Morro dos Cabritos, O Céu é o Limite. Brazil features several areas with routes up to 1,260m (4,000') long, especially in the states of Rio de Janeiro, Minas Gerais, and Espirito Santo, where there are an amazing number of towers and domes of granite and gneiss.

In 2006 Daniel Bonella and I opened O Céu é o Limite (5.11b), one of the longest free climbs in Brazil, on Morro dos Cabritos (1,850m), in Três Picos State Park, two hours’ drive northeast of Rio de Janeiro city. The 950m route includes technical slab climbing, face climbing on small and big holds, layback cracks, and finger- and hand-jam cracks. The route consists of 24 pitches, with several technical moves of 5.11a and 5.11b. It took us nine days of climbing and drilling to place more than a hundred bolts on the face-climbing sections. Of course, the cracks are still clean for placing gear, which is an important ethic in the area.

The wall is mostly smooth, without good ledges for bivouacs, so we fixed ropes on the hardest pitches, nearly 300m of rope, and slept at the base. As placing bolts can be a dirty, exhausting job, we took breaks and went home between efforts, since it’s only a couple of hours away. At the base of the mountain is a clean, warm river waiting for the fastest teams, or for lazy ones who turn back. It’s especially a treat on hot summer days, when the temperature can reach 32°C (90°F) in the mountains. Several parties have now climbed O Céu é o Limite; the average climbing time is around 10 hours, not including the rappel and the approach, which takes only 15 minutes from the road.

The first time we went to Morro dos Cabritos was in October 2005, and we opened four pitches of easy slab. Later that month we returned and set three more pitches, with 5.10 moves. Because of the hot season (November to March), we took a break and started again in May 2006, setting another three pitches one day, and fixing ropes on the hardest pitches. We went back six more times, for single days, in June, August, September, and finally October, when we finished the route.

Although there are three other long routes on this mountain, the biggest concentration of long routes in Brazil is on Pico Maior de Friburgo (2,350m) and Capacete (2,100m), also in Três Picos State Park. There are 50 routes on these mountains, ranging from 5.8 to 5.13a, some as long as 18 pitches or 700m. Some pitches are on vertical walls with huge feldspar crystals protruding from the many pegmatite dikes.

Antonio Paulo Faria, Brazil