Mountain · Colombia
Pico Cristóbal Colón
Pico Cristóbal Colón is the highest mountain in Colombia, and its snowy summit stands only about 42 kilometres from the warm Caribbean Sea. Beach and snow in one view.
Picture credit: Sylvain Perret (published under CC BY-SA-3.0) (CC BY-SA 3.0) · Ascensoandinocolombia (CC BY 4.0) · Ascensoandinocolombia (CC BY 4.0) · Wikimedia Commons
Where is Pico Cristóbal Colón?
Pico Cristóbal Colón is part of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
You will find it in: Colombia.
Summit: 10.838° N, 73.687° W
The story behind it
The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is a lonely pyramid of rock that climbs straight out of the Caribbean coast, and Pico Cristóbal Colón is its highest corner. Because the sea is so close, a person on a hot beach can look up and see ice. Between the summit and the lowest pass that connects it to anything higher lie about 5 509 metres, one of the largest such drops on Earth. Four Indigenous peoples live on its slopes — the Kogi, Arhuaco, Wiwa and Kankuamo — and they call the peak Gonawindúa and treat the whole range as a living body that must be cared for. The first recorded climb was in 1939, by Walter Wood, Anderson Bakewell and E. Praolini. The books do not agree on the height: 5 775 metres is the number printed most often, newer surveys point to roughly 5 700 metres, and it is still unsettled whether Colón or its neighbour Pico Simón Bolívar is the taller twin.
Find it on the globe
Pico Cristóbal Colón is there as a small peak with its own shape — a horn, a ridge, a volcano — standing on the surface. From far away the planet is only a blue ball; detail arrives as you zoom in, and this one appears once you are close enough. Open it on the globe.
It sits at its real coordinates, not near them — the same numbers listed in the facts above. Switch off the layer for this kind of place and it disappears again; the buttons for that are down the right-hand edge.
Questions children ask
How high is Pico Cristóbal Colón?
It is usually listed at 5 775 m, which makes it the highest point in Colombia and the highest mountain in South America outside the Andes; newer surveys suggest it may be closer to 5 700 m.
Where is Pico Cristóbal Colón?
In northern Colombia, in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a range that stands apart from the Andes and rises about 42 kilometres from the Caribbean coast.
Can anyone just climb it?
No. The mountain is sacred to the Kogi, Arhuaco, Wiwa and Kankuamo, and permission from them and from the park authorities is needed, so only a handful of expeditions have reached the top in decades.
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page was checked against public reference sources before publication. Where sources genuinely disagree, the text says so.
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