Rainbow Mountain and the Search for Ausangate
Ausangate Mountain, an “Apu” (or holy mountain) in the Quechua culture, rises to 20,945 feet in the Peruvian Andes, hovering nearly 3,885 feet above Rainbow Mountain in the distance. For perspective, that’s 3,345 feet higher than the Mt. Everest base camp, 6,456 feet higher than the tallest mountain in the Continental United States, and nearly 15,665 feet higher than the “mile high city,” Denver, Colorado.
After a punishing two-hour trek straight up, sitting at the peak of Montana de Colores (Rainbow Mountain) next to a small stone wall built by the direct descendants of the Incan people, I popped open my first beer and spun in a dizzying swirl of colors. Ausangate rose in the distance like a giant, its glacier so massive that I mistook it for sky.
Standing below it, I now understood why the Quechua people called this mountain a diety.
I felt like a pilgrim, my body bruised, battered and broken, surviving the hike up Rainbow Mountain — like the…
Categories: The Expeditioner