got to and from the Santa Cruz Trek using Colectivos, and the costs. If you were more familiar with Peru and spoke better Spanish some of the fares could've probably been cheaper.
Huaraz → Yungay, 5:30am, approx 75 mins (s./8)
Yungay → Vaqueria, 7:00am (actually left at 7:30am), approx 3 hours (s./40)
Cashapampa → Caraz, 2:45pm, approx 1 hour (s./20)
Caraz → Huaraz, 4:00pm, approx 3 hours (long wait in Yungay) (s./10)

This video and route summary is only a recording and report of my trip and is not to be used as a guide or route by others.__

00:00 Route and intro
02:18 Day 1 - Vaqueria to Laguna Huiscash (ish)
05:21 Day 2 - Camp to Arhuaycocha
10:51 Day 3 - Camp to Cashapampa
12:42 Ending thoughts
__

Day 1: Left the hostel in Huaraz at 5am to catch the early 5:30am Colectivo to Yungay, then another Colectivo to Vaqueria which is the start of the Santa Cruz Trek. Started hiking mid-morning on a sunny and cloudless day. Ended the day and camped at 4200m. 15km and 825m gained

Day 2: Climbed up and over Punta Union pass at 4750m, then descended into the valley to the West. Took the detour going North towards Laguna Ayhuaycocha. Ended the day around 1km South of Alpamayo Base Camp.16km and 1050m gained

Day 3: Initially headed South to 'undo' the detour of the previous day, before picking up the main trail again and headed West for the rest of the day, past Laguna Jatuncocha and Laguna Ichiccocha. Finished at Cashapampa where there was a Colectivo waiting to leave luckily. Colectivo to Caraz followed by another Colectivo from Caraz to Huaraz, and back to our hostel. 25km and 200m gained.

#SantaCruz #Peru #ultralight #andes #hikingadventures
__
Hiking and camping gear I used (These are affiliate links):
GPS Watch → https://amzn.to/3j7yIob
Tent - 3F Lanshan 1 Pro→ https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_A9oNsM
Sleeping bag - UKHammocks Winter Topquilt
Sleeping mat - Exped Synmat HL → https://amzn.to/3PEQDmh
Backpack - 3F UL XPAC Backpack → https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_AZN1jw
Water filter - Platypus Quickdraw → https://amzn.to/3c8vH9o
Water bag - Evernew 1.5L → https://amzn.to/3ACjjrF
Solar charger → https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_Dd4...
Titanium pan → https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_9vAYF3
Titanium spork → https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_AkjY5f

Full Gear List on Lighterpack: https://lighterpack.com/r/zsi8ke
___________________________

Instagram:   / itsrichardcheng  

Filming gear that I used for this video (These are affiliate links):
Main Camera → https://amzn.to/3QXtts9
Lens → https://amzn.to/3QH19KT
Phone → https://amzn.to/3hwO2e1
___

Music:
Beginning - Arnyd (CC BY 3.0)   / beginning  
Afterlife - GalaxyTones (CC BY 3.0)   / afterlife  
Edelweiss - Onycs (CC BY 3.0)   / edelweiss  

This page contains affiliate links which means at no additional cost to you, I may receive a small commission for purchases made via these links which goes to help me in making more videos and to support this channel