Mount Pico

Overview

Mount Pico is the highest mountain in Portugal, 2,351 m of dormant stratovolcano rising straight from the sea on the island that bears its name, more than twice the height of anything else in the Azores and one of the tallest peaks in the Atlantic; a nature reserve since 1972, it last erupted from its flanks in 1720, and the little cone of Piquinho on its summit still breathes steam at 50 to 75 degrees. The climb is the island’s great walk, a long day on lava with the whole archipelago below when the cloud allows.

The mountain is climbed from the Casa da Montanha, the mountain house on the road across its shoulder, where walkers register, are counted and are given a GPS tracker, and where the guides are hired; the ascent takes three to four hours and the descent almost as long, over a route marked by numbered posts.

Visiting

The trail starts at about 1,200 m from the Casa da Montanha and climbs over old lava, cinder and, higher, bare rock, steep and unrelenting, the posts leading to the crater rim; the crossing of the crater and the scramble up Piquinho’s loose slope is the last half hour and the part with the steam. In good weather Faial, São Jorge, Graciosa and Terceira are laid out on the sea, and the shadow of the mountain falls across the island at dawn and dusk.

Numbers on the mountain are limited, and the mountain house closes the route in bad weather; night ascents for the sunrise leave around midnight with guides, and some parties camp in the crater and descend in the morning. Temperatures at the top are 15 degrees below the coast and the wind is often gale force.

History

Pico is the youngest part of a young island, its volcano less than 10,000 years old and its historic eruptions all on the flanks: 1562 to 1564 on the south-east, with lava that reached the sea, 1718 and December 1720, both to the coast. On 29 September 2009 the fumarole at Piquinho steamed so visibly that it was seen from Faial, but monitoring found nothing abnormal; permanent degassing continues at the summit and in vents between 1,500 and 2,000 m.

The summit is a pit crater, Pico Alto, about 500 m across and 30 m deep, with Piquinho, the true summit, a cone 70 m high standing inside it. Since 1998 an atmospheric observatory, PICO-NARE, run by the University of the Azores with American partners, has sat on the crater rim at 2,225 m, where the mountain’s isolation above the marine layer makes it a place to measure what North America’s and Europe’s pollution does to the air over the ocean.

Tips

• Book a guide unless you are experienced on loose volcanic ground in fog; the mountain house registers every walker and will turn back those without equipment.
• Warm layers, gloves, a head-torch and two litres of water; there is nothing on the mountain and the descent is harder on the knees than the climb.
• The best months are June to September for the odds of a clear summit; even then, the top is in cloud most afternoons, so start early.
• The vineyards and the lava pools of Madalena are the recovery day; the ferry to Horta is 30 minutes.

Nearby

• Casa da Montanha: the trailhead on the mountain road.
• Vineyard landscape of Pico: the coast below.
• Madalena: 15 km from the trailhead.
• Lajes do Pico and the whaling museum: on the south coast.