Pão de Açúcar

Decided last Saturday would be a good day to look for the scramble up the back of the Pão de Açúcar. Got the Metro and Metro-bus from Botafango station which stopped at the telepherique station.
A pleasant tarmac path leads from the Praia Vermelha under the South Face of the mountain. It was full of families and couples out for a stroll and lots of walkers keeping fit. Below the forest and just above the sea, it is spectacular, and ends at a large concrete pillar just before the end of the trees.

After jumping over the wall the path immediately becomes small, intimate and totally empty which was a real buzz after 3 weeks of the busyness and bustle of Rio de Janeiro.

Then the path starts to leave the trees and instead of bare earth traverses across easy slabs before following an easy line straight up to a very small peak at the South East end of the mountain. Any worries that it might be difficult to find the way were resolved when in the distance a big queue of people could be seen crammed up at one section of the route ahead.

The brief outline on the internet had said "one small section of 4 which many people choose to solo". Not mentioning which country the grade of 4 was from. I.e. British and too hard for me to solo, or French then ... maybe.

Arriving just below the difficult bit there were 2 ropes thrown down. What looked like local guides positioned at the bottom, 7 metres up and at the top 10 metres up. In what seemed a chaotic scene there were also 4 tourists sitting at the top and maybe 7 at the bottom while one person tied to the rope struggled up the climb in their trainers. Once they were at tthe top the harness and rope were lowered back down for the next tourist.

While trying to work out what was happening a fit young guy with a rucksack soloed up and so I followed behind as far as the hard moves and watched while he continued easily up the last 3 metres.

Waiting on a ledge while a tourist really struggled with the hard moves left me very much in 2 minds what to do. Luckily at that moment a nice guy from Michigan came up on a rope thrown down by the fit soloist. It turned out the soloist was Netto. Hired for the day at $300 to take David climbing. The first hard move was about VD. and ok. Hesitating before the harder move, David shouted down, "Would you like us to throw you the rope?"

Phew!! A minute later I was at the top of the difficulty (too hard for me to have soloed) happily shaking their hands.

From here it is a long steep walk to the top of the hill, arriving in a mob of tourists looking as if I had just stepped out fully dressed from a shower. It was a hot day! The views were fantastic and there are lots of nice footpaths around the summit in lovely bamboo groves.
The telepherique to the subsiduary peak is free and from there an obvious footpath leads back to the Praia Vermelha.
It was great that I have finally found a place in Rio where it feels safe to walk up a hill when there are so many.