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Up In The Andes. Huascaran National Park, Peru'.

Up In The Andes. Huascaran National Park, Peru'.

Photo of a lagoon in the Huascaran National Park in the Peruvian's Ancash region. This is the view the visitors of this astonishing park witness arriving a...
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Photo of a lagoon in the Huascaran National Park in the Peruvian's Ancash region. This is the view the visitors of this astonishing park witness arriving at the entrance gate of the park.There's a small fee to pay for foreign tourists. The park get the name from the Huascaran mountain, the highest mountain of Peru' in the Cordillera Blanca a mountains chain part of the Andes. Situated in the aptly named Cordillera Blanca ("White Mountains"), Huascaran National Park protects the heart of the World's highest tropical mountain range in the central Peruvian Andes. The property of 340,000 hectares covers a diverse mountain landscape from around 2,500 m.a.s.l. and culminating in 27 snow-capped peaks above 6,000 m.a.s.l. It includes the spectacular Nevado Huascaran (Mount Huascaran), Peru's highest peak at 6,768 m.a.s.l., as the property named after the 16th Century Inca leader Huascar. The snow-covered peaks, the numerous tropical glaciers and glacial lakes, the high plateaus intersected by deep ravines with torrential creeks and the variety of vegetation types form a spectacular landscape of rare beauty. Appreciating the geomorphology and striking landscape beauty it is easy to overlook that the property also boasts noteworthy ecosystem and biodiversity values. The wide range of ecosystems and vegetation types includes small pockets of montane tropical forests in some of the lower elevations and valleys. Diverse types of Paramo and Puna grasslands and scrublands are the dominant vegetation types in the property, at higher elevations transitioning into tropical tundra. Huascaran National Park is home to the emblematic Vicuna, which was close to extinction in the 1960s but has since recovered, one of the most spectacular conservation successes in South America. Other charismatic mammals include the North Andean Deer, Puma or Mountain Lion, the vulnerable Spectacled Bear and the endangered Andean Mountain Cat. The avifauna boasts more than 100 recorded species, among them the Andean Condor and the Giant Hummingbird. Around 800 plant species have been documented, the most famous being the endangered Queen of the Andes, known for its giant flower-spike. The entire region has been settled for millennia, as evidenced by the many pre-Columbian manifestations in and around the property. Early inhabitants left remnants of agricultural terraces and corrals, as well as roads, dams and water canals. Moreover, there are noteworthy cave paintings, stone tombs and countless artefacts.
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