Hiking the Andes

When to hike the Andes

All 7 destinations clear our recommendation criteria in every month of the year. The question here is not whether a place is open but how the months differ.

Averaged across the destinations, November is the warmest month at 11 degrees in the hiking window and July the coldest at 9. 5 of the 7 destinations lie in the southern hemisphere, where the year runs the other way.

How far apart the destinations are

The selected grid cells run from 2,811 metres at Cocora Valley to 4,110 metres at Chimborazo, with a median of 4,015 metres. Both clear the criteria in 12 months (all year).

Season length is uniform here: every destination is recommendable in 12 months.

What closes the missing months

None of the 7 recommended destinations loses a month to a critical climate component.

Not counted here are 11 further destinations for which we publish no recommendation. They are listed below with the reason.

Conditions in June

June is when the open destinations score highest on average. Hiking-window temperature then runs from 8 degrees at El Cocuy to 15 at Cocora Valley, and rain falls on 1 to 99 percent of days depending on the destination.

What these figures cover

Each destination is described by one selected ERA5-Land grid cell, averaged over 1991 to 2025. The figures above summarise those 7 cells. They are not a map of the whole area or of any route, and they are not a forecast.