Visits to Machu Picchu’s Inca Trail Resume After Heavy Rains

The Inca Trail to Machu Picchu has reopened to visitors after conservation crews repaired sections damaged by heavy rains and mudslides in Peru’s Cusco region.

More than 400 Peruvian and foreign tourists, guides, porters and other support workers entered the trail network over the weekend. The reopening allowed 25 organized groups to begin their routes from Piscacucho, in the district of Ollantaytambo, near kilometer 82 of the railway to Machu Picchu.

The groups included 139 foreign tourists, among them three children, along with 25 official tourism guides and 240 support workers. Visitors came from the United States, France, Japan, Brazil, Canada, Spain, Colombia, Australia, Mexico, Germany, Russia, Poland and Chile.

Maintenance crews worked on retaining walls, trail platforms, channel walls and river defenses. They cleared the Llulluchapampa stream, restored rainwater drainage systems and removed rocks from the Unkawayqo and Falsopaso sectors at the Warmiwañusqa pass. The Culture Directorate also rehabilitated camps and rest areas and repaired water intakes serving toilets in Ayapata, Llulluchapampa and Paqaymayo Alto.

Authorities suspended entry on Aug. 18 after landslides, rising rivers, flooded camps, collapsed sanitation facilities and soil erosion affected multiple sectors of the trail. The Culture Directorate had also cited forecasts of a high-altitude isolated depression, known as a DANA, that particularly affected southern Peru.