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| Hiking | 10.59 Miles |
4,634 AEG |
| | Hiking | 10.59 Miles | 6 Hrs | | 1.77 mph |
| 4,634 ft AEG | | | | |
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| no partners | | After all the morning recon hikes we were prepared to summit Pillku Urqu. Five of the eight were somewhat regular hikers. But only a couple of us had gone up so high before. The hike had stats that looked like Mt Wrightston so I wasn't worried.
We choose to go up via the Horse Meadow route as that looked to be the least steep. The views from town were misleading - it was still freaking steep!
As we climbed the ridge from the Horse Meadow we got views down into another valley. Across that valley were snow capped peaks. I was in heaven!!! I even ran a few steps before the high altitude made me slow down.
Sooner or later we reached the big cross that towers over Cusco. The views up there were stunning. The clouds were rolling around the peaks/ridge up high.
I was dead set on going to the high point. So we headed off in that direction. One of my partners and I had to be back at the clinic at 11 AM to conduct a training session so we stopped waiting for the others and took off. My partner saw a couple of foxes on the ridgeline but had scared them off before I got to see them.
We got to the high point of Pillku Urqu and enjoyed the views. The clouds had cleared and we had wonderful 360 views. Pillki Urqu stands higher than Mt Whitney. After several minutes we started our rapid descent. Some of the others decided not to do the peak we did because one of them thought that the other peak was Pillku Urqu. I figured the entire area was considered Pillku Urqu and that the high point was the most logical spot to visit since neither of the two peaks had prominence over the other.
On the way down, the two of us decided to make a loop of it. That route was very steep. There was two cool parts to the hike down, one was being next to the writing cut into the side of the mountain. I never did figure out if it was graffiti by a singular person or if it was a organized civic pursuit to mark a township similar to A Mountain. We also went right next to a big landslide that we had been staring at for days. I can only imagine the sound the earth made as the side of the mountain collapsed.
We pressed on and managed to get back to the clinic by 10:30 with just enough time for breakfast and a shower before our training session started at 11  |
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