There’s the usual, crowded way to climb the high Andean peaks to Machu Picchu, said Tom Clynes in National Geographic Adventure, and then there’s the “cool way” to see Peru’s lost city. Most visitors take the time-tested Inca Trail, which has become so popular that “a strict 500-person daily limit” is now enforced. But savvy hikers prefer the lesser-known and less-congested Camino Salcantay. Its overwhelming natural beauty and diversity more than make up for its lack of ruins and legendary paving stones. It also offers virtually nonstop “top-of-the world vistas”—unlike the Inca Trail, on which views of the towering mountains can be glimpsed only occasionally through the forest.
My journey to Machu Picchu began with a short flight from Lima to Cusco, which was once the capital of the Incan Empire. “At 11,500 feet, Cusco had thinner air” than the airplane cabin. The next stage was a four-hour drive through the Rio Blanco Valley to the village of Mollepata, and then on to our base camp, the Salkantay Lodge & Adventure Resort. Muleteers took our baggage as our guide led us up an arduous, five-mile climb to the 15,906-foot Apacheta Pass. Then came the relatively easy, 15-mile plunge down 7,000 feet into the Wayraccmachay Valley. In the morning, as the mist cleared, we caught our first glimpse of the 20,574-foot Nevado Salcantay glacier that towers over the Soraypampa Plain “like an enormous quartzite fang.”
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