Cordillera Blanca • Information • Tours • Treks • Santa Cruz • Llanganuco • Peru

The Cordillera Blanca in Peru is South America’s Himalaya. Here, the world’s longest mountain range, the Andes, rises up from the Earth’s crust – with a vengeance. Nearly thirty peaks break 6,000 metres elevation, including the country’s highest, Huascarán, at 6,768 metres, the highest peak anywhere within the tropics. This section of the Andes’ spine is only 180 kilometres long and hardly more than 20 kilometres wide.
Across the valley from the range, another ridge of mountains called the Cordillera Negra separates it from the Pacific. The valley between them is known as the Callejón Huaylas, or Huaylas Alleyway. Despite these prodigious gifts, hardly anyone has heard of the area...!
The Cordillera Blanca is protected by the Parque Nacional Huascarán, and, although there are problems with mines, deforestation and population pressure, much of the park is wild, home to a number of increasingly-rare creatures such as the Andean spectacled bear. The park became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985, while the Huayhuash range to the south only achieved protected status as late as 2002.