🇨🇴 Colombia · Andean
Nevado del Ruiz is one of Colombia's great volcanoes: a snowcapped mass of more than 5,300 meters in the Cordillera Central, the heart of Los Nevados National Park, where páramo and glaciers coexist in an awe-inspiring high-mountain landscape. It's an active volcano, closely watched by the Servicio Geológico Colombiano, and its name is engraved in the country's memory by the Armero tragedy of 1985.
For travelers, Nevado del Ruiz and Los Nevados National Park offer an experience of extreme and beautiful nature: páramos of frailejones, glacial lagoons, fumaroles, hot springs and, when conditions allow, the sight of the snowcaps. As of July 2026 the volcano is on yellow alert (level III) and the park can be visited, but only via the Brisas sector and as far as the Valle de las Tumbas (4,450 m), by vehicle and with an authorized guide, without reaching the snow. Access depends on the volcanic alert level and on park rules, so planning —and flexibility— are key.
This guide covers Nevado del Ruiz with a practical and cautious eye: how and when this sector of the park can be visited, what to bear in mind about altitude and volcanic activity, the area's hot springs, how to get there from Manizales and what precautions to take. It's a serious mountain destination that demands respect, up-to-date information and authorized guides.
Nevado del Ruiz is an active volcano that has erupted throughout history. The most remembered and tragic eruption came on 13 November 1985: it melted part of the glaciers and unleashed enormous mudflows (lahars) that buried the town of Armero (Tolima), causing around 23,000 deaths, one of the greatest natural catastrophes in Colombian history. Since then the volcano has been permanently monitored by the Servicio Geológico Colombiano. Los Nevados National Park, which protects it, was created in 1973. The full story —the volcano's geology, the Armero tragedy and the current monitoring— is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓Heart of the Coffee Region and of the Coffee Cultural Landscape: land of the Antioquian colonisation, of Manizales perched on its mountain ridge with its fair and its theatre festival, of the Nevado del Ruiz volcano and of the memory of the Armero disaster.
Read the history of Caldas →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Nevado del Ruiz, known to Indigenous peoples as Cumanday ('white mountain'), is an active stratovolcano in the Cordillera Central of the Andes, on the border between the departments of Caldas and Tolima. At around 5,300 meters, it is the highest volcano in Los Nevados National Park and one of the most northerly and most active in Colombia. Its summit was covered by an ice cap that, like those of other tropical snowcaps, has retreated markedly in recent decades because of climate change.
Geologically, the Ruiz is a volcano with a long eruptive history, with eruptions recorded across the centuries. Its particular danger comes from the combination of volcanic activity and ice: when an eruption melts part of the summit glaciers, the water mixes with ash and loose material and forms lahars (flows of mud and debris) that race down the river channels, destroying everything in their path. Those lahars are the volcano's most feared threat.
The Ruiz is part of a volcanic cluster that includes other snowcaps in the area and sits on the cordillera's fault system. Its high-mountain setting —páramos, superpáramos and glaciers— is of enormous ecological value and supplies water to much of the region, besides being an awe-inspiring natural stage.
Long before it was called Nevado del Ruiz, the Indigenous peoples of the region —among them Quimbaya- and Pijao-affiliated communities on the slopes of the Cordillera Central— knew the mountain as Cumanday, usually translated as 'white mountain' or 'white summit'. The volcano and its snows were part of the sacred and everyday landscape of these peoples, who inhabited the fertile valleys around it long before the Spanish arrived in the 16th century.
The Ruiz is no dormant volcano: it has a long record of historic eruptions. Chronicles and geological studies document major eruptive episodes in 1595 and in 1845, the latter also accompanied by lahars that came down the Lagunilla river valley and caused deaths and destruction in the very area where Armero would later be built. In other words, the 1985 catastrophe was not an isolated event but the repetition of a pattern the volcano had already shown centuries earlier.
That geological memory —moderate eruptions but devastating lahars from meltwater— is precisely what volcanologists were warning about in 1985 and what underpins today's permanent monitoring. The name Cumanday is still used with pride in the region as a reminder of the ancestral bond with the mountain.
On 13 November 1985, Nevado del Ruiz caused one of the greatest natural catastrophes in Colombian history and one of the deadliest volcanic eruptions of the 20th century. That night, a relatively moderate eruption melted part of the summit ice cap and unleashed enormous lahars that swept down the river channels, above all the Lagunilla, heading into Tolima.
The mudflows, which advanced for hours, reached the city of Armero, in the valley, in the small hours and buried it almost completely. Around 23,000 people died, most of them residents of Armero, in a tragedy that shocked the world. The image of Omayra Sánchez, a girl trapped in the mud for days, became one of the most painful symbols of the disaster.
The tragedy was especially bitter because it was, to a great extent, avoidable: in the preceding months there had been signs that the volcano was reactivating and warnings from scientists, but the lack of coordination, clear information and evacuation measures prevented the population from being brought to safety. Armero thus became a worldwide case study in volcanic risk management and left a painful lesson: the importance of monitoring, communication and preparedness in the face of natural disasters.
After decades of relative calm following 1985, Nevado del Ruiz began showing signs of activity again in the 21st century. Since 2012 the Servicio Geológico Colombiano has raised the alert to yellow (changes in the volcano's behavior) and, in various episodes —with notable peaks in 2012, 2017 and, very markedly, in 2023—, increases in seismicity, ash and gas emissions and even recommendations for precautionary evacuation of nearby communities were recorded.
In March and April 2023, the volcano went through one of the most uncertain periods of recent years: seismicity spiked and the authorities came close to moving to an orange alert, keeping the region on tenterhooks and reinforcing risk management plans in the surrounding municipalities. Activity eventually stabilized, but the episode made clear that the Ruiz remains a fully active volcano under close watch.
This condition of near-permanent yellow alert is why tourist access to the volcano's area is restricted and only limited sectors (such as Las Tumbas) can be entered, always with an authorized guide and by vehicle, and why a visit may be suspended from one day to the next. For travelers, it means that planning a visit to the Ruiz requires checking the SGC's current alert status and accepting that the volcano has the last word.
The Armero tragedy marked a turning point in volcano monitoring in Colombia. In the wake of the disaster, permanent surveillance of Nevado del Ruiz and the country's other volcanoes was strengthened, today under the Servicio Geológico Colombiano (SGC), which runs volcanological observatories and a system of alert levels (green, yellow, orange, red) that inform the authorities and the public about the volcano's state.
The Ruiz is protected within Los Nevados National Park, created in 1973, one of Colombia's emblematic protected areas, which safeguards páramos, glaciers, lagoons and a rich Andean biodiversity, besides being a vital water source for the Eje Cafetero region. Parques Nacionales Naturales de Colombia manages access, entry rules and conservation of the area.
For visitors, this means that the possibility of exploring the volcano's sector depends directly on the volcanic alert status and on the authorities' decisions: in periods of greater activity, access to the Ruiz area is closed for safety. When it is open, visits are made with authorized guides, bookings and payment of admission. Nevado del Ruiz is thus at once an extraordinary nature destination and a permanent reminder of the power of the earth and of the importance of respecting the warnings of science.