Pico do Fogo

Overview

Pico do Fogo is an active stratovolcano and, at 2,829 metres, the highest point in Cape Verde. It does not stand alone on Fogo so much as grow out of it: the whole island is one volcano, and the Pico is its young central cone, rising more than a kilometre from the floor of a caldera roughly ten kilometres by seven, walled by the near vertical Bordeira escarpment and open to the sea on the east. The caldera floor sits at about 1,625 metres and the rim at about 2,700, so the cone overtops its own crater walls by around a hundred metres; its summit holds a crater about 500 metres across and 150 deep.

This is the youngest and most active volcano in the archipelago. It erupted in 1951, 1995 and, most recently, from November 2014 to February 2015, when lava buried most of the villages on the caldera floor. Those villages, their guesthouses and their improbable vineyards are covered in the Chã das Caldeiras guide; this page is about the mountain itself and the climb, which starts from those villages before dawn and puts you on the roof of the country by mid morning.

The mountain and the caldera around it sit inside the Parque Natural do Fogo, a protected area of 84.69 square kilometres established in 2003 that takes in the cone, the crater, the Bordeira rim and the Monte Velha forest on the north eastern slope. Two endemic plants, Echium vulcanorum and Erysimum caboverdeanum, grow on the outer crater rim and nowhere else on Earth.

History

The mountain named the island. When the Portuguese settled it in the 15th century the island was called São Filipe; a major summit eruption in 1680 dropped ash across the whole territory, made farmland temporarily unusable, drove families to emigrate to neighbouring Brava, and left the island with the name it has carried ever since: Fogo, fire. The Smithsonian’s volcano records describe the summit vent as almost continuously active from settlement around 1500 until about 1760, which is to say that for its first two and a half centuries this was a mountain that visibly burned.

The summit crater itself last erupted in 1769. Since 1785 the activity has come from fissures on the volcano’s flanks, which is why the recent eruptions spared the cone and instead flooded the caldera floor where people live. The only eruption to kill anyone was in 1847, when the accompanying earthquakes claimed several lives. The deeper past was less merciful: about 73,000 years ago the eastern flank of the volcano collapsed into the ocean, sending a tsunami estimated at 170 metres against Santiago.

In April 1995 fissures opened on the flank in the middle of the night, lava cut the road to Portela within two hours, and the 1,300 people then living in the caldera fled in darkness; nobody died. The eruption built a new scoria cone on the Pico’s south western flank, known today as Pico Pequeno.

The 2014 to 2015 eruption began at those same vents shortly after 10:00 on Sunday 23 November 2014 and ran for 77 days, until 8 February 2015. The lava moved at walking pace, around 15 metres an hour at its peak, slow enough for about 1,000 residents to evacuate but unstoppable by anything: it took the school, a hotel and, by the end, 75 percent of the buildings in Portela, Bangaeira and Ilhéu de Losna. Since 2014 the peak and its caldera have appeared on the country’s 200 escudo banknote, alongside the wine grape that grows in its shadow.

Visiting

The rule and the base

The climb is only permitted with a local mountain guide. Every independent description of the ascent repeats this, and it is how the mountain works in practice: guides are hired through agencies in São Filipe or directly in the villages of Chã das Caldeiras, and the sensible pattern is to sleep in the caldera and arrange your guide the evening before. Wikivoyage quotes guide prices from around 5,000 escudos for up to two people, roughly 45 euros at the fixed rate of 110.265 escudos to the euro; treat that as an order of magnitude and agree the price before you set off. The mountain lies inside the Parque Natural do Fogo, and rangers have charged a small entry fee at park posts, 200 escudos in one 2021 account; no official tariff is published online, so carry small notes and expect to pay something.

The climb

Guides start at sunrise or earlier, because the black rock and sand store heat and the cone turns into a griddle by mid morning. From the villages at about 1,700 metres you cross the caldera floor and then take the cone directly: around 1,100 vertical metres, most of it on loose scoria and bare lava that gives way underfoot, two steps up and a slide back. No ropes or technical skill are needed, just moderate fitness and a tolerance for a little scrambling near the top. The travel writers at Got2Globe, who climbed with a guide from Chã, reached the summit in four hours with constant photography stops and record five hours as the usual round trip; three to four hours up is a fair planning figure.

From the rim you look down into the 150 metre deep summit crater on one side and across the whole caldera on the other, with the Bordeira wall, the lava fields and, on clear days, Santiago above the cloud. Because the summit vent has been quiet since 1769, guides routinely take visitors down inside the crater, where earlier climbers have spelled out names in pale stones against the grey ash.

The descent is the part people talk about afterwards. Rather than retracing the hard lava, guides drop straight down a flank of deep volcanic sand at a run, in bounding strides, and most climbers are at the bottom in a fraction of the ascent time with boots full of debris.

Pico Pequeno, the short version

If a full morning on scoria is not your idea of a holiday, the newer, lower cone of Pico Pequeno on the Pico’s flank is the standard alternative: it is where the 1995 and 2014 eruptions actually happened, and it is still visibly alive. Got2Globe’s guide demonstrated by laying branches over a crevice near the vents; they caught fire in about fifteen seconds. Go with a guide here too: the ground is young, hot in places and not signposted.

Tips

Get the logistics right and the mountain is straightforward. Aluguers to Chã das Caldeiras leave São Filipe around midday and return early in the morning, which is exactly backwards for a dawn climb; plan two nights in the caldera, or hire a private driver.

Bring cash for everything: guide, park fee, bed, food and wine. There are no ATMs beyond São Filipe and no way to get money in the caldera.

Pack for cold as well as heat. Chã das Caldeiras is the coolest inhabited place in the country, with an annual average around 13.5 degrees and occasional winter frost, and you will be standing around in pre dawn air at 1,700 metres before the sun does its work. A warm layer and a windproof shell earn their space in any month.

On footwear, the local advice is specific: sturdy high top boots, because the sharp edged lava ash on the descent works its way into and through anything lighter. Walking poles help on the loose ground, and gloves are useful if you take the scramble near the rim.

Finally, remember what you are climbing. This volcano erupted twice in living memory, in 1995 and 2014 to 2015, and both times the first warnings were earthquakes felt in the villages days before. Your guide and the natural park staff are the people who will know if anything is stirring; if they say the mountain is closed, it is closed.