Destination
Salkantay Trek
The high mountain route to Machu Picchu, open without an Inca Trail permit: five days over a 15,190 foot pass to mountain lodges rather than tents.
Destination
The high mountain route to Machu Picchu, open without an Inca Trail permit: five days over a 15,190 foot pass to mountain lodges rather than tents.
The case for the Salkantay Trek
Salkantay is the wild way in: five days under the glaciers of a 20,500-foot peak, cresting a 15,190-foot pass where the Andes stand close enough to hear the ice, then dropping through cloud forest toward Machu Picchu.
No permit calendar governs the trail, so the dates fit your group, and the nights are spent in mountain lodges rather than tents. Our trips wrap the trek with Cusco and the Sacred Valley on either side.
Timing
Our trips
No permit calendar, higher mountains, and a bed at night. Salkantay crosses a 15,190-foot pass under the glaciers of a 20,500-foot peak, then drops through cloud forest toward Machu Picchu. Because no permit governs the route, the dates fit your group rather than the other way around.
The trade is the ending. The Inca Trail finishes on foot through the Sun Gate; Salkantay reaches Machu Picchu the last stretch by train and bus. If the stone road itself is the point, take the Inca Trail. If the mountains are, take this.
Harder than the Inca Trail in altitude and easier in accommodation. The pass at 15,190 feet is the crux and it comes early in the walking; the rest descends steadily through warmer country.
The trip carries a physical rating of 4 out of 5. Five to seven hours of walking on consecutive days is the real requirement, not speed. Nights are spent in mountain lodges rather than tents, so you are dry and properly fed before the next day.
By arriving several days early and sleeping high before you walk high. Our trip wraps the trek with Cusco and the Sacred Valley on either side, which is acclimatization doing double duty as the best part of the country.
The pass is the highest point and you cross it rather than camp on it. Drink far more water than feels necessary, skip alcohol the first nights, and walk slowly.
Our Salkantay trip is a ten-day itinerary from about US$1,700 per person, covering the trek, the mountain lodges, guiding, accommodation either side, transfers and most meals, with Machu Picchu arranged as part of it.
On top of that, budget international flights, domestic flights within Peru, travel insurance and tips. The price we agree with you is per person and it is fixed, so a group that grows later pays the same rate for more people.
