Bolivar Peak

The Pico Bolívar is the highest geographical feature in Venezuela, with an altitude of 4978 m s. no. m. It is part of a set of peaks located in the Sierra Nevada, within the homonymous national park in the Mérida mountain range (Mérida State). Together with the sister peaks Humboldt and Bonpland, they form the main peaks of the Venezuelan Andes mountain range.

It receives its name in honor of the Venezuelan Liberator Simón Bolívar. On April 19, 1951, a bronze bust of the Liberator was unveiled at the top of the peak, the work of the painter and sculptor Marcos León Mariño.

Toponymy

The peak has received at least four different names throughout history, the name by which it was first known was "Pico La Columna", a name that was also used interchangeably with the names of «Shell» and «Comb».

On March 18, 1925, at the proposal of Dr. Tulio Febres Cordero and Juan Rodríguez Suárez, the name was changed to "Pico Bolívar" in honor of the Liberator of Gran Colombia, Simón Bolívar. The official baptism with the new denomination it was carried out on December 30, 1934, in a ceremony at the foot of the monument of La Columna and with water from the Chama river. However, both the name "Pico Bolívar" and "Pico La Columna" They were maintained until the mid-1950s, when some impressions of the physical-political map of the United States of Venezuela were published that pointed to the peak with both place names.

Currently, the name "La Columna" is used to refer to the massif that contains the Bolívar peak, as well as other important elevations such as the El León peak of 4743 m s. no. m. and the El Toro peak of 4750 m s. no. m., while the name "Concha" is used to refer to another peak located in the same sierra which was previously referred to as "La Garza".

Location

The Bolívar peak is part of the Venezuelan Andes, which derive from the Eastern Cordillera of Colombia at the level of the El Tamá national park and its El Cobre hill (3613 meters), south of the Táchira state. This imposing mountain formation continues in a northwesterly direction between the Torbes and Uribante rivers at the level of El Púlpito Peak (3942 meters) and the extensive Páramo del Batallón. At this point, the state of Mérida penetrates, forming the Sierra Nevada de Mérida, separated from the Ramal del Uribante by the Nuestra Señora river. It is in the heart of the Sierra Nevada de Mérida that the Bolívar peak is located.

History

Promotions

Panoramic view of the Pico Bolivar. Route of promotion Bourgoin - Peña

Despite being the highest peak in the country, Pico Bolívar was not the main interest of hikers until well into the 20th century . This was due to the fact that previously, due to the view from Mérida, Pico Toro (located in the same Sierra Nevada) was considered to have a higher altitude and therefore meant a greater challenge.

The first known attempt to climb the Bolívar peak dates from 1897, when José Trinidad Nieto, Víctor Moreno, Pedro Moreno, J. Eladio Altuve, Medardo Nieto accompanied by other people tried unsuccessfully to climb the peak. Later, in 1922 an unsuccessful attempt to climb Pico Bolívar, the Swiss geologist Moritz Blumenthal was the first to set foot on the Timoncitos glacier which was located south of Pico Bolívar.

The first successful ascent to the Bolívar peak was carried out by the pharmacist from Merida Enrique Bourgoin and Heriberto Márquez Molina from Tovar accompanied by the guide Domingo Guzmán Peña Saavedra, who reached the top of the peak through the gorge of the now extinct glacier of Timoncito, on January 5, 1935. They were the first to set foot on the highest peak in Venezuela. The first Venezuelan woman to climb Pico Bolívar on February 7, 1946, was Blanca Josefina Carrillo de Ponte (now deceased).

Altitude

Recognition of the height of Pico Bolívar began with measurements made in the mid-XIX century by the Italian naturist Agustín Codazzi. Codazzi and other explorers had made barometric measurements of peaks and towns neighboring Bolívar Peak. Based on these measurements, Codazzi estimated in 1840 that what was then called "La Columna" measured 4,850 m.

