Carhuasanta
Encyclopedia
The Quebrada Carhuasanta is located in the Apurímac Region
of Peru
. It is known as the headwaters
of the Amazon River
. The brook is fed by the winter snows of Nevado Mismi
, (5,597 m), some 6,400 kilometres from the Atlantic Ocean
. Of all the possible river sources in the Amazon Basin
, it is the snow melt of the Carhuasanta that has been calculated by cartographers
to be the furthermost water source from the mouth of the Amazon.
The Carhuasanta joins with the Quebrada Apacheta, becoming the Rio Loqueta. The river has several more name changes before it becomes the Apurímac River
. The mining town of Cailloma lies near the junction of four rivers that form the Apurímac.
sent a three-man expedition to the region in 1971, headed by Loren McIntyre. The expedition travelled from Cailloma by four-wheel drive, but soon got bogged. Continuing on by back-packing up the river, they climbed up the Apacheta Trail and traversed onto Nevado Mismi, taking in Nevado Quehuisha and Nevado Pumi Chiri. This is, as McIntyre describes it in his 1972 National Geographic article, "a semicircle rampart of the continental divide
. All that trickles from the inner rim joins to form the Apurimac."
Nevado Mismi makes an unreliable source of water in the dry season. Lagoona McIntyre, as the lake was called, is deemed the 'true source', as it is permanent. However, it is known that the source will change over time, perhaps in a single season, due to the changes of the weather and its impact on the microclimate
. In the wet season
the mountains and undulating altiplano
are covered in snow. In the dry season
it resembles a desert as the mountains crumble slowly to dust. The effect of global warming
will no doubt accelerate the changing of the Amazon's source water.
to the isolated valleys of the altiplano used by alpaca
herders and their families, and to the mining town of Cailloma, 60 km distant (which can be accessed by a road from another direction). The locals have no interest in traversing the higher mountains of the divide.
Nevado Mismi was frequented by the Incas
. "A gold figurine was discovered in a pirca (burial pit) on the summit by a South African father and son who were working in the Colca Canyon in the early 1970s." They didn't seem to know of the significance of the mountain as the source of the mighty Amazon, nor of the interest invested in it by others in the decades before.
and his crew in 1982. McIntyre writes, "Despite support by a helicopter and a monstrous six wheel truck carrying five tons of equipment, Jean-Michel and his puffing lowlanders barely made it to the top."
In the same year, a 9-member international team organized by South African Dr. Francois J. Odendaal climbed out of the Colca valley and hiked up the Apacheta Trail with grandiose and expensive plans to run the Amazon by raft and kayak all the way to the sea. The team was torn with dissension - not to say mutiny. Odendaal, a South African, pulled out after they reached flat water at Atalaya with 3600 miles yet to go. Only Polish Piotr Chmielinski and American Joe Kane
completed the journey to the Atlantic with Kane documenting it in the classic book Running the Amazon (1989). Kane documents in his book that he hiked for an hour to the top of a mountain, off the Apacheta Trail, and "touched the source" (a frozen river of water).
found in a Lima
book market and a couple of topographic maps of the area, he walked alone, without support, 40 kilometres along the continental divide. It was an original route, perhaps unique in its undertaking.
Finding this route was an accident - it came about as a matter of survival. Caganoff had meant to begin his walk in Cailloma and follow the river up from there, just like McIntyre's party. However, in the truck he had hitched a ride on, he was warned by the drivers that if the terrorists stop them, being a foreigner, he would most probably be killed. Oblivious to Caganoff until then, he had travelled right into the heartland of the Shining Path
. Quickly changing his plan, he was dropped on the road in the middle of the night, in the middle of the vast altiplano, with little food (as he was going to buy supplies in Cailloma). The only way out of this now sticky situation was to reach the source via the continental divide, then walk down into the towns of the Colca Canyon
beyond.
Under a full moon he recognised Cerro Chungara (5,286m) 5 km to his south, which helped to orient him. In four days he crossed the lower western ridges of Chungara, crossed the flat boulderous summit of Cerro Ticcla (5,072 m), crossed the Quebradas Condori and Aquenta, and climbed the ridge up onto Cerro Ajo Colluna (5,255 m), the north eastern ridge of the Mismi Massif. Halfway along this ridge to the summit of Nevado Mismi, he spent an agonising night thinking he was dying of altitude sickness. He had had little food over the four days, which had made him weak. He bivvied
next to a small snow drift on the north side of the ridge halfway to Nevado Mismi, overlooking the headwaters of the Quebrada Carhuasanta.
His experience there is described in his website.
