Ancasmarca, Mountain summit in Cusco Region, Peru

Ancasmarca is a 5,198-metre mountain in the Urubamba range of the Andes, in Calca District, Calca Province, Cusco Region, north of the Vilcanota River. Its lower and middle slopes are cut by closely spaced vertical ridges and gullies running down from the summit, with snow and bare pale rock along the upper summit ridge. It stands northeast of Huamanchoque, southeast of Canchacanchajasa, south of Sahuasiray, and southwest of Ccerayoc and Condorhuachana.

Around 1575 the Spaniard Cristóbal de Molina set down the story in his Relación de las fábulas y ritos de los Incas: a shepherd who had consulted his llamas foresaw a great flood and took refuge with his six children on the Ancasmarca hill, which rose as the waters climbed; when they receded, his children repopulated the region. Molina read the tale as proof that the Andes had known Noah's flood.

The name Ancasmarca comes from Quechua and is read two ways: anqas (blue) or anca (eagle) joined to marka (village), giving "blue village" or "village inhabited by eagles". The mountain is also called Pitusiray or Sallcasa. In 1575 Cristóbal de Molina set down the shepherd's flood account in his Relación de las fábulas y ritos de los Incas.

Ancasmarca lies in Calca District, Calca Province, north of the Vilcanota River, reached from the Cusco Region side; the summit stands at 5,198 m, so plan for altitude sickness and carry all supplies. No marked trail or facilities are recorded, so route-finding and timing are your own responsibility.

Cristóbal de Molina, writing around 1575, recorded that a shepherd warned by his llamas survived the great flood on this summit with his six children, who then repopulated the region; Molina read the tale as evidence of Noah's flood in the Andes.