Gateway to the Cordillera Blanca — Laguna 69, Laguna Parón, sierra trout, and the highest tropical mountains on earth
Huaraz is the capital of Ancash Region in the Peruvian Andes at 3,052 metres elevation — the base camp for the Cordillera Blanca, the highest tropical mountain range in the world (containing 27 peaks above 6,000m, including Huascarán at 6,768m, the highest point in Peru and the highest tropical mountain on earth). The city sits in the Callejón de Huaylas, a long fertile valley between the Cordillera Blanca and the lower Cordillera Negra, with snowcapped peaks visible on clear mornings from the city itself. Huaraz was almost entirely destroyed in the 1970 Ancash earthquake — a 7.9 magnitude ev…
The Callejón de Huaylas was home to the Recuay culture (0–700 CE) before Inca incorporation in the 15th century. The Chavín de Huántar temple complex (900 BCE–200 BCE) — 110 km south of Huaraz — is the most important pre-Columbian site in the region and one of the oldest ceremonial centres in the Americas, predating the Inca Empire by over 2,000 years. The 1970 Ancash earthquake was the deadliest seismic event in the history of South America — the rock-and-ice avalanche it triggered from Huascarán's north peak buried the city of Yungay (20 km north of Huaraz) completely, with only the top of…