The farthest point from the Earth's centre
The Earth is not a perfect sphere. Its rotation flattens it at the poles and swells it at the equator, so the equatorial diameter is about 43 km greater than the diameter from pole to pole. A mountain on the equator therefore starts from a "higher floor" than one in the Himalaya. Chimborazo lies about 1° south of the equator; Everest lies near 28° north. Measured from sea level, Everest (8,849 m) is roughly 2,580 m higher. Measured from the centre of the Earth, the summit of Chimborazo is about 6,384.4 km away, Everest's about 6,382.3–6,382.6 km, so Chimborazo wins by around 2 km. A French-Ecuadorian survey in 2016 by Ecuador's Military Geographic Institute (IGM) and the French research institute IRD put the summit at 6,263.47 m above sea level and 6,384.416 km from the Earth's centre.
The same geometry gives the summit some of the weakest gravity on Earth: the acceleration there is about 9.767 m/s², roughly one percent less than at the places where gravity is strongest. In Ecuador the mountain is often called "the closest point to the Sun", although strictly speaking it is the point closest to space; which point on Earth is nearest the Sun depends on the season. Huascarán in Peru is a close second in distance from the centre.
Height, summits and the volcano
For decades Chimborazo was quoted as 6,310 m. GPS surveys in the 1990s gave about 6,267–6,268 m, a figure still used by NOAA and many references, and the 2016 survey 6,263 m. Whichever value is used, it is the highest summit in Ecuador and in the northern Andes, the northernmost 6,000-metre peak in South America and higher than any mountain farther north in the Americas, including Denali. It rises about 2,500 m above the surrounding highlands, which lie at 3,500–4,000 m, from a base some 20 km across, and on clear days it can be seen from Guayaquil, about 140 km away on the coast.
The mountain has four summits: Whymper (6,263 m, the main top), Veintimilla (about 6,230 m), Politécnica (5,820 m) and Nicolás Martínez (5,570 m), named after the father of Ecuadorian mountaineering. According to Ecuador's Geophysical Institute (IGEPN), Chimborazo is built of three successive volcanoes. The oldest collapsed some 60,000–65,000 years ago in a giant debris avalanche that covered about 280 km² with an average of 40 m of rubble, the ground on which Riobamba stands today. The remains of the second edifice form the Politécnica and Martínez summits; the youngest cone carries the Whymper summit. In the last 10,000 years eruptions were small and explosive, the most recent between the 5th and 7th centuries AD. With an average interval of about 1,000 years between eruptions, the IGEPN classes it as potentially active, and the main hazard is mudflows from its ice cap.
Where it is and how to get there
Chimborazo stands in the Western Cordillera of the Andes, in Chimborazo Province, about 150 km south-south-west of Quito. The nearest cities are Riobamba (about 30 km south-east), Ambato (about 30 km north-east) and Guaranda (about 25 km south-west). Riobamba is the usual base, with hotels, climbing agencies and buses to Quito (about 3 hours) and Guayaquil (about 4 hours). Its neighbour across a high valley is Carihuairazo (5,018 m), an inactive volcano about 9 km to the north-east.
The paved road from Riobamba to Guaranda passes the entrance to the reserve on the south-west side at about 4,300 m, where visitors register at a control post. A side road continues to the Carrel refuge (about 4,850 m). Without a car, take a Riobamba–Guaranda bus (about an hour), get off at the entrance and either walk up to the refuge (about 1.5 hours on the direct path, around 3 hours following the road) or share a taxi. The walk is a good chance to see vicuñas.
Walking without climbing
From the Carrel refuge a path climbs to the Whymper refuge at 5,000 m and on to a small lake at about 5,100 m at the edge of the ice: a short walk, but at an altitude higher than the summit of Mont Blanc, and many visitors feel it. Beyond the lake the glacier begins and you may not continue without a guide. A longer trail of about 9 km and 6 hours descends from the Carrel refuge past the rock shelter of Templo Machay to the community tourism lodge Casa Cóndor near the road. West of the mountain, along the road, lies El Arenal, a sandy, almost desert páramo unlike anything else in Ecuador.
Routes to the summit
The two standard routes, the Normal route (graded F to PD) and the Whymper route (PD+), both start at the Whymper refuge and climb the west side via the Veintimilla summit to the main summit. The usual line crosses a saddle above the rock tower of El Castillo, follows a glacier ridge to the Veintimilla summit (many parties turn around here), then crosses a snow basin, about 30 minutes, to the Whymper summit. Climbers leave around midnight, take 8–12 hours to the top and 3–5 hours to come down. The early start is about safety, not sunrise photos: once the sun hits the slopes the snow softens and the risk of avalanches and rockfall rises.
