Two volcanoes above 5,000m. One week. Direct flight from your city. No visa. No ocean to cross.
Your highest 14er tops out around 4,400m. Pico de Orizaba is 5,636m — that's 4,000 feet higher, with glaciers, real altitude effects, and a summit less than 1% of climbers in North America have stood on.
We run small-group expeditions with guides who know these mountains like no one else. Not tours. Not packages. Guided mountaineering.
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Three summits. Nine days. The complete Althara sequence — built around acclimatization science and two peaks above 5,000m. The expedition most of our clients come back for.
Days 1–2. Fly into Mexico City or Puebla — we handle transport from day one. Gear check, team briefing, and your first nights at 2,135m in one of Mexico's finest colonial cities.
Day 3. Your first summit. A full-day push to 4,461m — non-technical, no glacier. Your body's first real altitude test. Diego reads your response here and adjusts everything that follows.
Days 4–5. Drive to La Joya base camp at 3,980m, skills review, midnight departure. Summit at 5,230m with Popocatépetl venting steam 12km south. This is not a warm-up.
Days 6–7. A full rest day in Puebla — your body earns it. Then drive east to Tlachichuca and up to Piedra Grande base camp at 4,260m. Summit night starts at midnight.
Day 8. 12am departure, headlamps lit. Jamapa Glacier in full darkness. Crater rim at dawn — 200km of Mexico below. North America's third highest peak. This is the one.
More than a decade climbing the volcanoes of Mexico. Over 300 summits on Pico de Orizaba and Iztaccíhuatl — in every condition, every season. Experience that extends to the high-altitude peaks of South America. Every expedition is led by someone who knows these mountains the way most people know their own neighborhood.
Diego is also a professional mountain photographer. Every summit, every pre-dawn departure, every view from the crater rim — documented and delivered.
Pico de Orizaba and Iztaccíhuatl sit inside protected national parks in Puebla and Veracruz — two of Mexico's most stable states. The approach routes and base camps are remote mountain environments with no urban exposure. Diego has guided American and international clients through this corridor for over a decade without a security incident. The risks on these expeditions are the same as any serious alpine objective: weather, altitude, cold.
8 climbers max. Serious guides. Two volcanoes in one week.