The old measurement of altitude, 5007 m, dates from 1928, but the origin of the number itself is uncertain. It is attributed to the mandate of the government of Juan Vicente Gómez, who ordered numerous cartographic studies of Venezuela. In the year 1907 the fourth expedition of the Astronomical Commission of the Junta de Levantamiento del Plano Militar, through indirect calculations, seems to be the one that established the height of 5007 m s. no. m. which appears on the official maps of 1928.

A better scientific calculation of the height of Pico Bolívar was made by the Venezuelan explorer and scientist Alfredo Jahn in 1912. For his measurements, Jahn combined barometric measurements made in the city of Mérida along with others made on the coast northern Venezuela. With these measurements he used an engineering calculation known as geodetic triangulation, with which he concluded that Pico Bolívar sat at 5002 m s. no. m. Calculations made with similar triangulations in the 1950s, but affected by atmospheric refraction, yielded results with a variation of a few meters.

In 1992, Heinz Saler from the Institut für Ingenieurgeodäsie and Carlos Abad from the Venezuelan Astronomy Research Center made measurements with GPS equipment, determining the height of Pico Bolívar at 4980.8 m s. no. m. with an error of ± 0.8 m s. no. m. This measurement was not validated by the IGVSB because there were discrepancies regarding the position of the GPS receiver antenna during the measurement and the geoid model used in the calculations.

In 2002, on the occasion of the declaration by the United Nations as the international year of mountains, the Institute of Geography of Venezuela decided to verify together with the Simón Bolívar University and the Universidad from Zulia the exact height of the peak. In recent years, before the exact determination of the altitude by the IGVSB, the peak was assigned an altitude range between 4976 and 5007 m s. no. m. The results of the 2002 campaign resulted in a height for the Bolívar peak of 4978.4 ± 0.4 m s. no. m. For the ascent to Pico Bolívar, the measurement group was made up of Eng. José Napoleón Hernández of the IGVSB; Eng. Diego Deiros and Carlos Rodríguez from USB and two guide climbers from INPARQUES. For the GPS measurements, a geodetic network was designed made up of the vertices Pico Bolívar, El Toro, Piedras Blancas, Mucuñuque and Observatorio, the latter belonging to the REGVEN Venezuelan Geocentric Network. Five (5) dual-frequency GPS receivers were used simultaneously; Likewise, the measurements were temporarily prolonged and continuous to achieve a greater volume of data over time, to make the information more consistent and reliable.

Panoramic of a snowfall on the Bolivar Pico.

Features

Geology

The formation of Pico Bolívar, like the formation of the Cordillera de Mérida, took place due to the process initiated by the collision of the continental plate of South America and the Caribbean plate, which raised the terrain until reaching the current heights.

Glaciers

Glacier comparison in the peak in 1950 and 2011, respectively.

Within the area of Pico Bolívar, 4 glaciers studied since the mid-20th century were determined. These glaciers have been shrinking due to global warming, to such an extent that they have disappeared. The reduction process was documented since the 1970s. At its summit was located one of the three existing glaciers in Venezuela —the largest is located on the Humboldt peak— which is why it was covered with perpetual snow; however, due to the global warming process, the glacier ended up melting, thus leaving its summit bare of ice and rock.

Cultural aspects

Legends

There is a legend related to the peak collected by Tulio Febres Cordero from Merida. This story tells that the highest Venezuelan Andes receive their snow from five white eagles that perched on their peaks when being chased by an indigenous princess, and they are El Toro, El León, La Garza, La Corona and La Columna.

The princess was called Caribay, and she always liked to run under the eagles because she wanted to catch one to make a beautiful dress with its feathers. One day she did not see them and asked the sun for the eagles to appear, but, she begged and lamented, the wind took them away. Immediately afterwards, she asked the moon for the same and the eagles appeared flying around it, and so Caribay began to chase them until they finally got tired and separated in the mountain ranges.

When the princess touched one of the eagles, her hands turned to ice and the moon turned black. The eagle that she had touched flapped its huge wings covering her completely in ice, as she touched something sacred to perform a greed.

It is said that in the plains of Mérida there are nights when the laments of Princess Caribay are heard, and the next day the mountain ranges are covered with snow since the 5 white eagles shook their enormous wings the night before, thus covering the mighty mountain ranges with snow.