Iztaccihuatl

Iztaccíhuatl is the long, snow-streaked mountain that lies along the eastern skyline of the Valley of Mexico, and seen from the west or east its summit ridge reads unmistakably as a woman lying on her back: there is a head, a chest, knees and feet, all under snow. Its Nahuatl name means "white woman", and Mexicans often call it simply La Mujer Dormida, the Sleeping Woman. At about 5,230 metres it is the third-highest mountain in Mexico, after Pico de Orizaba and its own neighbour Popocatépetl, and it is the lowest peak in the country to carry permanent snow and glaciers.

Local tradition holds that Iztaccíhuatl was a princess who loved Popocatépetl, a warrior sent away to battle; told falsely that he had been killed, she died of grief, and when he came home he carried her body to the mountains and knelt beside her until the gods turned them both to stone and covered them with snow. The two volcanoes still stand side by side, linked by the high saddle of Paso de Cortés, the route the Spanish expedition took toward Tenochtitlan in 1519. Popocatépetl smokes; its partner has been quiet for thousands of years.

Geologically, Iztaccíhuatl is a huge, deeply eroded complex of overlapping volcanic cones lined up along a ridge running roughly north to south, built mainly during the Pleistocene and later carved by glaciers. Its forests and high grasslands form part of the Izta-Popo Zoquiapan National Park on the border between the State of Mexico and Puebla. The first recorded ascent was made in 1889, but objects found high on the mountain suggest that the Mexica and earlier peoples climbed it long before, for ritual reasons, and today its ridge is one of the classic high climbs of Mexico.

Getting there

The western slopes rise above the small town of San Rafael, about 12.5 km away, and the larger town of Amecameca, from where a mountain road climbs to Paso de Cortés, the usual starting point for the ridge. The nearest airport is Hermanos Serdán International in Puebla (PBC), about 28.5 km away; Mexico City lies some 70 km to the north-west.