Is this the ultimate alternative to hiking Peru's Inca Trail?

“We’ve reached the point of no return,” says my guide, Julio Llancay. It should sound ominous, but with that ever-present grin stretched across his face, it lands more like a punchline than a warning.

I’m standing at 11,411ft on a dusty track in the Sacred Valley, a few hours into the Quarry Trail. This 17-mile trek was created by Intrepid in collaboration with local Peruvians as a quieter, less-trodden alternative to the Inca Trail. Tomorrow, we’ll climb even higher, peaking at 14,600ft along a three-day route that winds its way up the mountainside above the historic town of Ollantaytambo.

“Haku!” (‘Let’s go’) Julio gestures, ushering us onwards past scenes of bucolic Peruvian life. Men bend low under straw bales and sleeping pigs snore along the trailside. Overhead, the brilliantly blue sky is punctuated by red limestone crags.

As I carefully pick my way down a rocky slope, Julio points out a series of small caves carved into the mountainside. This is Qory Song’o — or Golden Heart — a pre-Inca burial site where mummified bodies were once laid to rest. Scattered skulls still lie in the hollows, their empty eye sockets seeming to follow me as I pass. Julio explains that the pre-Incans deliberately shaped their skulls, elongating them from a young age. Some believe it was a spiritual practice to bring them closer to the astral plane, while others think it mirrored the shape of sacred glaciers or was simply seen as a way to increase brain capacity.

I ponder this bizarre tradition as we continue, the terrain evolving from cultivated farmland into mountain scrubland. Ahead, steep switchbacks climb towards the Perolniyoc Waterfall, a towering 165ft vessel transporting the glaciers’ lifeblood to the towns below.

A dark shape wheels through the sky above us as we reach Raqaypata, an impressive Inca village believed to have served as a military base, astrological observatory and religious site. Julio confirms it’s a condor, one of the largest flying birds in the world. Alongside pumas and snakes, condors formed a sacred animal triumvirate in Inca culture and were one reason black was a venerated colour — a symbol of eternity and the boundless night sky. Their vast wingspans, sometimes stretching over ten feet, cast shadows that once stirred awe among Andean peoples.

“These days, condors have a bit of a bad reputation,” Julio reveals. “Locals think they kill their animals, but they’re actually just scavengers. It’s the pumas who kill.”

That night, the sky is scattered with more stars than I’ve ever seen, cut through by the cloudy wisp of the Milky Way. Known in the local Quechua language as mayu, meaning ‘river’, this luminous arc holds deep significance in Andean belief. It’s said to mirror the sacred rivers below, forming a balance between the heavens and the earth.

I wake at 5.30am the next morning to a cold, dark world and gratefully clutch the cocoa tea handed to me by one of the guides. Today, we face two miles of winding trails, climbing nearly 3,300ft to our first mountain pass, Puccaqasa.

As the hike continues, the shifting elevation transforms the landscape. Golden ichu grass thickens along the slopes, a hardy plant once used for rope and now a vital food source for the llamas and alpacas that graze nearby. In the distance, the Chicón glacier sparkles, and at my feet, the earth is punctuated with towering American agave and the delicate llaulli flower, whose thorny stems Inca women once shaped into combs.

After hours of climbing, we crest the final hill and the ground drops away into the valley below. The Urubamba River winds between farmland, overlooked by the towering peak of La Veronica, its triangular, glacier-clad summit standing stark against the cerulean sky.

During a much needed pit stop, Julio shares the legend of Ukuku, a mythical half-man, half-bear figure who carried water down from the glaciers to help the villagers below. The story is said to be inspired by the spectacled bear, a unique species native to South America and believed to embody both strength and gentleness. Many now recognise its likeness in Paddington Bear, the beloved literary character whose fictional journey from Peru to London echoes the real creature’s enduring connection to the Andes.

After a long descent down a loose shale slope, the roofs of our campsite finally come into view, a welcome sight after a day on the trail. Ahead stands the Inti Punku Sun Gate, a stunning stone doorway perfectly framing Veronica’s majestic peak beyond. The sight is incredible, and I stop for a moment to take it all in — the vastness, the silence, and the sense of having climbed into the sky itself.

We head back to base via the eponymous quarry where the Incas harvested rock for Ollantaytambo’s incredible constructions. Huge holes remain cleaved out of the mountainside and my group settles on age-old offcuts as Julio explains their manufacturing methods: the Incas chiselled furrows into the boulders, inserted wooden pegs, then filled them with water so they expanded, eventually splitting the stone.

As we pick our way down to the town of Ollantaytambo, views of the valley floor sharpen into focus. A triangular patchwork of barley, strawberry and potato fields lies below, designed so their point aligns perfectly with Qorikancha (The Temple of the Sun) — something I’d never notice from the ground.

Before long, my feet are treading the ancient flagstones of a town built more than 500 years ago. It’s not Machu Picchu, but it feels like the perfect end to a journey that’s taken me deep into Inca history. I’ve looked down into the darkness where the dead journey to the next world and climbed so close to the astral plane that my hands have almost brushed the heavens. I’ve also explored a side of the Sacred Valley hidden from the thousands chasing the Inca Trail, where silence speaks louder than crowds and the past breathes through every stone.