After leaving the last town yesterday afternoon, we motored (biked!) up the switchbacks to Laguna Purhuay. This is the start of our trail and the start National Park Huascaran. Five mile of very steep and rough trail got us up high and to a great campsite. Now just 16 mile more.
surprise surprise the trail did not live up our anonymous internet poster’s exuberance. This turned out to be the hardest section of the trip so far. What we thought was going to be smooth sailing and Good biking turned into completely abandoned trail of grapefruit size rocks, ankle deep swamp, and unbelievably straight and eroded trail to the pass of nearly 16,000ft. If even for a minute I thought I was getting myself into shape, this trail told me otherwise.
when we finally did Crest the summit. Were we rewarded with wonderful smooth single track biking trail…? No! We did strenuous hike a bike down almost the whole thing the last quarter or 5 miles held a glimmer. We finally found some well loved and maintained Park trails. Lot of work for a short stretch of Good biking. And the icing on the cake for some reason three very impressive Gates blocked our exit from the National Park. The final hurdle and the final gate! We finished up pretty much in the dark. Through the skin of our teeth we made it to Chacas and a nice hotel that evening.
