La Cumbre – 4,671m

Departamento de La Paz, Bolivia


La Cumbre is the starting point for most group trips down the ‘World’s Most Dangerous Road’, so if you’re headed to La Paz and are climbing up to this pass in the morning you’re likely to meet more foreign cyclists than you’d meet in a year on most other Andean roads.

It’s a long old climb up from the Yungas – about 3,600m if coming from the south Yungas road and a bit more if you come up the old road from Yolosa in the north Yungas. Whichever way you come the road is just about always a nice gradient for climbing. The main road down to La Paz has a reasonable amount of traffic, but there are few more exciting entrances to any city in the world than freewheeling into Bolivia’s administrative capital.

Though it means more climbing, a more interesting route to take if heading to La Cumbre from La Paz is from the southern suburb of Irpavi, up a track to the Hampaturi dam. The surface isn’t too bad, apart from a very steep kilometre before the dam at 4,230m. The road is then easier to a high point at 4,550m, before descending to a second dam at 4,350m where you join the main paved road up to the pass.

Name of Pass La Cumbre
Where Between Unduavi (21kms) and La Paz (24kms to centre)
and between Irpavi (La Paz) (33kms) and Unduavi (21kms)
GPS Co-ords 16.3431 S, 68.0389 W
Altitude 4,671m
Amount climbed 3,600m (2,240m on ripio) from Puente Villa in 1 ½ days.
1,550m (1,250m on ripio) from Irpavi (La Paz) via Hampaturi dam in 1 day.


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Bolivia Pass List
<< Paso Chungara/Tambo Quemado – 4,686m                                                                           Paso Salar Capina – 4,660m >>

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

  1. Viagens de bicicleta à volta do mundo – Republic of Traveler - 04/03/2016

    […] entre nuvens densas de bruma e pó, a partir do cume de La Cumbre pela floresta tropical Amazona e entre cascatas, e a apenas alguns metros de quedas vertiginosas. […]

  2. Cicloturismo: 14 incríveis trilhas de bike pelo mundo - Mundo Nômades Digitais - 23/08/2017

    […] por entre as nuvens espessas de névoa e poeira, do alto de La Cumbre por entre a floresta Amazônica, cascatas, e muito perto de precipícios apavorantes. É bem […]

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