{"id":2806,"date":"2013-01-24T21:00:31","date_gmt":"2013-01-24T15:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/memmott.us\/blog\/?p=2806"},"modified":"2013-01-25T06:58:33","modified_gmt":"2013-01-25T00:58:33","slug":"to-lagunas-aiuan-khota-kunk-huikara-and-mikhaya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/memmott.us\/blog\/2013\/01\/24\/to-lagunas-aiuan-khota-kunk-huikara-and-mikhaya\/","title":{"rendered":"To Lagunas Aiuan Khota, Kunk Huikara, and Mikhaya"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"A<\/a>

A Pond, with Cerro Mikhaya Behind It<\/p><\/div>\n

This is one of the places I used to travel to at least monthly to hike, fish, camp, and just relax. \u00a0It’s quite changed, now. \u00a0All the “lagunas” have been dammed, and in several cases, they are fundamentally different from what they used to be, with their surrounding bofedales now almost entirely underwater. \u00a0That said, especially for someone who doesn’t have to compare the place with what it was like 25 years ago, this is a beautiful valley which can be reached quickly and easily from La Paz. \u00a0Definitely worth exploring.<\/p>\n

This trip starts where the drive\u00a0Up The Khallapa River Valley<\/a>\u00a0ends. \u00a0Use the directions in that post to get to the starting point for this extension.<\/p>\n

About 2.3 miles beyond your first sighting of Challa Pata, and after a couple of switchbacks over the valley of the Rio Uma Pelada, there is a turnoff to the right which will take you, in only a half mile of rather poor track, to the fairly impressive Kormiri Falls. \u00a0The falls are worth the detour, and if the road is not one you want to brave, the walk is short and the climb (about 300 feet, more or less smoothly distributed over the half mile) is not too challenging. \u00a0From the parking spot below the Kormiri falls, it is a very nice 2.7 mile hike up to Laguna Serkhe. \u00a0The roads and trails to Laguna Serkhe are described in another post, To Serkhe Kkota<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Cactus<\/a>

Cactus Flowers Are a Surprise at 15,340 Feet<\/p><\/div>\n

Only about a half-mile beyond the turn-off, you will come to Laguna Aiuan Kkota. This long lake is not on the old maps and I don\u2019t believe it existed before. It is the result of damming the Uma Pelada River and, if memory serves, flooded a large area of bofedales. \u00a0Just beyond the dam that holds back the Aiuan Kkota is another turnoff to the right. \u00a0This road takes you all the way to Laguna Serkhe.<\/p>\n

\"Another<\/a>

Another Cactus Flower<\/p><\/div>\n

Continuing on the “main” road,\u00a0\u00a0you follow the shore of Aiuan Kkota for a little more than a mile. \u00a0When you leave the laguna behind you are only about another mile from the end of the road, at Laguna Kunk Huikhara. \u00a0The road ends at a small building which is under construction. The grafitti on the side of the building insults the municipality, which presumably is building it. Unfortunately, either the builders or other people who have been in the area (or, more likely, both) have strewn trash around. It\u2019s a bit sad.<\/p>\n

If memory serves, this is where I used to come to fish 25 years ago. \u00a0At that time it could only be reached by hiking and I never saw anyone else there. Now you can\u2019t escape people here. \u00a0Even if you are alone, the building has been built to overlook the lake, so you never really feel yourself completely away from civilization. Another couple of things I noticed and didn\u2019t like here. \u00a0First, it seems that they have not finished with the road, and are working to extend it further. \u00a0Second, someone has dug a channel along the side of the lake. It seems designed to keep water from seeping into the bofedales to the right of the lake. Then I noticed an area where someone is digging the bofedales up and piling up the earth, apparently to ship it out. \u00a0Someone is apparently mining the bofedales for top soil. \u00a0Another reason to oppose the construction of roads into the high mountains. \u00a0These bofedales developed over centuries, and drying them out and then digging them up will destroy them for many years to come, maybe forever.<\/p>\n

\"Laguna<\/a>

Laguna Mikhaya<\/p><\/div>\n

From the small building you can hike on up to the last of the lagunas, Laguna Mikhaya. It\u2019s only a two mile hike, with an increase in altitude of only about 600 feet. \u00a0Looking on Google Earth and in the old maps from the\u00a0Perry-Casta\u00f1eda Library<\/a>, it appears that one could continue the hike up over the pass and down again to Laguna Chara Charaui, Laguna Laram Kkota, and down Rio Acero Marca to connect to the road to Chulumani. \u00a0The trek appears to be about six miles. \u00a0That would be a great adventure.<\/p>\n

\"Above<\/a>

Above Laguna Mikhaya<\/p><\/div>\n

Mapping<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Attached is a .gdb file<\/a>\u00a0with all the routes and waypoints. You can find topographic maps (though somewhat outdated) covering the area at a 1:100,000 scale for free in the Perry-Casta\u00f1eda Library Map Collection<\/a> of the University of Texas archive at Austin. The relevant sheets are La Paz (South), La Paz (North) and Chulumani. If you load these maps into OziExplorer<\/a>, you can also load the .gdb file (it has to be converted to .gpx first) which will plot the routes on the topo maps. \u00a0Pretty cool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is one of the places I used to travel to at least monthly to hike, fish, camp, and just relax. \u00a0It’s quite changed, now. \u00a0All the “lagunas” have been dammed, and in several cases, they are fundamentally different from what they used to be, with their surrounding bofedales now almost entirely underwater. \u00a0That said, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,61,99,63,100,57,91,59],"tags":[187,172,171,169,173,189,168,55],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/memmott.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/memmott.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/memmott.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/memmott.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/memmott.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2806"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"http:\/\/memmott.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3277,"href":"http:\/\/memmott.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2806\/revisions\/3277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/memmott.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/memmott.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/memmott.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}