Pico do Fogo – Cape Verde Highpoint

Pico do Fogo (9,281ft/2829m), Cape Verde Highpoint

March 24, 2022

Matthew and Eric Gilbertson

March 23 – Flight Nouakchott to Praia
March 24 – Flight to Sao Filipe, climb Pico do Fogo
March 25 – Flight to Praia
March 26 – Flight back to US

Background

Cape Verde is a set of islands off the west coast of Africa perhaps best known as the location where most hurricanes form that hit the US. The islands are volcanic, and the highest peak is a semi active volcano on the island of Fogo. Pico do Fogo last erupted in 2014, wiping out houses in a nearby village. Luckily it’s been dormant since then and is currently safe to climb.

The summit is in Fogo National Park and is a fairly popular hike, offering great views to the surrounding islands.

We were travelling to west Africa for a week-long spring break trip to climb country highpoints, and had carefully planned out a schedule to hit the highpoints of Mauritania and Cape Verde. If we made all of our flights and took all the appropriate covid tests on the correct days, it would just barely be possible to get these two highpoints and get back to the US.

On Tuesday evening we arrived in Nouakchott after successfully climbing Kediet ej Jill, the Mauritania highpoint. We checked in at a hotel and took antigen covid tests from emed in the presence of tele-med doctors on the phone. After some stressful software glitches on the Navica app we each finally got our negative results approved and pdfs sent to our phones. Now we were ready to travel to Cape Verde.

Our flight the next morning was scheduled for 10am, and we would have a six hour layover in Senegal before flying to Praia, Cape Verde. Senegal only required a vaccination card to enter the country or transit, so we shouldn’t have any problems there. We had booked the flights as two separate tickets, which is always a bit risky, but the six hour layover seemed long enough that it would work out.

That night I got an email from edreams, the booking site I used, that the flight was delayed 4 hours until 2pm. But we couldn’t find any other website confirming this, so we planned to get to the airport early just in case.

March 23

We took a taxi early the next morning, and arrived by 8am. Strangely, there were police outside the airport not letting people inside, even though the airport is very large. We told them we had a flight to Dakar, but they didn’t let us in. More and more people piled up outside, and it got kind of uncomfortable with blowing sand in the cool morning air. I got another email that the flight was back on time, but the police didn’t let us in. We found some other travellers going to Dakar, also waiting outside, so that was a bit reassuring.

Finally by 11am they let us through to check in. The flight was indeed delayed til 2pm. However, once we got through security 2pm came and went and there was no plane. It looked like no flights at all were leaving. We couldn’t figure out why this kind of delay would be known the night before for all planes. The weather seemed fine, but maybe blowing sand was causing the delay?

By 2:30pm we started losing confidence that the rest of our trip would work out. If we missed the flight to Praia, the next one was two days later. That wouldn’t be enough time get the highpoint, which was on a separate island. We started brainstorming backup plans. There was an extremely expensive flight connecting in spain to get to Praia that evening, and then we could take a midnight ferry, but that flight might be delayed also, and I’ve heard the ferries in Cape Verde on not very reliable.

We eventually settled on the best option if we missed the connection would be just spend the extra 1.5 days in Senegal. We would have just enough time to drive over to hit the Gambia highpoint, which would be a new highpoint for Matthew, but I had just hiked and surveyed it in December.

At 3:30pm the Dakar people all got up and started pushing in line at one gate. There hadn’t been any announcement, and only one plane had landed in Nouakchott all day, but it appeared somehow that plane was now the one we needed to get on.

We got in line and got on the plane. Matthew quickly checked us in online for the next flight, just in case we could somehow make it. It appeared this plane would land at5pm, and our next one take off at 5:10pm. There was no way we could get through passport control and security in that time, especially since they would be closing the door to the plane just as we landed. So we resigned that we would miss the flight.

We landed at 5pm as expected, and when we got off the plane there was a security worker (Charles) asking if anyone was going to Praia. We told him we were, and he looked very relieved. He said they had closed the door to the plane but he convinced the pilot to wait 5 more minutes just in case we were on the plane that just landed, and we were!

Charles put us on a separate bus and whisked us away to passport control. Then we went directly through a VIP line with no wait and got our passports checked. We then went through security and got back on the private bus. It had only taken about 5 minutes to get through the process that would have taken an hour otherwise. He gave the thumbs up to his colleagues and quickly got us to our plane. We were the last ones on, but the flight attendents quickly closed the door and the plane started moving at 5:15pm, just 5 minutes after the scheduled departure. Charles definitely saved the day for us on that one!

Cape Verde had gone from 0% chance of success to a very high probability of success in just 5 minutes, and we once again started strategizing about the peak.

We landed a few hours later, then took a taxi to a hotel in town. That evening we walked around a bit to the port, then went to bed early.

March 24

The next morning we took a taxi back to the airport and got on our bestfly flight. This is one of the shortest scheduled flights I’ve ever been on, clocking in at around 18 minutes in the air. The plane was mostly empty, and the flight attendants just barely had enough time to give us all a cup of water before we landed.

On the way down we got excellent views of Pico do Fogo, which was in a half-undercast with the northeast side of the island covered in clouds below the peak and the rest of the island in the sun. The island, Fogo, culminated in a big crater in the middle, with Pico do Fogo sticking out in the middle of the crater. The entire island looked very dry, and perhaps the leaves hadn’t yet started coming out after winter.

After landing in Sao Filipe we paid a taxi 5 euro to take us to Intercidades Car Rental, which I had arranged in advance. When we got there the in fact did not have a car available for us (not too surprising I suppose), but the worker drove us to another location Lucinda Car Rentals, that did.

