🇵🇪 Peru · The Highlands and the Andes
Nevado Ausangate (6,384 m) is the most sacred apu of Cusco and the highest mountain in the region, a colossus of ice in the Vilcanota range whose presence dominates the horizon southeast of the city. Around it unfolds one of the most spectacular high-mountain settings in Peru: multicolored lakes, glaciers, hot springs, alpaca herds and Quechua communities that keep one of the most traditional herding cultures in the Andes.
The Ausangate circuit is one of the country's great high-altitude treks: several days walking above 4,000 and 5,000 meters, crossing imposing passes and circling the massif, with turquoise, green and reddish lakes at its foot. The area also holds the famous Rainbow Mountain (Vinicunca) and the less visited Red Valley, and on its flanks the huge Qoyllur Rit'i pilgrimage takes place, one of the most important in the Andes.
This guide covers the different ways to take in Ausangate —the multi-day trek, the shorter walks to lakes and hot springs, the link with Vinicunca—, how hard it is and the acclimatization you need, how to get there from Cusco, real tour prices and its deep spiritual meaning for the Andean communities. It's demanding high mountain country, but of overwhelming beauty.
Ausangate is the most important apu (sacred mountain) in the Cusco region, venerated since pre-Hispanic times as protector of the communities, the herds and the water. On its flanks the great Qoyllur Rit'i pilgrimage is held, blending the Andean cult of the mountains with Catholic devotion, and inscribed by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage. Today its circuit is one of the most spectacular high-altitude treks in Peru; the full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The 'navel of the world': capital of the Inca empire and today the archaeological capital of the Americas, gateway to Machu Picchu, the Sacred Valley and the Vilcanota range.
Read the history of Cusco →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
At 6,384 meters, Ausangate is the highest mountain in the Cusco region and, far more than a geographical feature, the most venerated apu in the whole area. In the Andean worldview, apus are the guardian mountains, living, protective beings that watch over the communities, control the weather and the water and guarantee the fertility of the land and the health of the herds. Among them all, Ausangate holds pride of place: it's considered the great protector of southeastern Cusco, a source of life and guardian of the herders and their animals.
This veneration goes back to pre-Hispanic times, well before the Incas, and has stayed alive to this day among the Quechua communities of the Vilcanota range. Meltwater from the peak feeds rivers and lakes that life depends on in a region of extreme climate, which reinforces, in practical terms too, its role as the source of water and prosperity. Ausangate is thus at once a vital ecological reality and a powerful sacred being.
On its flanks live some of the most traditional herding communities in the Andes, raising alpacas and llamas at altitudes around or above 4,000 meters. These communities preserve ancestral knowledge, rituals and ways of life, in close relationship with the sacred mountain. Getting to know Ausangate isn't only about taking in an imposing glacial landscape; it's about approaching one of the most deeply rooted and resilient living cultures in the Andean world.
For all its huge presence and its sacred fame, Ausangate resisted climbers for a long time. The first to attempt it was the Italian Piero Ghiglione, who tried twice in 1950, first with Bruno Manghi and then with M. Girando, without success. He tried again in 1952, this time with the Swede Anders Bolinder and the celebrated Austrian Mathias Rebitsch: up the heavily crevassed glacier on the south face they managed to set a camp near 6,000 meters and, days later, reached one of the massif's three main summits, though not the highest.
The first successful ascent of the main summit came in 1953, by an expedition of the Akademischer Alpenverein (AAV) of Munich, made up of the Germans Fritz März, Heinz Steinmetz, Jürgen Wellenkamp and the celebrated Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer (known worldwide for his book 'Seven Years in Tibet'). That expedition racked up several first ascents in the Vilcanota range, Ausangate among them.
In the years and decades that followed, new routes opened: in 1966 another AAV expedition from Munich reached the summit by two different faces simultaneously (northwest ridge and north face), and between 1969 and 1988 came ascents by the northeast ridge, the east face, the southeast spur and the southeast ridge. Ausangate remains a respected objective for technical mountaineers today, though far less traveled than other Andean six-thousanders because of its glacial difficulty and its relative isolation.
Ausangate is the setting for one of the most striking and best-attended religious events in the Andes: the Qoyllur Rit'i pilgrimage, which means 'snow star' in Quechua. Every year, around the Catholic feast of Corpus Christi (between May and June), tens of thousands of pilgrims climb to a sanctuary high on the flanks of the peak, in a celebration that combines dance, music, ritual and devotion in a setting of extreme cold and thin air.
What makes Qoyllur Rit'i singular is its syncretism: it fuses the ancestral Andean cult of sacred mountains and glaciers with Catholic devotion to the Lord of Qoyllur Rit'i. The pilgrimage brings together communities from different 'nations' or cultural groups, identified by their dances and dress, among them the famous ukukus or pablitos, ritual figures who climb onto the glaciers. In a single act the festival brings together the pre-Hispanic and the Christian worlds, a vivid expression of Andean religiosity.
For its exceptional cultural value, the pilgrimage to the sanctuary of the Lord of Qoyllur Rit'i was inscribed by UNESCO in 2011 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. It's one of the great living testimonies to how Andean cultures have kept, reinterpreted and passed on their beliefs across the centuries, with sacred Ausangate as the backdrop and as the spiritual protagonist of the celebration.
One of the most recent and surprising chapters in Ausangate's story is that of Rainbow Mountain, or Vinicunca. For generations the Quechua communities of the area knew the ridge, but its colored mineral bands stayed covered by snow and ice almost all year until the early 2010s. The accelerating retreat of Andean glaciers because of global warming gradually exposed the pink, ochre, turquoise and purple stripes that make the mountain famous today.
The first photographs by hikers and local guides began circulating around 2013-2015, and the phenomenon went viral fast on social media and travel blogs. By 2016 Vinicunca already ranked among the most visited attractions in Peru, compared even with Machu Picchu in several international rankings, and daily visitor numbers in high season came to top two thousand.
This tourism boom completely transformed the economy of the nearby communities, which came to depend heavily on entrance fees, horse hire and the sale of food and drink to hikers. At the same time, it raised concern about the environmental impact of mass arrivals on a fragile high-mountain ecosystem, which led to set hours, marked trails and regulated fees to try to manage the flow of visitors without losing the income it brings the area.
Today the Ausangate massif leads a double life: it remains, as it has for centuries, the most venerated apu of southeastern Cusco and the setting for the great Qoyllur Rit'i pilgrimage; and it has also become one of the most sought-after trekking and nature destinations in Peru, largely thanks to Vinicunca's worldwide fame. The full multi-day circuit, for decades the near-exclusive territory of mountaineers and experienced trekkers, now coexists with far more accessible day trips that take thousands of visitors up to Rainbow Mountain.
That growth has brought concrete economic benefits to the communities of Tinki, Pacchanta, Upis and other settlements in the area, which today depend to a large extent on entrance fees, muleteering services, rural lodging and selling food to tourists. But it also raises conservation challenges —trail erosion, waste management, pressure on a high-mountain ecosystem already hit by glacial retreat— that authorities and communities are trying to manage with quotas, set hours and regulated fees.
For the traveler, Ausangate today offers a range of experiences running from a day walk to Vinicunca to a full week-long trek through the heart of the massif, by way of the Pacchanta hot springs and time with herding communities who keep alive one of the oldest mountain cultures in the Andes.