On Friday, we decided to tackle the hike up to Laguna Churup. We were told it was harder than Laguna 69 so we left earlier, out the door at 6 am. It is closer to Huaraz than Laguna 69, so we figured we had lots of time to get to the top. We went without a tour again, which is super easy with this day hike. We got breakfast in the street on the way, as well as some sandwiches to take with us. They sell this amazing hot quinoa beverage type thing in the mornings all over Peru, it's boiled down with fruit and spices and is a bit thick - it's better than I just described... We found the collectivo to take us up the mountain, there weren't enough people that wanted to go all the way to where we want so we just paid the difference. We got dropped off on te side of the road in the middle of no where and were told to start walking up the mountain until we see a big rock then turn right. We started walking and were a little weary about trusting these directions since there didnt seem to be a path or anything. Onwards we went. The view was spectacular so it didn't really matter if we were Imthe right spot. It was fairly steep and pretty hard to do at 7 in the morning. Around 8 we stopped to have more breakfast (apple pie we brought) and enjoy the warm sunshine and try to figure out which way to go. We manged to find the path after a bit. The guy dropped is off before the real entrance so we sent hve to pay the park fee of 5 soles and this also meant we skipped a long part of the path, so it worked out well.
Once we found the actual path we thought it looked ridiculously steep and rocky, so we decided to stick to the route we were on, over the grassier, less inclined side of the mountain. It was still fairly difficult and we wondered if we made the right choice. I think it was gone, more steep than it looked, but manageable. I was more used to the altitude and I brought a large thing of coca tea. In the pictur below, where we need to get to was the snowy peak in the back.
Finally we found the path again and then saw other people! So we knew we were going the right way. The others had also been dropped off where we had. We stopped for another break at the bottom of a small waterfall. The next part of the hike was up a cliff face that had cables to help us up and down. The seemed a little daunting at first but they were fairly easy to manage. Once we got up all the cables there was only about 5 minutes more of walking. The top was really beautiful. The water was super clear and dark blue, there were zero clouds almost all day and the wind was never bad. Hannah even went for a swim in the water. Overall it was a lovely walk that really wasn't too difficult. I'd say Laguna 69 was definitely harder and much longer. Getting back to Huaraz was really easy too, there were lots of collectivism waiting for all the people who went up.
View up from the bottom:
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