One of the greatest hikers in the world today is Cam (Swami) Honan, editor of the blog The Hiking Life. He recently completed a fully independent hike of the entire Cordillera Real range of Bolivia. There is no official trail or even an official description of this hike, which goes for 150 miles over 23 mountain passes and seldom drops below 14,000 feet. Basically, he cobbled together the route up himself, using a series of roads, herd paths, trails, and some overland walking assisted by Google Earth.
This is an incredible feat of walking by one of the world’s great walkers. I encourage you to check out his wonderful site, The Hiking Life.
You also read the account of his hiking partner, the very nearly equally great Ryan (dirtmonger) Sylva, here. Dirtmonger’s site has fantastic pictures.
http://freedirtmonger.blogspot.mx/
An interesting note here is to check out Cam’s gear least from his first expedition into the Andes twenty years ago and compare it to this hike…his base weight went from 27 pounds down to ten pounds. Basically, he went from being a middle-heavyweight hiking contender to ultra light. The evolution of a great backpacker.