Pico de Orizaba Volcano Watch

The Star of the Mexican Highlands

Pico de Orizaba soars to 5,636 metres, making it Mexico's highest summit and one of the most striking volcanic cones on the continent. This dormant stratovolcano straddles the border of Puebla and Veracruz, dominating the horizon of the surrounding valleys.

A Glacier-Capped Volcano

The peak carries Mexico's largest glacier, the Gran Glaciar Norte, draped across its upper slopes. Its symmetrical, snow-covered cone has made it a sacred landmark since pre-Hispanic times, when the Nahua people named it Citlaltépetl, the Star Mountain.

A Magnet for Mountaineers

Pico de Orizaba is a celebrated objective for climbers and alpinists from around the world, who ascend its glaciated routes toward the rim of a deep summit crater. The volcano also anchors a national park rich in high-altitude pine forest and alpine grassland.

A Window onto the Volcano

This feed offers a continuous vantage of the volcano and its highland surroundings, where shifting clouds drift around the great cone. It is an ideal viewpoint for watching the mountain reveal and conceal itself above the forests of central Mexico.