Chacaltaya
  • Chacaltaya
  • 5395 m
  • Prominence 634 m
  • Near La Paz, Bolivia.
  • Location: South 16.34950, West 68.12701
  • Difficulty: YDS class 1.
  • Climbed May 25 2025.

Copyright Petter Bjørstad, 2009-2025.

Information:

How to get there:
This peak is close to the city of La Paz. The peak is 17 kilometer north of the city. One may drive all the way up to a hut located at around 5255 meter of elevation. The road is fairly rough and somewhat narrow, but most cars can get up if driven slowly and with care. This trailhead location is S16.35370, W68.13169.
A charge of 25 Bolivanos per person was requested from the refuge.
Route description:
Walk through the refuge and follow an obvious trail up the ridge. There is a single trail fork. Going left will bypass the false summit, otherwise you traverse across it. Not much of a difference. The walk to the summit will take about 20 minutes if you are friend with the thin air, otherwise more.
Comments:
This was our flight departure day, but early evening for Adam and late night for me. Thus, an obvious plan would be to visit this peak after checking out from our hotel.
Google tried its best to lead us into narrow streets and even invade a Sunday morning market. In fact, it should not be trusted in La Paz. The key is to stay on the larger, paved roads.
We arrived at the refuge parking shortly before 1100. This was a new "record" for me driving ¨to high elevation. Parking a car (we had a Toyota Hilux truck) at 5250 meter of elevation cannot be done many places in the world.
A friendly lady from the Refuge, requested a payment of 25 Bolivanos per person. She told Adam that the path was free of snow and that he could climb in his trail runners. We started shortly after 1100 and reached the summit in 20 minutes. One could certainly feel the altitude, we were mosst likely better acclimatized than most after our recent climb of Alto Toroni.
Good views down to La Paz as well as across to the impressive Potosi peak. We descended after about 10 minutes, this time via the false summit. It is obvious why this peak is popular, it must be one of the easiest 5000 meter peaks in the world.

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