Huayllay Stone Forest
Bosque de Piedras de Huayllay
Interesting facts
- Lying between about 4,100 and 4,546 metres above sea level, Huayllay is often described as the highest stone forest in the world.
- More than 4,000 rock formations stand in the forest, and local people have given names to roughly 480 of them.
- More than 500 rock paintings have been recorded in the sanctuary, attributed to ancestral Andean peoples such as the Pumpush and Yarowilca.
- Among the named figures are a zebra, penguins, a snail, a bear, a toad and a cobra, alongside human profiles such as the thinker.
- The national sanctuary was formally created on 7 August 1974 and covers about 6,815 hectares.
- Temperatures in the sanctuary swing from about minus 8 °C to just under 14 °C, keeping the high puna cold and dry for most of the year.
- Eleven marked hiking circuits wind through the rocks, and even the shortest takes three to four hours to walk.
- Hot springs bubble up at La Calera, Goshpi and Yanahuato, and archaeological remains are found at Bombomarca within the area.
Why it is worth it
High on the Bombón plateau in Peru's central Andes, at more than 4,000 metres above sea level, thousands of eroded rock towers rise from the cold grassland of the puna. The Huayllay Stone Forest (Bosque de Piedras de Huayllay) spreads across several thousand hectares, a labyrinth of pillars, mushrooms, gateways and stacked boulders, some of them big enough for a rider on horseback to pass beneath.
The rock began as volcanic ash. Early in the Cenozoic, eruptions laid down thick sheets of ignimbrite — ash welded into stone — on top of older sandstone, limestone and conglomerate, forming a high plateau. Ignimbrite is porous and easily attacked, and during the last ice age, roughly 20,000 years ago, repeated freezing and thawing drove water into every crack, prising the rock apart. Wind, water and ice then carved what remained into the free-standing figures seen today. Local people have given names to hundreds of them after the animals and people they resemble — the tortoise, the alpaca, the condor, the elephant, the walker — and among the rocks there are also ancient rock paintings and archaeological remains.
The area has been protected since 1974 as the Huayllay National Sanctuary, created specifically to safeguard the rock formations together with the native plants and animals of the high Andes. Vicuñas, viscachas, Andean deer and Pampas cats live among the towers, and the wet meadows and springs between them support grasses and the queñual, the only tree species within the sanctuary's limits. Hot springs rise nearby, one of them emerging at over 60 °C. The formations are often compared with China's Shilin Stone Forest and the Garden of the Gods in Colorado, and they have become a destination for hikers and rock climbers from abroad.
Getting there
The stone forest lies in Huayllay District of the Pasco Region. The nearest city is Cerro de Pasco (Yanacancha district), about 39 km away in a straight line. The nearest airport is Huánuco's Alférez FAP David Figueroa Fernandini Airport (HUU), about 125 km away; Lima's Jorge Chávez International Airport (LIM) lies about 140 km away in a straight line, with the road route crossing the Andes considerably longer.
On these lists
-11.00034, -76.36597per Wikidata