How to get there:
From Cruzeiro, drive east on Hwy. 116, then north on Hwy. 354. This road connects
to the town of Itamonte. However, as soon as you near the top of the long uphill, near location
S22.37668, W44.76066, fork right on a smaller road. Follow this to the national park
entrance at location S22.37284, W44.70393, elevation near 2450 meter.
This access road is a bit rough, but most cars can use it with appropriate care.
Registration is done here, before one may drive about 3 more
kilometer to the trailhead.
This is at location S22.38541, W44.67938, elevation just below 2400 meter.
This peak requires full climbing gear for all participants. A lead climber must be comfortable
on pretty smooth rock with few holds, but good friction. Most people would arrange some
local guides that are familiar with this specific route.
We used Caqui Trekking, whatsapp: +55(11)94301-7232, email: caquitrekking@gmail.com.
Route description:
First, you follow the approach trail,
pretty gentle with no issues whatsoever. You
will arrive at a small creek and the more serious part of this trip is about to begin.
Soon, slabs are starting to appear. Not too steep, it is possible to move uphill
with good friction. After a fair amount of this one arrives at the base of
a pretty steep, but short slab.
A small ledge runs across about 2 meter up, another
3 meter and the slope is a lot less steep.
Most people use a rope on this section.
Above there is more steepish slabs.
With dry rock the friction is still OK, but the
angle here is steep enough that a downward slide would be potentially bad. There are characteristic
water channels running downhill, they may provide some additional friction. The route next enters a
long gully that runs all the way to the main crest. This gully has several small climbing
problems, various rocks that one need to bypass. Near the top, a huge boulder blocks the
way. Fortunately, one can pass under this boulder (tunnel),
then exit on the far side
with new views. The route now ascends this boulder and crosses left to the base of the
final climb.
One starts pretty much directly uphill,
then contours right and subsequently turns more left.
The remaining part to the (false) summit is just easy scramble. Arriving at a summit which turns
out to be only 50 cm lower than another summit located close nearby, but on the other
side of a deep ravine.
This last part involves pretty hard climbing. First, a rappel down into the gap between the two
peaks. The rope here is used to assist climbing back up later. Next, the route follows a characteristic
smooth channel made by water that runs very steeply up a few meter off to climbers right when looking
uphill. The first move is therefore a traverse (right) to get into this channel. If it had been a crack,
then climbing might have been easier, however it is a fairly
smooth feature ptobabely made by running water.
One may see this fairly well on the drone video posted at the very end of this report.
Here is a quick summary of peaks climbed on this trip to Brazil.
A track is posted on Peakbagger. Comments:
This was the only technical peak on our plan. I did not quite understand precisely
how difficult this was. Obviously, I had seen some reports and pictures where people
only climbed to the slightly lower (false) summit.
Rob did an outstanding job organizing some local guides for our trip.
(I was busy at the same time to cut red tape
for our ascent of the ultra Pico da Pedra da Mina.)
They were in fact,
not extremely local as they had to travel from Sao Paulo, several hours by car.
We left our hotel Embaixador in Cruzeiro already at 0400. A 2 hour drive got us to the park.
Registration and a short wait for our friends from Sao Paulo followed.
We started at 0715. A party our size, 5 people plus 3 "locals" will always move slower than
a smaller party on this type of terrain. Still, reasonable progress up steepish slabs on
friction to the first, short section where a rope was needed.
Next, a long scramble up the big gully to reach the main crest when exiting the final tunnel.
We used a rope to protect the final climb to reach the false summit. From here to the highest,
true summit took more time while
our expert friends
established the route. We were all on the
highest point by 1215, so 3 hours from the cars.
Nice weather and good views. We were in no hurry to descend. Our way back was first to reverse
the climbing back to the false summit.
Next, a longer rappel brought
us directly back down in
the big gully, thus a bypass of the tunnel. Nice scrambling back down to the final steepish
section below. Just before getting there, we used friction only on borderline steep slabs, this
area might also deserve a bit of protection, steep enough to cause some concern.
A final, short rappel, then more scrambling and slabs below before reaching the small creek.
The descent took about as much time as our ascent. Big thanks to our friendly, expert guides!
Overall, a very interesting and different day from our other peaks in Brazil.
