At the beginning of November, Josef Ficek, Lukas Kozlik, Filip Martinek, David Michovsky, and I traveled to Rio de Janeiro, and from there we moved north 700km by bus to Pancas in the state of Espirito Santo. Pancas contains a huge array of dark quartzite walls with endless possibilities for first ascents up to 700m.

We set up our tents at Fabio Eggert’s climber camp, just below the impressive Pedra Cara. We first made an attempt on the north face of Pedra Camelo, a 700m wall with only one existing route, up a chimney system. We started our line on the left side of the wall with two pitches of face climbing (5 and 7b+) and then continued up an obvious corner for two more pitches. However, atop the corner the rock quality got dramatically worse and we couldn’t climb free. We’ve left this project for other climbers.

For our second objective we chose a line up the east face of Pedra Cara. After six days of work we finally finished this difficult new route, which mostly follows an obvious corner system for its 12 pitches. Most of the route is moderate (up to 6c) except for two pitches (7b+ and 7c) of hard slab climbing on crumbly rock. To protect the climb we used a mix of gear and bolts. We called the route Obrigado Amigos (650m, 7c).

There’s a great future in this area, which offers many unclimbed towers and possibilities for new routes. However, you will be always searching for good rock. Fabio maintains a book with first ascent records, though he only speaks Portuguese.

Ondrej Benes, Czech Republic