The painting is a composite image of different climate zones, from snowy mountains in the distance to grasslands in the mid-ground and tropical flora in the foreground. Church's approach to landscape painting was influenced by Prussian naturalist Alexander von Humboldt, who wrote of his travels in South America and exhorted painters to capture the beauty of the New World. Around the Chota Valley, Humboldt marvelled at the Andes' symmetrical disposition in two lines from north to south, and noted that a plateau rather than a valley separated them. Thus the mountains in The Andes of Ecuador—probably Tungurahua at left and Cotopaxi at right—are arranged along two lines that would converge near the painting's center. The plateau is a strong horizontal line just beneath that point. Humboldt encouraged painters to make sketches in the field, a practice not then common, and this painting shows the influence of Church's sketches in northern Ecuador and southern Colombia.