Pico de Orizaba

Pico de Orizaba National Park was decreed in 1936 and protects the Citlaltépetl volcano, on the boundary between Puebla and Veracruz. At some 5,636 metres it is the highest mountain in Mexico and the third in North America, after Denali and Mount Logan, and its cone can be seen from the Gulf on clear days.

It is an active stratovolcano, though dormant since the nineteenth century, and it holds the most important glacier system Mexico has left: the Jamapa glacier, on its northern flank, alongside several smaller bodies of ice. That ice is in accelerating retreat and is the subject of scientific monitoring as an indicator of climate change in the high tropics; projections point to its disappearance within the coming decades.

The zonation of the vegetation is strongly marked by the altitudinal gradient: oak and pine woods at mid-altitudes, sacred fir and high-altitude pine above them, alpine bunchgrass grassland near the limit of vegetation and, at the top, rock and ice. The wildlife includes white-tailed deer, coyote, volcano rabbit and mountain birdlife. The park is the principal destination of Mexican mountaineering and also receives a significant influx of foreign climbers, with the resulting pressure on the ascent routes and base camps.