History indicates that Machu Picchu and The Inca Trail were discovered by Hiram Bingham in the early 1900's. Like most of the cities and ruins we consider 'lost', the existence of Machu Picchu and The Trail were known to families who have found life in the Andes for centuries. The significance of The Trail and many of the ruins were not really appreciated until the appearance of the Q'ero, the last of the Incas, in the 1950's. At the time of the Conquest the Inca empire was roughly the size of the United States. At its peak 16 million people lived, farmed, and built terraced cities in the clouds throughout the Andes extending from the Pacific Ocean to the Amazon jungles, and from the Rio Maule in Chile to modern day Ecuador.
Legend has it that the pacos spoke to the stones and they moved up the mountains themselves.
That the apus had stories to tell was apparent in their soft whispers when we first set foot on The Trail. When the Spanish touched shore in the 1500's and it became apparent to the Inca that they were not the saviors of their prophecies, a group of the Inca fled to the mountains. They made their new homes at 14,000 feet in the desolate, remote, wind swept shadows of Ausangate. The holiest of the apus , Ausangate stretches itself to the sun at a height of over 20,000 feet. The Q'ero, as they are now known, remained isolated in the embrace of Ausangate for five hundred years with their traditions intact.