Apurímac Region
Apurímac is a region in southern-central Peru. It is bordered on the east by the Cusco Region, on the west by the Ayacucho Region, and on the south by the Arequipa and Ayacucho regions...
of Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
. It is known as the headwaters
Source (river or stream)
The source or headwaters of a river or stream is the place from which the water in the river or stream originates.-Definition:There is no universally agreed upon definition for determining a stream's source...
of the Amazon River
Amazon River
The Amazon of South America is the second longest river in the world and by far the largest by waterflow with an average discharge greater than the next seven largest rivers combined...
. The brook is fed by the winter snows of Nevado Mismi
Nevado Mismi
Nevado Mismi is a mountain peak of volcanic origin located in the Andes mountain range of Peru. A glacial stream on the Mismi was firmly identified as the most distant source of the Amazon River in 1996; this finding was confirmed in 2001 and again in 2007....
, (5,597 m), some 6,400 kilometres from the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
. Of all the possible river sources in the Amazon Basin
Amazon Basin
The Amazon Basin is the part of South America drained by the Amazon River and its tributaries that drains an area of about , or roughly 40 percent of South America. The basin is located in the countries of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Venezuela...
, it is the snow melt of the Carhuasanta that has been calculated by cartographers
Cartography
Cartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.The fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to:*Set the map's...
to be the furthermost water source from the mouth of the Amazon.
The Carhuasanta joins with the Quebrada Apacheta, becoming the Rio Loqueta. The river has several more name changes before it becomes the Apurímac River
Apurímac River
The Apurímac River rises from glacial meltwater of the ridge of Nevado Mismi, a mountain in the Arequipa Province in southern Peru.The Apurímac is the source of the world's largest river system, the Amazon River...
. The mining town of Cailloma lies near the junction of four rivers that form the Apurímac.
National Geographic expedition
The National Geographic SocietyNational Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society , headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational institutions in the world. Its interests include geography, archaeology and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical...
sent a three-man expedition to the region in 1971, headed by Loren McIntyre. The expedition travelled from Cailloma by four-wheel drive, but soon got bogged. Continuing on by back-packing up the river, they climbed up the Apacheta Trail and traversed onto Nevado Mismi, taking in Nevado Quehuisha and Nevado Pumi Chiri. This is, as McIntyre describes it in his 1972 National Geographic article, "a semicircle rampart of the continental divide
Continental divide
A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not connected to the open sea...
. All that trickles from the inner rim joins to form the Apurimac."
Nevado Mismi makes an unreliable source of water in the dry season. Lagoona McIntyre, as the lake was called, is deemed the 'true source', as it is permanent. However, it is known that the source will change over time, perhaps in a single season, due to the changes of the weather and its impact on the microclimate
Microclimate
A microclimate is a local atmospheric zone where the climate differs from the surrounding area. The term may refer to areas as small as a few square feet or as large as many square miles...
. In the wet season
Wet season
The the wet season, or rainy season, is the time of year, covering one or more months, when most of the average annual rainfall in a region occurs. The term green season is also sometimes used as a euphemism by tourist authorities. Areas with wet seasons are dispersed across portions of the...
the mountains and undulating altiplano
Altiplano
The Altiplano , in west-central South America, where the Andes are at their widest, is the most extensive area of high plateau on Earth outside of Tibet...
are covered in snow. In the dry season
Dry season
The dry season is a term commonly used when describing the weather in the tropics. The weather in the tropics is dominated by the tropical rain belt, which oscillates from the northern to the southern tropics over the course of the year...
it resembles a desert as the mountains crumble slowly to dust. The effect of global warming
Global warming
Global warming refers to the rising average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans and its projected continuation. In the last 100 years, Earth's average surface temperature increased by about with about two thirds of the increase occurring over just the last three decades...
will no doubt accelerate the changing of the Amazon's source water.
Pre-1971
Very few people have visited the headwaters of the Carhuasanta. A walking track called the Apacheta Trail, used by locals, runs across the continental divide 13 kilometres to the west of Nevado Mismi, linking the villages of the Colca CanyonColca Canyon
Colca Canyon is a canyon of the Colca River in southern Peru. Peru's third most-visited tourist destination with about 160,000 visitors annually, it's located about 100 miles northwest of Arequipa...
to the isolated valleys of the altiplano used by alpaca
Alpaca
An alpaca is a domesticated species of South American camelid. It resembles a small llama in appearance.Alpacas are kept in herds that graze on the level heights of the Andes of southern Peru, northern Bolivia, Ecuador, and northern Chile at an altitude of to above sea level, throughout the year...
herders and their families, and to the mining town of Cailloma, 60 km distant (which can be accessed by a road from another direction). The locals have no interest in traversing the higher mountains of the divide.
