Wikipedia claims that on clear days you can see the peak of Chimborazo from Guayaquil. Is this true? Have any of y’all actually seen it?
Backstory: I lived in Guayaquil (GYE) since I was a baby, up until I was 22 (and have traveled many times back and in fact, am again living there/here). I am not claiming to be an expert on "what you can/can’t see from any given point in the city, but I am very observant, have traveled the country (Ecuador) extensively and…
…that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. I’ve never seen it, never heard anyone telling me they saw it, never heard any vague reference to anybody seeing it, etc. I don’t know how many other Dopers can pitch in with personal experience on this, but neither I nor my friends/relatives/acquaintances have ever seen it. I’ve seen it when I travel to the mountains and am within a relative proximity of it (I actually did this not even 4 months ago). Even when you are “on your way”, you cant see it. There is just too much blocking the view.
Out of curiosity, I whipped out Google Earth. Chimborazo is about 100 miles from GYE (give or take a couple dozen miles. Curvature of Earth, mountain ranges (between the city which is on the coast and Chimborazo), clouds (not in the city but in the mountains), line of sight obstructions (from random places in the city), the fact that GYE is so damn near sea level and that the highest elevation in the city is a 50-story high-rise or a “not so impressive” hill - pretty much tell me this is impossible.
You would have to be talking about a person with the most amazing eyesight (or binoculars), standing on top of the highest structure in the city (or in an airplane), on the clearest day, looking for it (since it would be but a spec on the horizon) - and even then I would think it isn’t possible. And I repeat, from personal experience (33+ years), it just has never happened. Any tourist coming here with that expectation will be sorely disappointed.
I’ve also lived in Vancouver, WA - and there I have been able to see Mt St Helens, Mt Hood, Rainier, etc.,…on a clear day. Guayaquil/Chimborazo are just no the same thing. GYE is not the place to be get a glimpse of any mountain.
Take my word for it.
I was only in Guayaquil for about a week, but I didn’t even know I was supposed to be looking for a mountain.
Our hosts were showing us other, er, attractions - more in keeping with the social life we were keeping at the time.
That punta can hurt your head, incidentally.
OK, I’ve done some calculations. Assuming that the summit of Chimborazo is at 6268 m, Guayaquil is at 0 m, and the distance between them is 146154 m, then the view could be blocked by a 2144 m summit located 50 km from Guayaquil, or a 429 m summit located 10 km from Guayaquil. And this is disregarding the curvature of the Earth, which would make it even harder to see a distant mountain. It does seem unlikely that this factoid could be true if there are any mountains in between, which there are.
The biggest source of uncertainty in these calculations is the distance from the mountain to the city. Guayaquil is a pretty big place, and the Wikipedia article does not say whether it’s referring to the city proper or the much larger canton of the same name.
Guayaquil in itself is quite big (by South American standards). Reality is you cannot go beyond the city limits and still be in a place called/referred to as Guayaquil. The factoid itself (interpreted as the factoid was written), is wrong.
Its one thing (very true) to say in general terms “you can see Mt Hood from Vancouver on a clear day”. You can’t see it from everywhere in Vancouver, but it is not a near/absolute impossibility and in fact, anybody who has spent even a couple of months there, will be able to say they saw it.
Seeing Chimborazo (or any other volcano/mountain) from even the city limits (to the East), is just not doable.
I’ve expressed my doubts on the talk page for the Wikipedia article in question. I guess I’ll wait a few days to see if anyone responds to that.