30/05/2021
Visit the blog "Brasil Excursions" of Casa São Conrado
https://www.casasaoconrado.com/news-activities
Pico da Neblina - AM
The Pico da Neblina (Fog Summit) in the north of the state of Amazonas is the highest point in Brazil at 2,995.30 meters. The name of the summit comes from the fact that the top of the mountain is covered in fog most of the time. The summit is located in the Pico da Neblina National Park, in the municipality of Santa Isabel do Rio Negro, near the town of São Gabriel da Cachoeira. Although the Pico da Neblina massif borders Venezuela and most of the massif area is in this country, the main peak is entirely on Brazilian territory, although only at 687 meters from the Venezuelan border, which is located at the second peak, „Peak 31 de Março“.
The summit "Pico da Neblina" was discovered in the 1950s by the then commander Mário Jucá from Panair do Brasil, when he flew over the summit in a rare moment when it was not covered by fog.
On March 30, 1965, the first ascent and official assessment of the height of Pico da Neblina was carried out by the expedition of the Brazilian-Venezuelan Joint Demarcation Commission, in which the surveyor Ambrósio Miranda took part, who set the quota of 3,014 m with the help of theodolite + barometer. The Pico da Neblina then became the highest point in Brazil (until then it had been the summit of the Pico da Bandeira (on the border between the states of Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais) with an altitude of 2,891 m. In 2004, the cartographer Marco Aurélio de Almeida Lima, a member of the expedition of the Culminating Points Project of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) and the Military Engineering Institute (IME), carried out new measurements with a professional GPS device of the highest precision. The new measurement showed that the summit was approximately 20 meters lower than previously assumed, which made Brazil a country without a point with an altitude above 3.000 meters. At the end of 2015, based on a new, more precise mapping, the data previously obtained via GPS were recalculated and the IBGE again changed the official height of the summit “Pico da Neblina “at 2.995,30 meters, a difference upwards of 1,52 meters.
Due to the location of the "Pico da Neblina" summit near the Amazon rainforest, it rains intensely up to 1000 m, which makes the climate very humid and favors the growth of larger vegetation. At a height of about 700 m clouds predominate and most days are foggy. Rain clouds can no longer rise above 1000 m and only medium-sized and small trees can grow. Above 1800 m there is only sparse mountain vegetation. At the top of the mountain, the temperature reaches 20 ° C during the day and 6 ° C at night.
Since the summit is located in a national park, in a border region and in the territory of the Yanomami Indians, access to the Pico da Neblina is restricted and requires the approval of the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio). It is compulsory to take an accredited guide. All expeditions start in the city of São Gabriel da Cachoeira. From the city it is necessary to use the Cauaburi River in flying boats (fast aluminum canoes with outboard motors) up to the mouth of the Tucano Brook to reach the starting point of the hike. After four days of 4 to 5 hours hike, you finally reach the highest point in Brazil.
Picture: Robson Esteves Czaban CC BY 3.0 Creative Commons
Pico da Neblina 1998 seen from a distance without the usual clouds.
