Took a wrong turn on the Salkantay route and ended up in a landslide area

Three years ago I was doing the Salkantay Trek in Peru and missed the cutoff to Mollepata. The trail I ended up on was narrow and loose rock, and I hit a section where the whole hillside had slid out maybe 20 feet wide. I had to backtrack an hour to find the real path, but the detour added two extra days to my trip. Anyone else ever misread trail markers on that section and get into a jam?

2 comments

2 Comments

nathan_webb9d ago

Oh man, the Salkantay markers are brutal in that stretch. I did it two years ago and missed the same cutoff, ended up scrambling down a drainage that looked like a trail but was actually a dry creek bed full of loose stones. Took me four hours to realize I was going the wrong way, and by then I was too tired to climb back up so I just camped in a sketchy spot by a stream. The next morning I found the real path maybe 200 feet above where I'd been walking, hidden behind a cairn that looked like it had been kicked over. Added a full day and a half to my trip and I was so mad because I could see the actual trail from above the whole time.

the_jason9d ago

Damn that's rough. Classic cairn betrayal.