Solo Hiking the Santa Cruz Trek in Peru

Thank you. Hi. Hello. Hi. Yeah. Hi, pups. Hello. Hi. Don't you have to follow that guy? Hmm? Are you going the right way? Hey, everybody. This entire trip and today's video was made possible by today's sponsor, Omaze. Omaze works with content creators like myself to raise money for non-profits. And the non-profit that I want to talk about today is The Access Fund, which supports protection and stewardship of the originally designated Bear Ears National Monument in Utah. I've always wanted to try rock climbing myself, and this is a great way to protect the land that's necessary for that. And I've also wanted to try out van life. Omaze is providing a way for you to win a Mercedes-Benz 4x4 Sprinter Cargo Van, plus $40,000 worth of customization by Vansmith. You only have a couple of days, so make sure to check the link in the description and get on it. I have been interested in van life for a while, and if you are as well, this is the ultimate way to make it happen. Have your new home away from home delivered to you or get flown out to the Vansmith shop in Colorado and road trip back wherever you want. The best part is every donation does support The Access Fund, and you do have a chance to win. So hurry up, go there, donate, and good luck. And if you win, please invite me to your van. I would love to hang out. Now let's break down exactly how I got to this hike, did it, and what I would suggest if you're thinking about doing the Santa Cruz trek yourself. I flew from New York to Lima, and one thing that you should know if you're doing a similar route is that you do need a confirmed return. Before you even board your plane, they're going to ask for that information. And I had booked a one-way to Peru, and then right before I got to the check-in desk at the airport, I actually bought a refundable one-way ticket from Lima to somewhere. I forget where it was. I arrived into Lima, which is a massive city, super late, and I just wanted to sleep. So I took a taxi over to a hostel that I'd actually stayed at before. I woke up early, and I wanted to start heading north immediately up to Juarez, which is a seven-hour bus ride. But I think for about $10, I got a luxury bus seat that can recline, and you get served hot food. And I was right up in the front, so I actually set up a time-lapse of going through the desert, because that side of Peru is actually very desert-y, which is interesting. Eventually, I arrived in Juarez, Peru, which is known to be the trekking capital of Peru. I spent a couple days getting used to the altitude. You do need to acclimatize if you are coming from sea level, which is what I did. Now I just have to get some food, some tea, and prepare for the inevitable altitude sickness. I'm feeling it already a little bit. Definitely gonna wake up feeling it a lot. But I felt great, you know, I enjoyed the food. There is some coffee in the city. Walked around, prepared for my hike, bought some groceries at the market, and everything is super cheap. I took a combi, a colectivo, which is pretty much just like a bus with a bunch of people smushed into it. Very cheap, I think it was like $2 for me to get an hour and a half up to Yungay, which is a very small town, but still had hostels and restaurants, and a market for me to get groceries. In Yungay, I actually stopped by a hostel really quickly, because I had an extra bag filled with extra clothes, my MacBook Pro, and just things that I didn't want to bring on the hike. So I tipped them a couple dollars, and they were happy to just store my bag for me. From the bus terminal in Yungay, there are two shuttles that go daily up to where the trailhead was, and once again, very cheap. I think I paid a little extra just because they knew I was a tourist. They up the price when they know. But let me tell you, the two-hour bus ride, packed and sitting with stuff on my lap from people next to me, going zigzagging up and around these tiny little roads in the mountains. It's a bit scary and a bit chaotic, but eventually I made it to the trailhead, which was very small. There still was a hostel, and a restaurant, and supplies if you wanted to buy groceries right there. And they will ask you to pay for a ticket to enter the national park. I believe it's $65 US. If you don't buy it there, they'll ask you to pay for it at the end of the trail, though. Well, this is gonna be like half a day because it's like five o'clock right now. Let's get a rush down here and get to camp. Hopefully, it's not raining tomorrow. Hola. It's cold right now just because it's morning. I'm in the shade, but it's gonna be hot today. Direct sunlight, hiking uphill. Yeah, I'm calling it. I'm gonna be sweating. Most of my hiking video was shot with a Sony a7 III with a Rode VideoMic Pro Plus on top for audio with a 16 to 35 millimeter wide-angle lens. Walking back to get the camera a million times. This is my life. Why do I do this? I placed that camera on a Peak Design carbon fiber travel tripod, and that's basically it. You know, I'm setting up these static shots for most of my ground shots. Of course, I have the DJI Mavic Pro 2. Mavic 2 Pro. I can never remember what it's called specifically to get drone shots, but other than that, I'm slinging my tripod right on my hip, and that works perfectly with the pack that I have. If you watch my videos, you know I love random dogs, and that's exactly what I got when I reached Punta Union, which was the highest point, the summit pass of my hike with the beautiful view. I was up there with a couple other hikers, and this cute random little dog just showed up. So we hung out and ate snacks and chilled there for a little bit. But man, this is why you come on this hike. Coming over that pass and then just having this beautiful turquoise blue glacier lake with white snowy mountains just all around you, it's definitely an amazing once-in-a-lifetime view. And stay up there as long as you can and just pray for good weather like I had. I did this hike in early November, and the weather was great. It didn't get too cold at night. I was more than happy wearing my clothes, but then also being in my 45 degree sleeping bag. It did rain a bit and hail a little bit, especially in the night. Probably gonna rain until tomorrow morning. It's kind of just what it does, afternoon thundershowers. If I wake up in the middle of the night and I hear no raindrops, I will set up a time lapse and hopefully try to get star movement. That is what I'm looking for right now. But that was fine. The biggest thing that was difficult with this hike was the altitude. The altitude is definitely making me go slower and get out of breath when I'm going uphill. So at points you were up at 14,000 feet, 15,000 feet for extended amounts of time. And I think that's going to affect anyone. You get the altitude sickness headache. You feel dehydrated even if you're not. And you just feel lousy. It's tougher to use your muscles and to get breath when you're going uphill. At least for me, I was struggling a little bit. For camera batteries, I actually did something different than usual, where I would bring a portable battery USB brick and recharge my camera batteries overnight. This time I bought two extra Sony Z batteries for my Sony full frame camera and had five total. I didn't even use them all. And I did some astrophotography time lapses overnight, which can, you know, use up an entire battery in one night. But I kind of liked not having to charge anything. It was nice. I did bring Epic bars and I had snacks. I bought a couple bananas and oranges and apples at the market right before I got to the trailhead. And for this trip, I did not have a stove to save space. And it would have been nice to have hot tea, hot coffee, but it was a quick hike and I was fine just having snacks and cold food. So technically on the third day, even though I'm calling it a two day hike because I started late and ended early on the last day, I made it all the way to the end. It was a long 15 mile stretch, but all downhill. At the end of the trailhead, there was a campsite, hostel, restaurant, and taxis waiting for you. I hopped in one and made the hour and 15 minute drive back to Yungay, grabbed my bag and then made it back to Juarez. So a lot of bus riding on this trip. But once you're up in the mountains, you're kind of alone. Not too many people up there. You definitely have some privacy and the views were fantastic. If you want to see a complete list of all of the gear that I brought on this hike, I have those listed down in the description below. Then of course you can visit my website craigadams.com to see what gear I'm using right now. If you're curious about what music I used, I also have links for those. I have links for everything, so just make sure to check the description. And if I do forget anything, just ask in the comments and I'll get to it. Once again, I do want to thank my sponsor Omaze. If you want to support me, support the sponsor of this video because they're helping make it possible. They're providing me with an opportunity to keep making films and go on trips and make this my life. It's just fantastic. So once again, thank you for watching and take care.