Qualla: Illiniza

Illiniza: Introduction

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Marturius, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Colorados people of the western Andes tell a story about two peaks that stand two kilometers apart south of Quito. A father did not approve of his daughter's suitor, so he asked a wizard to turn the young man into stone. The wizard obliged. The suitor became a mountain - Illiniza Sur, the glaciated southern summit. When the daughter learned what had happened, she asked the wizard for the same fate. He made her stone too, and she stands beside her lover, frozen forever at 5,126 meters. The summits are still known today as the man summit and the woman summit. Ecuadorian climbers took a third of her name - Tioniza - and handed Illiniza to the pair.

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Image: Marturius | CC BY-SA 3.0

Illiniza: The Volcano That Blew Itself Apart

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bbb-Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. What you see from the Chaupi valley is not one mountain but the remains of one. Geologists believe a single, higher stratovolcano once stood where Illiniza now sits. A massive ancient eruption - the date is not recorded - tore out the central peak and left the flanks standing on ...

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Image: Bbb-Commons | CC BY-SA 3.0

Illiniza: The Race to the Top

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bbb-Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. Illiniza became a prize in the nineteenth-century race to summit the high Andes. Edward Whymper, the English mountaineer who had first climbed the Matterhorn in 1865 and Chimborazo in 1880, tried twice to reach Illiniza Sur and failed both times. In 1880, the Carrel brothers from...

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Image: Bbb-Commons | CC BY-SA 3.0

Illiniza: Death Pass and the Rampa

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bbb-Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. The two peaks demand very different skills. Illiniza Norte is the rite of passage for anyone training for Cotopaxi or Chimborazo - a challenging scramble rather than a technical climb. From the Nuevos Horizontes refuge at the saddle between the peaks, climbers work up the rocky s...

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Image: Bbb-Commons | CC BY-SA 3.0

Illiniza: A Reserve Built Around Water

Thu, 16 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bbb-Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1996, Ecuador established the Reserva Ecologica Los Illinizas - roughly 1,500 square kilometers protected from about 800 meters of elevation up to the summits. Inside the reserve sits the Quilotoa crater lake, the Corazon volcano, and the headwaters of three significant rivers...

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Image: Bbb-Commons | CC BY-SA 3.0