Cañón del Pato

Cañón del Pato (Spanish: Duck Canyon) is on the Rio Santa (Santa River) at the north end of the Callejón de Huaylas (Corridor of Huaylas) in north-central Peru. The mostly rocky canyon walls are too steep and arid for cultivation, and in only a few places are the slopes of the imposingly rugged canyon suitable even for grazing domestic animals. The canyon was formed by the river where the north end of the Cordillera Negra range (to the west) converges with the Cordillera Blanca mountain range (to the east). These two Andean ridges run generally parallel for nearly 140 km from south of the city of Huaraz northward to the Cañón; the Cordillera Blanca continues northward for another hundred kilometers or more. The Callejón de Huaylas is the valley between the two cordilleras averaging about 16 km (measured on a map from the crests of the two ridges) in width but in places as much as 25 km in width.

The main south-north highway through the Callejón de Huaylas existed as a narrow dirt track prior to construction of the highway through the Cañón. Construction of the highway's northward extension began in 1952 at the town of Caraz, about 30 km south of the Cañón. The highway penetrates and traverses the Cordillera Negra. Eventually it descends westward and continues to the Pacific Ocean port city of Chimbote and northward to the city of Trujillo, providing motor vehicle access to the Pacific coast from the Callejón. A typical highway journey from Caraz to the Cañón is about 4hrs round trip. The highway from Caraz to Trujillo covers a distance of 184 km. From Caraz the highway is in the Callejón valley until it crosses a concrete bridge to the west side of the river. Here the highway leaves the valley floor, veers northwest onto the eastern face of the Cordillera Negra, and eventually pierces through to the western face of the mountain. The highway along this entire route is unpaved and has 35 one-lane tunnels before it emerges onto the western face of the Cordillera Negra high above the town of Huallanca. The river from this same bridge goes generally northward through the Cañón itself and eventually its water powers the turbines of the hydro electricity plant at Huallanca.

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Wikipedia