Crampons, ice axe, rope and harness are needed, and conditions vary a great deal from week to week: in some seasons the route is hard ice, in others deep snow loaded on steep slopes. Other routes on the north, east and south sides lead to the main, Politécnica or Martínez summits, but they are far less climbed. The old Zurita refuge (4,900 m) on the north-western Pogyos route is no longer in use. The record for a round trip from the Carrel refuge was set in 2008 by the Peruvian César Rosales: 2 hours 38 minutes.
Permits, guides and costs
Entry to the Chimborazo Fauna Production Reserve is free (as of 2026); you register at the control post. Climbing above the refuges onto the glacier is only allowed with a licensed mountain guide, as on Ecuador's other glaciated peaks in protected areas. Ecuador's mountain guides are trained and certified by the Ecuadorian Association of Mountain Guides (ASEGUIM), a member of the international federation IFMGA, and the association urges climbers to ask for certification: after the 2021 avalanche its director pointed to an influx of cheap, unlicensed "guides". Agencies in Riobamba and Quito sell guided ascents with transport and equipment; prices vary with group size and the number of acclimatisation days, so compare what is included.
The reserve and the vicuñas
The Chimborazo Fauna Production Reserve was created on 26 October 1987 and covers more than 50,000 hectares of páramo around Chimborazo and Carihuairazo in the provinces of Chimborazo, Bolívar and Tungurahua. One of the main reasons for creating it was to bring back South American camelids. Vicuñas had disappeared from Ecuador; the herds living here today descend from animals reintroduced after the reserve was created, and they share the páramo with llamas and alpacas kept by local communities. About 80% of the land belongs to 38 peasant communities, cooperatives and associations, which is why you will also see sheep, fields and farms.
Look out for the Andean fox, white-tailed deer and Andean rabbits in the grass, and for carunculated caracaras and black-chested buzzard-eagles overhead. The condor and the Ecuadorian hillstar, a hummingbird named Oreotrochilus chimborazo, are present but hard to see. In sheltered ravines grow stands of paper trees (Polylepis), and the reserve lists 145 endemic plant species.
When to go and weather
Chimborazo can be climbed all year. The driest and clearest periods, usually considered best, are December–January and June–August. The western side, open to moist air from the Pacific, is cloudier and wetter; the eastern side faces the dry inter-Andean valleys. In the páramo of the reserve typical temperatures are between 0 and 10 °C, and about 1,000 mm of precipitation falls a year, as snow and hail on the upper slopes. Nights at the refuges are below freezing, and on the summit ridge wind and cold are the main problems. Snow conditions matter more than the calendar: fresh snow on the steep slopes below the Veintimilla summit has caused the worst accidents.
Water
Plan to bring your water up from Riobamba. The refuges are basic and you should not count on buying drinking water there; check with your agency whether water and meals are included at the hut. Streams in the lower páramo run through grazing land and must be treated. On the climb itself the only source is snow, which has to be melted on a stove the evening before. Carry at least 1.5–2 litres in insulated bottles for the summit night, kept inside your jacket so they do not freeze. The glaciers themselves are the water tower of the region, supplying much of Bolívar and Chimborazo provinces: as the ice shrank, the city of Guaranda, which draws on springs in the high páramo, suffered water crises in 2005.
Mobile coverage and internet
Riobamba, Ambato and Guaranda have ordinary city mobile coverage, and Riobamba's central parks have free public Wi-Fi. On the mountain, coverage depends on the line of sight to the valleys: a signal is often possible around the road and refuges on the south-western side, but it is unreliable and disappears in the gullies and behind ridges. Do not depend on a phone for safety on the glacier; your guide should carry a radio or a satellite device. Ecuador's emergency number is 911 (ECU 911), which also reaches mountain rescue.
