Last April we went on a big circuit adventure: the remote Alpamayo circuit. Often overshadowed by it's much more famous cousin in the region (the Huayhuash circuit), we were looking for solitude, nature, and a completely self-reliant adventure. This route delivers on all of these!
The first two days of trekking you might still meet other hikers, since the route shares the trails with the Santa Cruz trail. But on our third day we branched off this trail, and it was just us, the wildlife, a couple of farmers and their animals for the rest of the time until we finished in Hualcayan.
For the whole route, we wild camped and had brought all our food for the trek. This trip is usually done in 10-12 days, with donkeys for carrying supplies since there is no resupply en-route. We decided we wanted to be self reliant, and with this came the need to hike faster so we didn't have to carry as much food on our own backs. We settled for about 1kg of food per day, which wasn't enough calories for what we were using up, but sufficed for the 7 days. We also carried one extra day of supplies just in case the trail took us longer than anticipated. We brought a water filter and filtered all the water needed along the way.
The first two days were doable but felt tough with the altitude. At the end of our third day we made an unnecessary detour, and finished after dark. It was a long, tiring and tough day - but from day 4 onwards we felt better acclimatised and the trail felt more doable. Day 5 and 6 were the most enjoyable, bringing a very wild feeling, amazing mountain views and a feeling like we knew what we were doing. On our last day, we were sad to leave the mountains behind, but very ready for showers and fresh food!