Pico Cristóbal Colón is possibly the highest

mountain A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher t ...

Colombia Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country primarily located in South America with Insular region of Colombia, insular regions in North America. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Caribbean Sea to the north, Venezuel ...

, with a reported height of . Pico Cristóbal Colón and Pico Simón Bolívar are the two highest peaks in Colombia and almost equal in elevation. One of the two mountains is therefore the fifth most prominent in the world (see

list of peaks by prominence This is a list of mountain peaks ordered by their topographic prominence. Terminology The prominence of a peak is the minimum height of climb to the summit on any route from a higher peak, or from sea level if there is no higher peak. The low ...

). The nearest peak that is higher is Cayambe, some away. There is a permanent snowcap on this peak and on the nearby mountains. It is part of the

Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (English: ''Snow-Covered Mountain Range of Saint Martha'') is an isolated mountain range in northern Colombia, separate from the Andes range that runs through the north of the country. Reaching an elevation of ...

range, along with Pico Simón Bolívar, and was named after

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus (; between 25 August and 31 October 1451 – 20 May 1506) was an Italians, Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Genoa who completed Voyages of Christopher Columbus, four Spanish-based voyages across the At ...

. This mountain is the highest point in

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

outside the

Andes The Andes ( ), Andes Mountains or Andean Mountain Range (; ) are the List of longest mountain chains on Earth, longest continental mountain range in the world, forming a continuous highland along the western edge of South America. The range ...

Climbing history

Colón was first climbed in 1939 by Walter Wood, Anderson Bakewell and E. Praolini. Access to these mountains became very difficult after the early 1990s due to hostile locals, drug traffickers and

FARC The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People's Army (, FARC–EP or FARC) was a Marxist–Leninist guerrilla group involved in the continuing Colombian conflict starting in 1964. The FARC-EP was officially founded in 1966 from peasan ...

guerillas. An expedition in 2015 led by John Biggar was one of the first to climb in the range for many years, and reached the summit of Pico Colón on 13 December.

References

Cristobal Colon Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta Geography of Magdalena Department Highest points of countries Five-thousanders {{Highest points of South America

Climbing history

See also

References