Mount Chimborazo (Ecuador & Tidal Bulge)
Mount Chimborazo is an inactive volcano in the Andes mountain range. The last time it erupted was in 550 A.D. Because it has been so long since its last volcanic activity, it is called inactive and is just thought of as a mountain. It has four summits called Veintimilla, Whymper, Politecnica and Nicholas Martinez. The highest of the peaks is Whymper. The top of the mountain is constantly covered in glaciers, making it difficult and dangerous to climb year-round. There are often avalanches and dangerous weather near the summit.
• It is the highest mountain in Ecuador.
• The summit Nicolas Martinez was named after the father of Ecuadorian mountaineering.
• It is 20,702 feet high.
• It has many craters on its surface from past volcanic activity.
• The summit Whymper is named after Edward Whymper the British mountaineer who was the first to reach the summit in the 1880.
• The other mountaineers on the first ascent with Whymper were Lois Carrel and Jean-Antoine Carrel.
• It is a stratovolcano.
• It had seven eruptions in the last 8,000 years.
• It has a circumference of 78 miles.
• The largest crater is 820 feet deep.
• The glaciers at the top of the mountain provide water when they shrink in the summer.
• The glaciers are also mined for ice sold in markets.
• Natives call the mountain Urcorazo.That is translated to “Mountain if Ice.”
Mount Everest is the highest point on earth above sea level, but Mount Chimborazo is actually the highest place on Earth. It is the farthest place from the center of the earth — 3,968 miles. This is because of tidal bulge. The earth is not a perfect circle. The gravitational pull of the moon not only moves the oceans of the earth creating the tides, it also stretches the surface of the earth. The earth has a bulge where the tidal pull is strongest, the equator. Mount Chimborazo is only one degree away from the equator so it’s height as a mountain and being located on the tidal bulge make it the highest place on earth, beating Mount Everest.