Another day, another beautiful lake in Peru, and another year in the books as I celebrated my 42nd birthday! I’m not a big hiker, so after going to Laguna 69 a couple of days earlier, Laguna Paron was a nice break since you can drive right up to it, which takes around two hours from Caraz. It’s the largest lake in Huascaran National Park and has an elevation of 13,632 feet. Off in the distance, you will see Artesonraju Mountain, which people say is the inspiration for the Paramount Pictures logo, but I’m not sure if that’s actually true.
There are two main trails to explore the lake, but we only did one of them. The one we skipped goes along the left side and will eventually bring you to another smaller lake. We hiked to the viewpoint above the lake, which only takes 30 minutes up, 20 minutes down, and has 500 feet of elevation gain. It was around a mile round-trip and we spent an hour at the top. You can continue going up, where you’ll need to scramble over rocks, but it seemed like the best view was where we stopped so we didn’t feel the need to continue. Going up, we only saw a few people heading down, so we had the viewpoint all to ourselves. On our way down, at around noon, there were a bunch of people heading up, so get there early to avoid the crowds. It was really windy and cold up there, so be prepared even if it’s warm down by the lake. For those who would rather earn the lake view by hiking in, you can start at the entrance gate, which is around 9 miles from the lake. But it seemed like a lot of the hike would be crossing the switchback road. If hiking isn’t your thing, they offer boat rides and paddleboarding on the lake.
