Pico Humboldt

This article is about the Venezuelan Peak. For the Colorado fourteener, see Humboldt Peak (Colorado).

Pico Humboldt is Venezuela's second highest peak, at 4,925 metres above sea level. It is located in the Sierra Nevada de Merida, in the Venezuelan Andes of (Mérida State). The peak, its sister peak Pico Bonpland, and the surrounding páramos are protected by the Sierra Nevada National Park. The mountain is named after German explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt.

Pico Humboldt
Pico Humboldt in 2008
Highest point
Elevation	4,925 m (16,158 ft)
Prominence	440 m
Isolation	5.62 km (3.49 mi)
Coordinates	8°32′58.78″N 70°59′46.11″W
Geography
Location	Mérida, Venezuela
Parent range	Sierra Nevada, Andes
Climbing
First ascent	1911 by Alfredo Jahn
Easiest route	Laguna del Suero

Glaciers

The summit was formerly surrounded by glaciers, including the two largest out of the four glaciers remaining in the country (the other two smaller glaciers were on Pico Bolívar). The glaciers on Humboldt Peak (as most tropical glaciers) have been receding fast since the 1970s. By 2009, all but one glacier, the Humboldt Glacier, had vanished. In 2019, the remaining glacier covers an area of 0.1 km² and was forecast to melt completely within a decade:^[1][2][3] in May 2024, the Humboldt Glacier was officially downgraded to an ice field, no longer considered a glacier.^[4]

Humboldt glaciers in 2011

Glacier ecosystem

Humboldt peak also hosts the last remnant of the Tropical glacier ecosystem of the Cordillera de Merida. This ecosystem is formed by the interconnected remaining ice substrate, proglacial lakes and glacier forefield. As the ice substrate declines, the risk of losing these connections increases and the ecosystem is considered critically endangered (category CR) with high risk of imminent collapse, according to a recent IUCN Red List of Ecosystems assessment. ^[5]