Volcán Tacaná

The Tacaná is the volcano that closes the southern end of Mexico. Its summit, 4,092 meters above sea level, sits right on the border between Chiapas and the Guatemalan department of San Marcos, and the mountain is counted as the eighth-highest peak in Mexico and the second-highest in Guatemala. It is an active stratovolcano: there were phreatic explosions and fumarolic activity in 1855, 1878, 1903, 1949 to 1951 and 1986, fumaroles on its western flank reach 82 to 94 °C, and hot springs at 1,500 to 2,100 meters, at a place called Agua Caliente, run at 40 to 55 °C. Scientists from the state civil protection agency and UNICACH university monitor it with a network of seismic stations, one of them at the summit.

The name comes from Mam and means house of fire. In colonial times it was simply the volcano of the Soconusco, and in Mexico it is also called the Colossus of the South. Snow is rare, but a light snowfall did whiten its upper slopes on both sides of the border in January 2010. The Mexican side of the mountain, across the municipalities of Unión Juárez, Cacahoatán and Tapachula, is protected as the Volcán Tacaná Biosphere Reserve, managed by CONANP.

The climb starts in Unión Juárez, a coffee town at about 1,250 meters, and follows one of two routes, through Chiquihuites or through Talquián. Local people work as guides and rent pack mules, and the walk to the top takes about ten hours, through farmland and coffee, old lava flows, cloud forest and pine woods, up to the treeline and a summit with views over the Central American volcanic chain, including Tajumulco. Weather on the upper mountain changes fast: in a hailstorm one recent winter about 80 hikers had to shelter in the refuges known as Casas de Fuego, and access was closed for a week before CONANP reopened it in January 2026. Every Easter a gathering of mountaineers from Mexico and Central America meets on the summit.