Pico Duarte

Pico Duarte is the highest peak in the Dominican Republic, and all the Caribbean islands. It is located about 53 miles north-east of the region's lowest point, Lake Enriquillo. The mountain lies in the Cordillera Central range, the greatest of the Dominican Republic's mountain chains. The Cordillera Central extends from the plains between San Cristóbal and Baní to the northwestern peninsula of Haiti, where it is known as Massif du Nord. The highest elevations of the Cordillera Central are found in the Pico Duarte and Valle Nuevo massifs.

History

The first reported climb was made in 1851 by the British consul Sir Robert Hermann Schomburgk. He named the mountain "Monte Tina" and estimated its height at 3,140 m. In 1912, Father Miguel Fuertes dismissed Schomburgk's calculations after climbing La Rucilla and judging it to be the tallest summit of the island. A year later, Swedish botanist Erik Leonard Ekman sided with the Englishman's estimate, and called the sister summits "Pelona Grande" and "Pelona Chica" ("Big Pelona" and "Small Pelona", respectively). During the Rafael Trujillo Molina regime, the taller of the two was called "Pico Trujillo". After the dictator's death, it was renamed Pico Duarte, in honor of Juan Pablo Duarte, one of the Dominican Republic's founding fathers. At the summit is an east-facing bronze bust of Duarte atop a stone pedestal, next to a flagpole that flies the Dominican flag and a cross.