Desert Rascals: Inca Trail Day 2

Day 2 of the Inca Trail is the hardest climb and the day we had all been worried about. It was Mother’s Day and we were set to climb Dead Woman’s Pass – lovely!

Starting the day off with steep steps. We climbed and descended SO many steps. Thank goodness for the walking poles!

We all bought the llama caps in Cusco before we started the trail. We laughed that it’s one of those things you can only get away with wearing while your on vacation. But we sure did love those hats. They were warm and covered your ears completely. I even slept with mine on a couple of nights and was so glad I had it!

The official break spot. I sure did love the beef jerky we brought along - what a great hiking snack.

This is the last spot we saw locals and where Chuck bought the $3.50 snickers bar. It sure did taste delicious!

We were at a pretty high elevation at this point so there weren’t really any trees, but it was still beautiful. We were all grateful that none of us experienced any altitude sickness. You definitely got more winded and couldn’t hike super fast, but no one felt sick.

Notice the red dots along the trail, those were our porters. They were cruising up the mountain slope!

Chuck and his friend Gary, with Dead Woman’s pass in the background.

Hiking and talking with friends all along the way made it so much easier.

Almost to the peak! Do I look tired, because I was!

We made it to Dead Woman’s Pass!

Elevation nearly 13,900 feet! I had another mouthful of beef jerky – loved that stuff!

We were officially in the cloud forest so sometimes we had great views and sometimes the clouds completely covered all around us.

All of us at the pass.

We didn’t get much of a break before we started down, after all we had another high pass yet to climb.

We descended 2,000 rock steps this day. Not sure who bothered to count them, but that is what our guide told us. All I know is it felt like thousands of steps!

Waterfalls in the distance.

We finally made it down the first descent where a yummy lunch was waiting for us. Since it was Mother’s Day, the guys surprised us all with a message from the kids. I woke up that morning missing our little ones so I was nearly in tears when Chuck pulled out the video he had recorded before he left of each of them wishing me a Happy Mother’s Day. We were all surprised they had planned this for us – it was actually Chuck’s idea.

And since it was Mother’s Day, the porters pulled out our sleeping pads and we took a few minutes rest before lunch was served. See the thickness of those sleeping pads – no wonder the ground felt so hard every night!

And we were off and climbing again. We had another pass to climb and descend before we reached camp for the evening. Waterfalls dotted the hillside.

It was steep!

Our porters cruising by us again.

The weather was constantly changing on us. You’d be hot and then you’d get cold. At this elevation temperatures changed rapidly.

Another set of ruins along the way.

It started raining on us just before we reached the peak of the second pass. We pulled out our ponchos and started climbing down another super steep set of thousands of stairs. With the rain the rocks were super slick. My poncho was so big I couldn’t see my feet as I was trying to step down the rocks. It was at this point I got a little ornery. I decided I needed to remove my poncho and put on my rain jacket so I didn’t fall, but then my pants were getting all wet. Then, Chuck asked me to hold his poles for a minute and I snapped back that couldn’t he see my hands were already full. Yeah, the rain, super slick step rocks and feeling pretty tired at this point made me upset for a bit. Luckily Gary and Amy caught up with us and I had to snap out of my ornery mood! And good thing for nice hiking pants – they dry super quick!

We were so excited to get to camp that evening. It was a long hard day, but we had made it and it was amazing probably more so because of the difficulty!