Nevado Mismi was frequented by the Incas
Inca Empire
The Inca Empire, or Inka Empire , was the largest empire in pre-Columbian America. The administrative, political and military center of the empire was located in Cusco in modern-day Peru. The Inca civilization arose from the highlands of Peru sometime in the early 13th century...
. "A gold figurine was discovered in a pirca (burial pit) on the summit by a South African father and son who were working in the Colca Canyon in the early 1970s." They didn't seem to know of the significance of the mountain as the source of the mighty Amazon, nor of the interest invested in it by others in the decades before.
1982
The third team to reach the top of the Nevado Mismi, in search of the 'true source', was Jean-Michel CousteauJean-Michel Cousteau
Jean-Michel Cousteau is a French explorer, environmentalist, educator, and film producer. The first son of ocean explorer Jacques Cousteau, he is the father of Fabien Cousteau and Celine Cousteau.-Biography:...
and his crew in 1982. McIntyre writes, "Despite support by a helicopter and a monstrous six wheel truck carrying five tons of equipment, Jean-Michel and his puffing lowlanders barely made it to the top."
1985
In 1985 a five-man team from the Los Angeles Adventurers Club, led by the late Emil Barajak, erected a heavy iron cross at the source.In the same year, a 9-member international team organized by South African Dr. Francois J. Odendaal climbed out of the Colca valley and hiked up the Apacheta Trail with grandiose and expensive plans to run the Amazon by raft and kayak all the way to the sea. The team was torn with dissension - not to say mutiny. Odendaal, a South African, pulled out after they reached flat water at Atalaya with 3600 miles yet to go. Only Polish Piotr Chmielinski and American Joe Kane
Joe Kane
Joe Kane is an American author of two books and is also a journalist who writes for numerous publications such as The New Yorker, National Geographic, and Esquire...
completed the journey to the Atlantic with Kane documenting it in the classic book Running the Amazon (1989). Kane documents in his book that he hiked for an hour to the top of a mountain, off the Apacheta Trail, and "touched the source" (a frozen river of water).
1987
One of the most unusual stories of reaching the head of the Carhuasanta comes from (South African born) Australian adventurer Gary Caganoff. In 1987, guided only by an October 1972 National Geographic MagazineNational Geographic Magazine
National Geographic, formerly the National Geographic Magazine, is the official journal of the National Geographic Society. It published its first issue in 1888, just nine months after the Society itself was founded...
found in a Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
book market and a couple of topographic maps of the area, he walked alone, without support, 40 kilometres along the continental divide. It was an original route, perhaps unique in its undertaking.
Finding this route was an accident - it came about as a matter of survival. Caganoff had meant to begin his walk in Cailloma and follow the river up from there, just like McIntyre's party. However, in the truck he had hitched a ride on, he was warned by the drivers that if the terrorists stop them, being a foreigner, he would most probably be killed. Oblivious to Caganoff until then, he had travelled right into the heartland of the Shining Path
Shining Path
Shining Path is a Maoist guerrilla terrorist organization in Peru. The group never refers to itself as "Shining Path", and as several other Peruvian groups, prefers to be called the "Communist Party of Peru" or "PCP-SL" in short...
. Quickly changing his plan, he was dropped on the road in the middle of the night, in the middle of the vast altiplano, with little food (as he was going to buy supplies in Cailloma). The only way out of this now sticky situation was to reach the source via the continental divide, then walk down into the towns of the Colca Canyon
Colca Canyon
Colca Canyon is a canyon of the Colca River in southern Peru. Peru's third most-visited tourist destination with about 160,000 visitors annually, it's located about 100 miles northwest of Arequipa...
beyond.
Under a full moon he recognised Cerro Chungara (5,286m) 5 km to his south, which helped to orient him. In four days he crossed the lower western ridges of Chungara, crossed the flat boulderous summit of Cerro Ticcla (5,072 m), crossed the Quebradas Condori and Aquenta, and climbed the ridge up onto Cerro Ajo Colluna (5,255 m), the north eastern ridge of the Mismi Massif. Halfway along this ridge to the summit of Nevado Mismi, he spent an agonising night thinking he was dying of altitude sickness. He had had little food over the four days, which had made him weak. He bivvied
Bivouac shelter
A bivouac traditionally refers to a military encampment made with tents or improvised shelters, usually without shelter or protection from enemy fire or such a site where a camp may be built. It is also commonly used to describe a variety of improvised camp sites such as those used in scouting and...
next to a small snow drift on the north side of the ridge halfway to Nevado Mismi, overlooking the headwaters of the Quebrada Carhuasanta.
His experience there is described in his website.