Laguna Llaca Hike - Huaraz, Peru
by Rebecca Hollman
updated Dec 2, 2018
Laguna Llaca Hike - Huaraz, Peru
Everyone who plans to go hike in Huaraz has heard of Laguna 69. The famous baby blue glacial lake in the Huascarán National Park draws hundreds of visitors everyday. What if I told you there was an equally beautiful hike which draws maybe 1 visitor per day? Laguna Llaca is just that. In our entire time on the hike - which was 9 hours in total - we didn’t see one other person. We also didn’t pay anything to enter the national park or for a guide. This was truly a beautiful slice of Huaraz, the way it normally is - just valleys, a glacier river, a few cows and a few farms.
Huascarán National Park is a 340,000 hectare (or 1,300 square mile) national park that covers most of the Cordillera Blanca mountain range. The Cordillera Blanca is the world’s highest tropical mountain range and has 27 mountains that are 6,000 meters (19,700 feet) above sea level and over 600 glaciers. For comparison, the tallest mountain in the continental US is Mount Whitney- reaching only to 14,500 feet above sea level. Peru’s highest elevation is at the summit of Mount Huascarán (for which the park is named after) at 6,768 meters. Besides its massive snow capped peaks, the national park also has a wide range of other types of ecosystems like montane tropical forests, puna grasslands, tropical tundra, etc. and incredibly high biodiversity. It is famous for its Andean mountain cats, spectacled bears, Andean condors, vicuñas, and giant hummingbirds. It is also one of the only few remaining habitats for the Queen of the Andes - a giant bromeliad flower spike that is critically endangered and only found in a handful of places in Peru and Bolivia. Climate change is threatening this national park as the glaciers retreat, taking away the source of water for these precarious ecosystems and also for the local communities who live in the area.
Info About the Hike:
Laguna Llaca is a pretty unheard of hike and area for most tourists. To reach the trailhead, it’s about a 45 minute drive from Huaraz. There are two different options as trailheads for the hike depending on how far you want to hike/what your goals are. If you want to spend a full day hiking and spend time hiking in the valley up to the glacial lake, then start at the Lazy Dog Inn as your trailhead. If you want to drive all the way up to the lake and spend more time at the lake and just do the extension hike up to the glacier face, then use the national park refugio parking lot as your trailhead. If starting at Lazy Dog Inn, take the paved road 14N to wind up from Huaraz to the Lazy Dog Inn. The trailhead starts at a animal path from the driveway (see more detailed instructions below). Expect the hike to take 4-6 hours up and 3-5 hours back (plus time spent relaxing at the lake or by the glacial river in the valley). If you want to add on the glacier extension, add another 2-3 hours roundtrip. The Vallanaraju base camp extension would add about 4 hours.
Even if you get started at the crack of dawn, I don’t think it’s possible to do the full hike plus both extensions. The full hike with even one extension might be pushing it depending on how fit you are and how acclimatized you are to the elevation. Since it is 17 km round trip in total, I suggest either doing the long hike in from the Lazy Dog Inn by itself OR driving in to the lake and doing both extension trails. The drive in to the lake is about another 45 minutes because of all the switchbacks and how terrible the road is. I would not suggest driving anything but a truck or tall SUV over this road.
When hiking in the full way, you pass the national park entrance where there may or may not be a guy guarding. If he is there, the park entrance fee is S/ 30 per person and if he’s not, just walk on in. There is a shut gate right after the official park entrance, but it’s just there to keep people’s cows from coming out so just open it and let yourself in (but make sure to shut it properly after yourself). There’s not really a real obviously marked trail the whole time so follow the directions from the Lazy Dog Inn (see below) or if you get lost from the trail, just walk on the road that you would be driving on. It’s visible from anywhere in the valley and will take you straight to the lake. I highly suggest spending some time walking in the bottom of the valley though and not staying on the road the whole time. The bottom of the valley with the river running through it and the scattered boulders was my favorite part of the hike. Sitting by the river in the grass with a few cows roaming around you was more awe-inspiring than the glacial lake so make sure to wander down to the river’s edge at some point.
*AN IMPORTANT NOTE*
Huascarán National Park is one of the highest elevation area’s in all of Peru. The altitude sickness here is REAL. Take at least 4 day to acclimatize yourself before attempting any real serious hiking. Even if you are fit back home, that doesn’t mean you will be able to do the same activities in this high of an altitude. Take it easy, start with smaller/easier acclimatization hikes, and don’t hurt yourself by pushing it. This area of Peru also has the highest UV index in the entire world. So you will get sunburnt. Even if it’s cloudy and/or cold. Please wear sunscreen/a hat/some sort of protection.
Getting There:
Getting there is the tricky part since it is not that known of a spot. If you have your own car, you can drive yourself either to the Lazy Dog Inn or straight to the refugio parking lot. I wouldn’t suggest driving in unless you have a car with a lot of clearance because the rocks in the road here are huge and there are lots of massive ravines from water runoff. If you don’t have a car, then you’ll have to arrange a taxi to bring you to the trailhead. Most taxi drivers probably won’t take you all the way up to the lake or will charge you significantly more to take you there because of the stress to the car.