Touching The Void

The Cordillera Huayhuash in Northern Peru is probably best known for being the region in which one of the most famous tales of human survival in the mountains ever took place (as depicted in the book and documentary 'Touching the Void' by Joe Simpson).

For the past eleven days we've been hiking the Huayhuash Circuit, known as being one of the best three high altitude treks in the world (the others being the Annapurna Circuit and Everest Base Camp, that's two out of three for Mai now!!).

The Huayhuash region is completely off the grid, there's no electricity or running water and campsite facilities are extremely basic. Luckily we did the trek with a great agency who had a really knowledgeable guide, great cook and expert arrerio (also the other clients doing the trek were super nice).

The altitude can make trekking difficult, you're above 4000m for the full eleven days and crossing a high pass everyday equal to or greater than the highest mountains in Western Europe.

The mountains here are definitely the most amazing I've ever seen, some of the highest in the world outside the Himalayas and definitely some of the hardest in the world to climb. At this time of year it's busy season and we didn't bump into a single person attempting any peaks in the Huayhuash, if you've read Touching the Void you'll know why!