The mountain named for a king struck by lightning

Peru's tallest mountain, at 6,768 metres, is the highest snow-covered peak anywhere in the world's tropics, and it gives its name to a national park holding the largest area of tropical glaciers on the planet, over 660 of them, scattered among 300 glacial lakes.

The mountain is named for the Inca emperor Huáscar, whose reign lasted only five years in the middle of the sixteenth century. Local legend says he was struck by lightning right at the summit, an event many at the time read as divine punishment for his bitter rivalry with his brother Atahualpa. The park holds an older secret too. Dinosaur footprints from the Lower Cretaceous period are still preserved in terrain now sitting above 4,000 metres, proof of a temperate world that existed there long before any of it froze over.

I painted Huascarán in watercolour and ink, that snow-capped peak against Andean sky. There's a poster with a letter home and a postcard if you'd like one.

Shop the poster here: Huascarán National Park, Peru · Travel Poster