What is the highest mountain on Earth? Turns out the answer to that question is more debatable than you might think.
If you measure altitude above mean sea level, then the 29,032-foot (8,849-metre) Mount Everest, which straddles the border between Tibet and Nepal, is clearly the world’s highest.
Yet, if you measure a mountain from its base to its peak, then the 33,500-foot (10,211-metre) Mauna Kea, an inactive shield volcano on the island of Hawaii, would instead come out on top.
But there is one more contender for highest mountain: Mount Chimborazo, an inactive stratovolcano in the Cordillera Occidental range of the Ecuadorian Andes.
When measured from sea level, Chimborazo is about 8,500 feet shorter than Everest at 20,548 feet (6,263 metres). Yet, its peak is actually 6,800 feet farther from Earth’s centre, making it the closest point on Earth to the stars.
“If you imagine the Earth as this blue dot in space, it’s the one place you can stand and be as far from the centre of that dot as you can possibly be,” explains Derek van Westrum, a physicist with the NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey, the federal agency that handles mapping and charting.
The reason lies in Chimborazo’s location, which is 1.5 degrees south of the equator.
Van Westrum explains that the planet, like many of its human inhabitants, actually protrudes a bit around its waistline. “Earth is made of rock, and it’s pretty round, but because it’s spinning, it bulges out at the equator,” he says.
The centrifugal force created by the planet’s constant rotation squishes the rock, and Chimborazo takes advantage of that squish to be farther from Earth’s centre than mountains higher from sea level in the Himalaya – or even the Andes – all of which are located further from the equator.
Ecuador recently latched on to this statistical quirk to promote Chimborazo as an emerging destination. The idea is that, unlike Everest or Aconcagua (the highest peak in the Andes), this superlative mountain is both physically and financially within reach of everyday adventure travellers, who increasingly journey four hours south from Quito into its snowy midst.
Climbing Chimborazo
Chimborazo is only the 39th tallest mountain in the Andes, when measured from sea level, but there was a brief time in the 19th century when it was thought to be the world’s highest peak.
That rumour originated with the influential German geographer and explorer Alexander von Humboldt, who climbed Chimborazo in 1802. Von Humboldt only made it to about 19,300 feet before descending into the highland valley he would later name the Avenue of the Volcanoes.
Yet, his widely read accounts of braving this Andean giant enticed a stream of European explorers to Ecuador. Among them was British mountaineer Edward Whymper. Following celebrated first ascents of Matterhorn and Mont Blanc in the Alps, in 1880, he became the first person known to summit Chimborazo.
These days, about 500 mountaineers attempt the summit each year, according to Santiago Granda, the Undersecretary of Promotion at Ecuador’s Ministry of Tourism. He says just over half of them make it to the top because of a range of factors, including altitude, preparedness and inclement weather.
The main trekking season is from late September to February, when the weather is milder and the mountain is generally blanketed in a thick layer of snow. Yet, Granda says the appeal of the Ecuadorian Andes is that, unlike most mountaineering hubs, it really is a year-round destination.
The nation’s highest mountains are relatively temperate, given their location in the tropics, and there is little variation in daylight between seasons. Most peaks are also easily accessible from highland cities such as Quito or Cuenca. Chimborazo, for example, is located nearly equidistant from the two off the Pan-American Highway.
“More and more, people have started coming to train and prepare for big challenges at Chimborazo,” says Granda. “You are further away from the core of the Earth, and closer to the stars, than you will ever be with your feet on this planet – and that’s a big selling point.”
Those hoping to summit the mountain typically tackle it over two days, as opposed to the roughly two months you’d need to climb Everest. Of course, climbers also require about a week of acclimatization activities in advance, said Christian Valencia, CEO of Quito-based Activexpedition, which leads mountaineering trips to the summit.
Valencia recommends leveling up on lower peaks such as Cayambe, Iliniza Sur or Cotopaxi, and then descending each night to lower elevations to ease into the altitude. “Before going to Chimborazo, you also have to practice with crampons and axes because it’s a technical climb,” he adds.
Ice merchants and Incan sacrifices
Valencia, like other Ecuadorian outfitters, offers softer adventures to Chimborazo.
Day hikes up to 17,000 feet (5,180 metres) typically follow four days of prior acclimatization on the nearby lodge-to-lodge Quilotoa Loop. Visitors to Chimborazo can then check out the stone-built Whymper Refuge, mirror-like Condor Cocha Lagoon and tropical glaciers, which are bellwethers of global warming.
Many come to those glaciers specifically to meet Baltazar Ushca, the last hielero (ice merchant) of Chimborazo.
Generations of Indigenous Ecuadorian men once worked as ice merchants supplying chunks of glacier to communities below before the arrival of refrigeration. Now, this octogenarian is the only one left carrying blocks down-mountain to the nearby city of Riobamba, where it’s blended into a famous juice drink called the neck-breaker.
Others come to Chimborazo for its special alpine environment. “For some Ecuadorians, it’s the first time in their life to see snow,” notes Granda. “So even if they don’t come for the summit, they come for the lagoon, which has become a really popular destination.”
The mountain is a refuge for 8,000 rewilded vicuñas, the feral ancestors of domesticated alpacas, and home to the world’s largest hummingbirds, which flitter around a flowering evergreen shrub called chuquiraga. There are also forests of gnarled queuña, which can survive at higher altitudes than any other tree.
Another draw is the mountain’s pre-Columbian history.
Chimborazo was the site of ritualistic sacrifices of young women and children during Incan times. The acts were thought to appease the gods and bring about a fertile harvest. To this day, local Indigenous groups revere Tayta Chimborazo, or “Father Chimborazo,” as a powerful apu, or mountain god. Legends speak of his fiery relationship with the shorter and more active Tungurahua volcano.
Valencia says the mountain carries a deep importance for all Ecuadorians, even appearing on the nation’s coat of arms.
“It doesn’t matter how many times I visit,” he says. “I still feel this strong energy every time I go.”