Altitude and dangers
The road delivers you to almost 4,850 m straight from the city, which makes altitude sickness the most common problem. Acclimatise first on lower peaks of the Avenue of the Volcanoes, and do not treat the walk to the Whymper refuge as trivial. On the summit climb the biggest danger is avalanches on the west face below the Veintimilla summit. On 10 November 1993 an avalanche buried ten climbers there in a crevasse at about 5,700 m, Ecuador's worst climbing accident. On 24 October 2021 an avalanche hit a group of Ecuadorian climbers at about 6,100 m on the standard route and killed six; after the heavy snowfall the authorities suspended all climbing above 5,000 m in the country for two weeks. Crevasses, rockfall around El Castillo, whiteouts and extreme cold complete the list.
History and name
The origin of the name is uncertain. A popular explanation reads it as Quichua chimba razu, "the snow on the other side"; others propose "woman of ice" or "icy throne of God". Locals also called it Urcurazu, "mountain of ice". For the Puruhá people the mountain was sacred: Taita (Father) Chimborazo, husband of Mama Tungurahua. The Incas had a high-altitude sanctuary on its slopes, and a priest's report of 1582 describes ruined buildings at the foot of the snow where people still left offerings.
In 1738 the French scientists Pierre Bouguer and Charles Marie de La Condamine of the French Geodesic Mission, sent to measure the shape of the Earth, used Chimborazo for the first experiment showing that a mountain's mass deflects a plumb line. On 23 June 1802 Alexander von Humboldt, with the botanist Aimé Bonpland and the Ecuadorian Carlos Montúfar, set out for the summit of what was then thought to be the highest mountain on Earth. They turned back at an altitude Humboldt estimated at about 5,880 m (modern authors think it was lower), still the highest any European was known to have reached, and his account gave one of the first precise descriptions of altitude sickness.
On 4 January 1880 the English climber Edward Whymper, best known for the first ascent of the Matterhorn, reached the summit with the Italian guides Jean-Antoine Carrel and Louis Carrel. When critics doubted the ascent, he climbed it again later that year by a new route from Pogyos with two Ecuadorians, David Beltrán and Francisco Campaña. The two refuges now carry his name and the Carrels'.
Interesting facts
- Chimborazo appears on the coat of arms of Ecuador, and Simón Bolívar's prose poem "My Delirium on Chimborazo" (written in 1822 or 1823) imagines a climb to its summit.
- For more than two centuries "hieleros" cut blocks of glacier ice on the mountain and carried them down by mule to sell in Riobamba and Guaranda; ice once even reached coastal towns. The last of them, Baltazar Ushca, climbed to the ice every Tuesday and Friday from the age of 11 and carried about 22 kg down each time; he died in October 2024.
- On 15 August 1976 a SAETA Vickers Viscount with 59 people aboard vanished on a flight from Quito to Cuenca. Its wreckage was found by Ecuadorian climbers on the rarely climbed east side at about 5,300 m and confirmed only in 2003.
FAQ
How high is Chimborazo? 6,263 m according to the 2016 GPS survey; NOAA and some references give 6,268 m, and the old figure was 6,310 m. Its summit is about 6,384 km from the Earth's centre, the farthest point from it on the surface.
Is Chimborazo higher than Everest? Not above sea level: Everest is about 2,580 m higher. But because of the equatorial bulge the summit of Chimborazo is about 2 km farther from the centre of the Earth.
How long does the climb take? Usually two days from Riobamba: drive to the Carrel refuge, rest at the refuges, leave around midnight, 8–12 hours to the summit and 3–5 hours down. Add several days of acclimatisation on lower peaks beforehand.
How difficult is it? The normal routes are graded F to PD+: technically moderate glacier climbing, but long, cold and at high altitude, with real avalanche and crevasse risk. Experience with crampons and ice axe and good acclimatisation are essential.
Do I need a guide or a permit? Entry to the reserve is free with registration (as of 2026), but climbing onto the glacier is only allowed with a licensed mountain guide. Choose a guide certified by ASEGUIM.
Is there water on the mountain? Do not count on drinking water at the refuges; bring it from Riobamba or melt snow, and treat stream water in the páramo. Carry 1.5–2 litres in insulated bottles on summit night.
Is there mobile coverage? Patchy: often a signal around the road and refuges on the south-west side, little or none on the glacier and in gullies. The emergency number in Ecuador is 911.
When is the best time to climb Chimborazo? It can be climbed all year; December–January and June–August are usually driest and clearest. Avoid the days after heavy snowfall.
Can I visit without climbing? Yes. A road leads to the Carrel refuge (about 4,850 m), and a short path continues to the Whymper refuge (5,000 m) and a small lake at about 5,100 m at the edge of the glacier, with vicuñas often seen on the way.