Quick answer: On March 30, 2025 we made a documented world-record attempt for the highest altitude BBQ on land — grilling at about 5,561 meters (18,245 ft) on Pico de Orizaba, Mexico, after hiking as high as we safely could without glacier gear.
A year ago, I wrote about what was probably the highest BBQ on land after hiking Iztaccíhuatl. Back then, I remember thinking that high-altitude hiking wasn’t nearly as bad as people made it sound.
Pico de Orizaba had other plans.
Why Pico de Orizaba — and why 5,561 meters
At 5,636 meters (18,491 ft), Pico de Orizaba is the highest mountain in Mexico, the third-highest peak in North America, and the highest volcano on the continent. Reaching the true summit requires technical mountaineering on ice.
That wasn’t our plan.
Our plan was a highest altitude BBQ on land world-record attempt: hike as high as safely possible without glacier equipment, turn around around 5,561 meters (18,245 ft), and grill there. Same absurd idea as Iztaccíhuatl — just hundreds of meters higher, on a much bigger mountain.
Like most good adventures, this one started with a questionable of expectations and an even more questionable amount of sleep. Maybe we should’ve done a bit more planning.
From Mexico City to the trailhead
On Friday evening, we left Mexico City and drove to Puebla to spend the night before continuing to the mountain early Saturday morning. From there, it was another drive into the national park, climbing thousands of meters by vehicle before even taking our first step on the trail.
Standing at the trailhead, the mountain looked surprisingly friendly.
It was lying.
Midnight start
The first few hours actually felt great. The weather cooperated, the views kept getting better with every step, and everyone was in good spirits.
Our watches hit just after midnight when the mountaineering track started. Headlamps. Thin air. The quiet that only shows up when a city is a scatter of lights far below you.
Then the altitude slowly started reminding us who was in charge.
Everything just sucked
Around the 5,000-meter mark, every step became noticeably harder. By 5,300 meters, conversations had turned into short sentences between breaths. And for the final hour…
Everything just sucked.
Every step felt like walking through wet cement.
My heart was racing while I was moving slower than I ever thought possible. Breathing became something I had to actively think about. Even simple decisions, like whether to stop for ten seconds or keep walking, somehow became difficult calculations.
There was definitely a point where I questioned every decision that had led me to that mountain.
Why Iztaccíhuatl felt manageable — and Orizaba didn’t
What surprised me most wasn’t that it was difficult.
It was that I genuinely remembered Iztaccíhuatl feeling… manageable.
Looking back, I think there may have been one important difference.
When we climbed Iztaccíhuatl a few years ago, I was living full-time in Mexico City at roughly 2,200 meters (7,200 ft). By the time we climbed Pico de Orizaba, I had spent the better part of the last year living in San Francisco, essentially at sea level.
Maybe my body had simply forgotten what altitude feels like.
Or maybe an extra few hundred meters above 5,000 make a much bigger difference than they look on paper — exactly the gap between that earlier grill and this highest altitude BBQ on land attempt.
Probably both.
5,561 meters — and the BBQ
Despite how miserable that last stretch felt, reaching 5,561 meters was an incredible experience. Standing above the clouds, looking across Mexico from one of the highest points on the continent, makes the suffering fade surprisingly fast.
And yes — we grilled.
That was the whole point of the world-record attempt: a real BBQ on land, at a documented altitude, as high as we could safely go without glacier gear. Portable grill. Good meat. Thin air. The slightly unhinged belief that if you’re going to suffer that hard, you might as well eat well.
It’s funny how quickly the brain edits out the difficult parts.
Forty-eight hours later, I already find myself thinking:
“That wasn’t so bad.”
I know that’s a lie.
And I also know it’s exactly why I’ll probably end up doing something like this again.
Record attempt facts
What: World-record attempt — highest altitude BBQ on land
Where: Pico de Orizaba (Citlaltépetl), Mexico
When: March 30, 2025 (this post dated April 2, 2025)
BBQ / turnaround altitude: ~5,561 m / 18,245 ft
True summit (glacier; not reached): 5,636 m / 18,491 ft
Garmin GPS max: ~5,589 m
Elevation gain: ~1,571 m
Start: ~12:19 a.m. local
Tracked activity: ~8+ hours (“Calcahualco Mountaineering”)
Earlier chapter: Iztaccíhuatl BBQ ~5,050–5,100 m
Is this the world record for the highest altitude BBQ on land?
This is a documented world-record attempt at about 5,561 m, with GPS, photos, and video. Whether anyone has grilled higher somewhere undocumented is always an open question. What we can stand behind is the altitude we reached and recorded on Pico de Orizaba.
Why not at the very top?
It just felt safe to do it a few meters below
How much higher was this bbq compared to our BBQ at the Iztaccíhuatl?
Roughly 450+ meters higher than the earlier ~5,050–5,100 m grill.