They only took cash, and kept one of our passports there instead of a security deposit. Fortunately the car was an automatic (the roads there are very hilly and it’s been a while since I’ve driven a manual). It appeared the car was from massachusetts, and the owner had gone to college in Boston. Interestingly, we would find a lot of people in Cape Verde have a connection with Boston, and there used to be direct flights from Praia to Boston.

We stopped at an auto shop to fill up the air in the tires, and then started driving. I took the wheel while Matthew navigated. There are only a few major roads on the island – a lower ring road, an upper ring road, and a road going into the carter. We drove to the upper ring road, went counterclockwise, and then drove steeply up to the crater rim.

Just over the rim we stopped at a pullout and had an amazing view of the peak. It was a very steep conical peak with old lava flows leading down to the village Cha Das Caldeiras. It was 1pm and we needed to strategize.

Our ideal plan was to hike up to the summit that day, then camp inside the caldera, then hike out the next morning. We’d brought plenty of water for this. The problem was we weren’t 100% certain whether a guide was required by law to climb the peak. In 2013 one peakbagger, Rob Woodall, reported it would be easy to hike without a guide, but his group hired a guide since they hiked it at night. Other sources say ambiguous phrases like “a guide is necessary.” Does this mean legally required, or that if you’re unsure of the route then a guide will be necessary to help you find the route, but not legally required?

There was no definitive sources saying a guide was legally required, but we didn’t want to get partway up and have a guided group come down and the guide turn us around. So we decided to wait until late afternoon to go up, reasoning that by that time any group climbing the peak would already have come down. We also planned to start at a non-standard location. Trip reports we’d read and strava tracks we’d found almost all started from Cha Das Caldeiras village. But from satellite images it looked like another trail going up from the south, starting where the old road had been covered by lava in 2014. That side of the peak had no houses, and there would likely be nobody there to tell us we couldn’t climb the peak.

That route eventually met up with what appeared to be the standard descent route. We planned to take the descent route up, since it wasn’t visible from Cha Das Caldeiras.

We had a bit of time to kill, so drove through the village and continued to the end of the road, then drove back. By then it was around 2:30pm and we decided it was late enough to start hiking. We loaded up our overnight gear, many liters of water, and food in our packs, then drove to the end of the old road, and parked the car. As planned, the car was not visible from the main road. So it appeard we could go up to the summit undetected.

We parked off to the side and started up. Finally, it was just us versus the mountain. We followed some tire tracks through the volcanic sand and saw a few locals tending to some small trees in the distance, but they didn’t seem to care about us or notice us. We then left the tracks and made it to the trail.

The trail traversed across the slope to a small col near Pico Pequeno, then we stopped for a drink. The air was very dry and I got thirsty pretty easily. Luckily we had brought a bunch of water.

Above us there were no more switchbacks – the route just went straight up. Or down, more likely. This appeared to be the standard descent route, and it appeard most people just plunge stepped straight down the deep scree. Unfortunately it would not be easy going up. The volcanic sand was loose and steep enough the each step sunk and slipped back about half a step. Progress was slow and difficult, and we eventually resorted to balancing our hands in front of us and nearly crawling up.

We took frequent breaks, and I knew there was no way a guide would take clients up this route. About halfway up we saw some rock outcrops to the side, and we traversed left. Once on the rock outcrops progress was much easier. We scrambled up the firm rocks, and finally got above the scree. We then traversed back right and regained the trail, which was much more defined in the rocks.

We followed the trail up to the edge of the caldera, and then scrambled a few exposed sections. There was a metal cable installed in the exposed areas that made things a bit easier. I would rate them class 3 by washington standards.

Finally after 2 hours we emerged on the summit. We had it all to ourselves, so didn’t have to worry about guides turning us around.

The views were amazing – there was still a partial undercast to the northeast, and in other directions we could see down to the ocean. To the west the crater rim rose up steeply, and to the east we could look down into the caldera. It indeed looked like a great place to camp.

The top was windy so we put on jackets and snapped a few pictures. We hung out for about an hour, then started planning what we wanted to do that night. We were second guessing our plan to camp. The problem was, someone could have easily seen us going up, so there was a chance a guide would come up later that evening and be mad at us. Also, if somebody saw our car parked on the road that evening, but we never returned to it that evening, they could get worried and send someon looking for us. I’m pretty sure it is not standard for people to camp on Pico do Fogo, so they might think we got injured.

If we just went back down, we would be at the car very quickly and could drive away and not worry about these things. So we decided to head down.

We scrambled back to the trail, then followed it to the scree. While it had taken us about 1.5 hours to get up the scree, we were able to jog down it in about 10 minutes. It was deep, loose, and steep, which was perfect for plunge-step-jogging down.

We quickly made it back to the col, then continued jogging down the trail back to the car by 6pm. It had taken about 3.5 hours round trip, including an hour hanging out at the top. There was nobody in sight, so we quickly turned the car around and drove away.

It’s still unclear to me if we did all that worrying about guides for no reason, or we were careful/lucky enough to do the climb without getting caught. But we certainly got the highpoint of Cape Verde.

We drove back down from the crater rim and then turned on the upper ring road. It was clear nobody was following us, so we finally breathed a sigh of relief. We continued driving counterclockwise around the island, and found a nice hotel on the beach to stay in that night. Ideally we would have camped, but there wasn’t really any place to car camp that we could find.

In the morning we took our antigen covid tests one more time, then went for a brief swim in the ocean before driving back to Sao Filipe. We walked around town a bit before returning the car and catching our afternoon flight back to Praia. That night we had a 1am flight back to the US, arriving Saturday night.

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