Panorama Photo

Taken from the Pomabamba side, the Alpamayo trek starts with a warm-up ascent to Jancapampa. Most people do it by taxi to save one day but - done by foot and with the provisions for a week on your shouders, the access to Jancapampa is not so short. At a certain point, the road makes an unpredictable left turn, which is to round the big morain that one guesses at the left end of the image. I thought that the road was heading to some minor village, so I continued straight in direction Pucajirca. Only during the night, when I pitched the tend on the top of the moraine, after crossing in the darkness mysterious settlements little below the 4000 m line, the full moon showed me the immense plain that at that point I hade left some hundreds metres below me. No harm - the following day I joined the true Alpamayo trail after climbing a nameless 4300 m mountain, and after an adventurous descent to Laguna Sactaycocha. And, already that evening, the fact of being lost brought some interesting fruit, like the one depicted here. A little (alas, apparently abandoned) church in perfect country style, with a background dominated by the complex Pucajirca, with according to my opinion is the most interesting summit in the mighty Santa Cruz - Quitaraju - Alpamayo - Pucarashta - Pucajirca - Taulliraju chain.
So complex is the Pucajirca that I was not yet able to identify the different summits: Rinrijirca (5810), Pucrapucraraju (5780), Pucajirca Oeste (6039), Pucajirca Central (6014), Pucajirca Note (6046).
The next morning the Pucajirca gave me a remarkable and very delicate show, namely
https://bit.ly/2BIM6yY
before disappearing forever from my sight. Four more times I was at less than 3 km from some of its main summits: at the Yanacon pass (4610), NE, at the remote Laguna Safuna alta (4400) NW, at the even more remote Lagunas Pucacocha and Quitaracsa (4700) W, ant at Laguna Arhuaycocha (4450) SW, but the mountain remained always in clouds.

Location: -8.843978 -77.521841