Trail to Peak: The Adventurous Path
Hiking, Exploring, Travel & Adventure
An Overview of the Salkantay Trek
The main reason we were going to Peru this year, was is to get to Machu Picchu on an alternate Inca Trail. [Spoiler alert: we made it!]
As many of you know, Bill and I wanted to do something physically hard, something inspiring, and something seriously challenging to mark our 50th birthdays. We wanted an adventure.
We trained long and hard for our trek this summer in the Rocky Mountains near Canmore. [Many thanks again to those of you who have supported and encouraged us, and to those of you that came along on long day hikes along ridges and up Canmore, Kananaskis & Banff area peaks to help us prepare for our adventure.]
There isn’t just one Inca Trail. The entire country of Peru is crisscrossed with 40,000 to 60,000 km of Inca trails (the number depends on what guide you are talking to) that were built throughout the country in the time of the Incas. These roads lead from Cusco, the centre of the Incan Empire, to the 4 corners of the realm. The Incans were, in this respect, the Romans of South America.
Many of the Inca trails still exist today and are used by farmers (see the photo of a coffee picker that we came across on our route, below), hikers and archeologists. I’m constantly amazed by the ingenuity & civil engineering skills of those Incas who, without horses or beasts of burden, built amazingly large-scale projects throughout the country that still exist, by the very nature of how well they were built, today.
Our hesitation to doing the official Inca Trail, was that we’d read that the Peruvian government limited the trail to 200 travellers a day, along with their porters, guides and cooks. That kind of mass start and crowded trail conditions was not what were not what we were after!
Of course, the reality was that the Salkantay Trek, which is unregulated, is used by a lot of trekking companies, and at times is quite crowded, with perhaps even more people on it. The end result was that we were having 4am starts to avoid crowds on the trail, which was not that fun, even for an early bird like me!
This trek was probably the hardest physical thing I’ve done in my life. The distances were long, there were no rest days or significant times to recover, and each day we were hiking for the better part of the entire day. Shorter distance days took almost as long as the greatest distance days and simply represented harder hiking conditions. So they were long days, but they went through incredible scenery.
There’s no doubt about it: this was an incredible experience. We passed through some of the most incredible landscapes I’ve ever seen in my life. Each day was different. There is something so amazing about passing through a series of landscapes and communities, slowly, on foot. This was not the usual tourist holiday: it was the real deal, filled with slice-of-life moments and wee bits of adventure.
Come along, over the next few blog posts, as I share with you some of the experiences we had, some of the things we learned, some of the things we saw on our trek.
Or follow these Links to learn more about this adventure:
- Day One: Getting Into The High Andean Mountains,
- Day Two: the 4630m Pass, Days Two and Three: Trekking From The High Andean Mountains to the High Jungle,
- Jungle Stories,
- From Bean to Brew,
- Day Four: Hiking Through The Jungle to Machu Picchu, and
- Day Five: At Long Last Machu Picchu.
- There is also my TripAdvisor review of the trekking company & the experience.
7 Comments on “An Overview of the Salkantay Trek”
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Trail to Peak: The Adventurous Path 
50! Wow! I’m not sure if I’d ever get to hiking like this and I’m in my thirties. Your blog is inspirational! Beautiful captures, Sherri! Love them all.
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Ha! Thank you! I find your blog inspirational in a different way. You are beautifully candid about the life journey you are on, how you are feeling, and where that takes you, and I love it!
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You made my day! 🙂 After reading your posts I felt silly posting my hiking experiences. Haha!
I’m hoping I can give hubby the company he wants on the more challenging treks. I’m starting by tackling all the Korean mountains. And so far, it’s been quite a journey.
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That’s quite a goal you’ve set for yourself! Wow. 😳👏🏻🌟
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And if you’d like to learn more about our time in Peru, go to this section of my blog… https://trailtopeaktheadventurouspath.com/peru/ (my favourite entries are about the Mercato San Pedro… a 4 part blog entry… and the culinary street tour we did in Cusco).
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Thanks, Sheri! Checking it out now. 🙂
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Thanks Sheri, excellent experience. Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu is a journey of a lifetime. Actually the are different routes to get to Machu Picchu, for example: Salkantay Trek, Lares, Cachiccata, Choquequirao, Inca Jungle and the trip to Machu Picchu by bus via Hydroelectric. For the trek Salkantay I would like to recommend walking sticks and mosquito repellent, rain poncho. However anytime you are going to salkantay make sure to have rain clothes with you.
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