You've probably seen the videos comparing wildly saturated photos of Rainbow Mountain with real life shots that look like a faded brown hill. So the obvious question is what it's actually like, and there's only one way to find out.

A 3am start from Cusco

We left Cusco just after 3am in complete darkness. A bus takes you up to Phullawasipata, which sits around 4,600m above sea level, and by the time we arrived it was 6:30, cloudy, snowy, and everyone on board was exhausted. We'd spent days in Cusco exploring, eating and trying to acclimatise, but stepping off that bus you immediately feel it, the cold, the thin air, and a slight wave of nausea.

Plaza de Armas in Cusco, Peru, before setting off for Rainbow Mountain

Cusco, a few hours before the 3am start.

We were in a group of strangers but I ended up chatting to one guy, Peter, on the bus. Our guide grabbed a stick and started mapping out the route in the mud, marking checkpoints on the way to the top, which somehow made it feel like we were heading into battle. Around us was open high altitude grazing land, snow dusted peaks, and noticeably thin air.

Local guide with decorated llamas at Rainbow Mountain, Peru

Our guide, and the llamas that come with every stop out here.

The altitude hits harder than the hike does

The hike itself started and straight away it felt tough, not because it's steep or technical, but because every step takes more effort than it should. Heart pounding, half joking about whether it was actually a heart attack, and yeah, altitude sickness is genuinely a thing. Rainbow Mountain gets its colours from mineral layers beneath the surface, iron, copper and sulphur pushed up as the Andes formed, hidden under snow and ice for years until the climate changed and those colours slowly got exposed.

It doesn't actually take that long to reach the checkpoints, and the hike itself is shorter than I expected. We hit 4,900m, and as it got steeper it definitely got harder. About an hour in, after stopping at what we later found out were actually toilets rather than scenic checkpoints, we reached the final climb, an icy staircase heading straight up into thick cloud. At the top, there was nothing to see. No colours, no view, no mountain. Just white.

Then the clouds actually cleared

We'd flown 15 hours across the world, driven three more, hiked up to altitude, and Rainbow Mountain had completely disappeared into the mist. Some people gave up at this point and started heading back down, assuming that was as good as it would get. We hung around instead, and slowly the cloud began to lift. Just as we'd come up, it cleared for us, and suddenly there was this proper view, the valley we'd climbed up through on one side, and Rainbow Mountain on the other, still dusted with snow and clouds drifting across it.

It looked even more dramatic for the snow, honestly. The multicoloured layers cutting sharply through the rock, half covered in white, half muted rainbow, changing by the minute as the cloud moved. No, it doesn't look anything like the oversaturated photos online. But it's still genuinely incredible, and not just the mountain itself, the whole scene around it too.

The Red Valley bonus most people skip

Just across from the summit is the Red Valley, an optional detour on the way down. Some of our group headed straight back to the van, but we were already there, so it felt wrong not to go. It's about half an hour each way, and honestly the Red Valley might be even more impressive than Rainbow Mountain itself. Vast red landscapes stretching out in every direction, completely untouched, like something from another planet. It genuinely stops feeling like Earth out there, more like standing on Mars. It also has, without question, the most scenic toilet you will ever use.

Hiking through the Red Valley near Rainbow Mountain, Peru

The Red Valley, just across from Rainbow Mountain and skipped by most groups.

So is it actually worth it?

We'd already acclimatised across a few weeks in Cusco, Bolivia and Atacama, so we handled the altitude reasonably well, but not everyone in our group did. There were people being properly sick on the way down and struggling to breathe. And yes, the mountain looks nothing like the oversaturated shots you see on Instagram. Would I fly to Peru purely to see it? Probably not. But if you're already there for Machu Picchu, would I take the day trip? Absolutely.

Street market in the Sacred Valley near Cusco, Peru

Back down at altitude, in the Sacred Valley near Cusco.