The Mountains of Peru

The Mountains of Peru
Peru is synonymous with mountains. Seen from above, Peru’s territory resembles a colossal sheet of wrinkled paper. The reason is the presence of the magnificent Andes that, like a giant backbone of rock and snow, cut across Peru from north to south and mold its geography and with it, the landscape and the people. The Andes spread across Peru, forming the largest concentration of snow peaks of the Americas. They are an intricate system of large and small mountain ranges –approximately 20 of them– crowned by a thousand summits that tower over 5,000 masl and more than thirty that rise above 6,000 masl.
The best-known are the Cordillera Blanca and Huayhuash ranges in the department of Ancash; Vilcanota and Vilcabamba in Cuzco; Carabaya in Puno; Chila in Arequipa; La Viuda in Lima, and Pariacaca in Junín.
Mountains in Peru are so pervasive that it is almost impossible to imagine a landscape without soaring peaks looming in the horizon. Only in the Amazon plain and some areas in the arid coastal desert does the land flatten out. Besides splitting Peru’s territory into two clearly defined regions, the Andes are the country’s continental water- divide. This means that the summits of the Andes channel the water from rain and thawed glaciers in two diametrically opposite directions: to the West into the Pacific Ocean, and to the East into the large Amazon basin. The Andes are mostly located slightly south of the Equator and this location has a decisive influence on the characteristics of Andean massifs. Therefore, although its summits remain perpetually snow-capped, Peru’s Andes are, to a great extent, a tropical range.
The Andean climate is affected by two factors: the warm and humid winds that blow in from the Amazon jungle and the cold fronts originating in the Pacific Ocean region. These two factors combine to determine a rainy season from November to April with abundant rainfall and afternoon snowstorms, and a dry season from May to October when sunny days are followed by extremely dry and cold nights with temperatures often below –5º C. Except for a handful of mountains in Argentina and Chile, the highest peaks in the Americas are to be found in the Peruvian Andes. These include Mount Huascarán (6,678 m), Peru’s highest mountain; Yerupajá (6,634 m), the highest mountain in the Amazon basin; and Alpamayo (5,947 m), ranked as the most beautiful mountain in the world in a competition held in Germany in 1960. Untainted mountain chains can still be found in Peru. They are attractions of great interest for lovers of outdoors and mountain sports. Such unique areas are home to an impressive succession of landscapes and exceptional animal and plant wildlife, that include: the Puya Raimondi, a plant with the largest number of flowers in the world (more than 10,000) which blooms only once every 80-100 years; queñual forests that grow almost on the edge of the snow line; century-old yaretas, that grow scarcely one millimeter a year; small herds of graceful vicuña whose wool is considered the world’s finest; majestic Andean condors that dominate the skies, and dozens of tiny hummingbirds that feature all the colors of the rainbow. Several high-Andean civilizations of farmers and livestock herders –who follow millenary mountain traditions of paying homage to the sacred Apus or sacred mountain guardians– add to the attractiveness of the area. So come and see for yourself.
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