Alternative Rainbow Mountain Palccoyo

I was so excited to see the beautiful Rainbow Mountain but as the height is at an elevation of 17k feet, my friends and I were wise to do the hike at the end of our 10 day visit to Peru - after hiking the Salkantay trail for 5 days. Even though we were pretty much acclimated, the hike was still challenging. They were great at letting us change the pickup time from 4am to 8am. We had a couple hours drive to the start of the hike by driver Saul to about 15k feet to start the hike. Saul was a calm and great driver managing all the switchbacks for the 3 hour drive. Roger was very patient & encouraging for the 2 hour hike up. Going down was much easier of course & took about 30 minutes. It was a beautiful sunny day, with no wind until we got close to the top. The path was not rocky and what was nice was that the donkeys or horses used a different path up and down so there was little to no poop to avoid. We all had our water bladders in our backpacks, hiking poles and hats & gloves (which we took off & on as needed) & rain gear just in case. At the top we bought some cooked alpaca & mint / muni tea from a vendor. Several calm dogs and patient hawks were waiting for us to throw our leftovers. Roger was great in explaining to us the importance of the Apu & glaciers to his culture. We also talked about how they are mining some of the minerals in other rainbow mountains & his concern about that. We stopped at a beautiful peaceful place for lunch on the way home and had gourmet traditional Peruvian food. Highly recommend this tour!

The altitude is a challenge depending on if you acclimate days in advance. We had a patient, friendly, and knowledgeable guide in Roger and Saul as a driver. They were prompt and enhanced the experience. When completed you have memories of spectacular sights and a sense of accomplishment. A must do if you are physically able.

We done two tours - both are fantastic! Rainbow mountain, Sacred Valley - two awesome days on brand-new car, with a polite driver and great guides!

This is by far the best company to explore the Rainbow Mountains with and its not even close! Here's why I highly highly recommend you book with this company: 1) RM Expeditions offers afternoon tours which means no 4am pick up! But also the 75+ vans coming down with us as the only one going up meant the entire rainbow mountain to ourselves! 2) RM offers the best ATV experience as you start where other companies end the ATV portion which means a 1-2 hour hike or paying for a ride on a motorcycle or horse. RM is a 30 mins max ride straight up to the top (which is crucial with the altitude and cold) and a 5 mins hike to the absolute best photo spots! 3) Our guide Roger was knowledgeable and personable and oh yeah took a ton of pictures and videos for us at no additional costs and sent immediately on the car ride back! Tell me why his photos were far superior then the hundred we took!!! I honestly cannot recommend RM Expeditions enough as they are extremely well organized, geared towards safety first, was very attuned to asking how we were acclimating to the 16,000+ feet altitude, and just the best experience ever!

Beautiful day to discover the Palcoyo mountain, less known than Vinicunca, but no less interesting. Roger, the guide, accompanied us to the summit at 5,000 meters and explained the reasons for this very particular “rainbow” effect on the mountain. On the way we met many llamas and alpacas and especially few people (which is not trivial being the month of August).

We received the contact of the agency from a friend who recommended it. We just took the tour with our guide Edgar and the driver Giancarlo and we are fully satisfied, everything was in line with the schedule and they both took care of us and made sure everything was ok and we were enjoying the experience. The information and the communication the days before the tour were clear and easy. We recommend to reserve your tour with Rainbow Mountain Expeditions!!