Main Info
Overview and Highlights
The Quelccaya ice cap, is the second largest glaciated area in the tropics, located in the Vilcanota range east of Cusco city – Perú, the cap covers an área of 16.5 square miles, with ice up to 660 feet thick and amazingly surrounded by cliffs, and tall snow caped mountains, higher than 19,000 feet asl, this place is an important source of water eventually melting down to the Vilcanota or sacred river of the Inkas, regularly this place is monitored in order to keep searching the glaciers, the little ice age that we had thousand years ago and the weather phenomenon like “El niño” that we had way ago.
The Quelccaya Glacier, also called Quelccaya Ice Cap or Quelccaya Ice Field, is a glacier located in southeastern Peru, in the Vilcanota mountain range, an extension of the Eastern Cordillera of the Andes. With a length of more than 17 km, a surface area of 44 km² and an ice cap more than 200 m thick, it is the largest glacier in the entire tropical zone of the world.
What is included
- Pick up at your hotel in the morning and transfer by private transportation to the starting point of the trek. (4×4 pickups)
- Assistance during the tours 24/7
- Professional bilingual high mountain guide Spanish/English.
- Meals: 02 Breakfasts, 03 Lunches, 02 Dinners. (Vegetarian menu available at no additional cost).
- All entrance tickets
- Personal tents: 2 people in each tent with capacity for 4 people, to allow a greater comfort and a safe custody of the backpacks.
- High mountain personal equipment (Tent, foam mat, crampons, hiking ice axes, helmet, harness, gaiters).
- Group Mountain equipment (Ropes, carabiners, ice screws, snow stakes)
- Mountain personal (Cook, muleteers)
- Horses/Donkeys (to transport tents, food and cooking equipment).
- Horses/Donkeys to transport personal equipment up to a maximum of 7 kg per person (including mattress and sleeping bag).
- Emergency Horse
- Oxygen bottle
- First aid kit
What is not included
- Extra cost for transporting filming equipment (USD 80.00 per person)
- Inflatable Matress (USD 15.00 for the entire duration of the trek)
- Sleeping bag (USD 15.00 for the entire duration of the trek)
- Trekking poles (USD 5.00 each, for the entire duration of the trek)
- Hotel in Cusco
- International and domestic flights and airport taxes
- Personal expenses
- Walking sticks
- Meals not indicated
- Travel insurance (highly recommended)
- Tips and gratuities
- Extra expenses not mentioned in the itinerary.
What to bring and advices
- It is really advisable and important that you arrive to Cusco at least 2 days prior the trek, in order to acclimatize to the altitude. Just in case, you can take personal medication which You can get at the drugstore there are many around the main street Av El Sol or near to the main square of Cusco.
- Please make sure to inform us about your health/food/physical restrictions in advance so we can prepare them for you.
- In case you need to pay the remaining balance, it is advisable to take some cash. You can get some money from the ATM machine that are located in the centre of the City of Cusco.
- Be always ready for rain and cold, take some rain poncho water proof clothes and warm clothes. Proper hiking boots.
- Insect repellent, some mosquitos are really annoyed specially at lower altitude.
- Beside This package if You are going to Machupicchu You must need to Bring Your original Passport, very important to entrance at the checkpoint in Machupicchu.
