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.
