Peru's Culture Ministry restored access to the Inca Trail's three main routes on September 5, ten days after a storm-triggered evacuation left hundreds of hikers and porters stranded overnight. A historically strong El Niño is now developing off Peru's coast, but the forecast for the mountains hikers actually walk through tells a more complicated story — and so does the record on the two deaths tied to last month's storm.
- Routes 1, 2 and 3 of the Inca Trail reopened on Sept. 5, more than two weeks after an Aug. 17-18 storm damaged 11 trail sectors and forced roughly 600 people to spend the night in the mountains.
- Peru's ENFEN commission now puts the odds at 62% that the coastal El Niño reaches "extraordinary" strength between September and January, a category that would rank among the strongest since 1950.
- That warning is aimed at the coast, not Cusco: SENAMHI's regional office is forecasting a rainfall deficit for Cusco's highlands through at least November, with an updated outlook due Sept. 14.
- The nearer-term threat is a separate mechanism — DANA storms, the same system blamed for August's landslides — which forecasters expect to see five or six more times in the coming months.
- Of the two worker deaths tied to the storm, only one occurred on the Inca Trail; the other happened on the separate Salkantay route, and both cases remain under open investigation with no determined cause or arrests.
A reopening built on a second try
Hikers walked the classic four-day trek again starting September 5, when Cusco's Culture Directorate — known locally as DDC Cusco — and the national parks service, Sernanp, jointly signed off on the trail's three routes. It wasn't the agencies' first attempt: a restart had already been penciled in for August 26, only to be withdrawn that same week once a follow-up review found the ground still wasn't stable enough, which pushed the technical inspection out to August 30. This time, the date held. More than 400 hikers from roughly a dozen countries — the wire service EFE counted 25 organized groups entering from the Piscacucho starting point that first weekend — set out on the trail once maintenance crews and disaster-risk officials cleared it for traffic. Regional tourism official Rosendo Baca framed the go-ahead simply: "Culture and Sernanp carried out the maintenance, and conditions were met for entry."
What actually shut the trail down
The closure traces to the night of August 17, when an unusually intense storm dumped rain and snow across the Cusco highlands. Overnight runoff triggered landslides, swelled rivers and flooded campsites across 11 separate stretches of trail — Peru's official gazette listed the affected sectors as running from Llulluchapampa to Wiñaywayna. Roughly 600 people were caught on the trail that night and had to camp until they could be walked out the next day; regional disaster-response officials broke that figure down as 416 porters and 232 tourists, concentrated in the communities of Huayllabamba, Tarayoc and Tunasmoqo.
Two deaths, two different stories
The storm is tied to two worker deaths — though not in the way the closure coverage sometimes implied. Porter Gabriel Ríos Mamani, 49, was found dead at dawn on August 18 at Warmiwañusca, the Inca Trail's highest pass, after setting up camp with the roughly 20 foreign tourists he was working for. Cusco's police chief said publicly that the cause of death had not been determined and cautioned against tying it directly to the weather; Ríos Mamani's family disputes that framing and alleges he was left without help, and prosecutors have since opened a preliminary inquiry into possible failure to render aid. A second worker, muleteer Alipio Ascencio Quiñonez Pérez, 64, died the same day — but on the Salkantay route near Mollepata, a separate trekking circuit through the same mountains, not the Inca Trail itself. Investigators' working theory in that case points to hypothermia following heavy snowfall. As of the most recent public reporting, both cases remain open with no cause formally confirmed and no arrests, and a porters' union leader who publicly questioned Ríos Mamani's death says he has since received threats.
Why the coming El Niño isn't Cusco's biggest worry
The ocean event building offshore is genuinely unusual. Federal forecasters at NOAA now put the odds above 90% that this event reaches very strong intensity this Northern Hemisphere fall and winter, and modeling groups at Columbia University's IRI describe a consensus building toward sea-surface anomalies that could exceed anything on record since 1950. Peru's own ENFEN commission has raised its odds for an "extraordinary" reading in the Niño 1+2 region — the strip of ocean closest to Peru's coast — to 62% for the September-to-January window.
But El Niño's classic footprint in Peru concentrates on the coast, not the Andes. SENAMHI's late-August seasonal outlook puts the rain surplus along the northern and central shoreline while projecting normal-to-below-normal totals for the southeastern highlands, where Cusco sits. SENAMHI's regional office has gone further for the near term, telling local press that Cusco should expect a rainfall deficit specifically between September and November, driven by the same ocean warming that's soaking the north. A revised outlook is due September 14.
The nearer-term risk officials are actually watching
That forecast doesn't clear Cusco of danger — it just points to a different mechanism. SENAMHI meteorologist Nelson Quispe has flagged DANA storms, the isolated cold-air systems blamed for last month's landslides, as the more immediate concern; they form independently of El Niño but draw extra strength from unusually warm coastal water. Peru has already logged two of these systems this year, Aníbal and Bertha, and Quispe told local media "so far, we've only had two" of an expected five or six. That's the reason officials still won't rule out another closure, even with a completed inspection now behind this reopening.
What this means for a booked trek
Access to the Inca Trail runs entirely through licensed operators and a government ticketing platform, not walk-up sales, so this reopening doesn't automatically restore a canceled reservation. Given that an earlier restart date collapsed once already this season, tour operator Alpaca Expeditions is advising travelers to confirm their specific departure directly rather than assume a headline applies to their booking.
A trail system already under strain before the storms
The weather risk lands on top of an existing capacity problem. Peru's Comptroller General found that unregistered entries — including free Sunday access for Cusco residents, school groups and Inca Trail arrivals that bypassed the official ticketing count — pushed Machu Picchu roughly 92,000 visitors over its official cap between August 2024 and December 2025, auditors said, a gap they warned is accelerating physical wear on the site and could jeopardize its UNESCO World Heritage status. That finding predates the storm season entirely — meaning Cusco's tourism managers are now navigating a record El Niño and a wave of DANA storms on top of a visitor-capacity problem regulators had already flagged as a threat to the site itself.
