Pico Cão Grande

PeaksÓbo Ulusal Parkı,São Tomé and Príncipe

A rock needle standing 370 metres out of rainforest on São Tomé — the hardened plug of a volcano whose softer flanks eroded off the island.

September·Peaking now

Jun–Sep

From July, humpbacks and their calves work the south coast — the boats that line up the needle watch for blows on the way.

Year-round The needle stands year-round. The cloud that hides and reveals it comes and goes through the day rather than with the season; the season only changes how often you catch the peak clear.

Pico Cão Grande is 370 metres of bare rock standing out of rainforest in the south of São Tomé, and it is not a mountain but the inside of one. Magma set hard in the throat of a volcano; everything softer around it washed off the island afterwards, and the plug was left standing. It is often not there to be seen. Cloud builds over the summit as the day warms, so the tower is usually gone by late morning, and the hours after sunrise are the ones that will show it to you. From the Dona Augusta pull-off, where the southern road breaks out of the forest, the spire stands alone over the oil palms. Getting you to its foot takes a guide and three to six hours there and back: mud, roots, river crossings, plantation land, and no marked trail. The forest around you is loud with birds that live on this island and no other. Four of them had been written off as extinct before they turned up again in these southern woods, one unrecorded since 1888. The forest itself is a comeback. By 1913 these two small islands were the world's largest producer of cocoa, grown on estates worked under forced labour. When the trade collapsed the estates were left to rot, and the trees closed over the mansions and drying sheds. Then the walk ends. The green stops dead, and a bare vertical wall goes up out of sight above you. From a boat off the south coast the tower stacks up with its slimmer sibling, Cão Pequeno, the one view that holds both, and from July to October humpbacks are in these waters to mate and calve. The forest does not quite stop, in fact. Small plants grow inside the cracks a climber has to grip, and it is the moss and the film of algae over the rock, not the angle, that make this wall so hard.

Worth knowing

Good to know

The walk to the base needs a guide — three to six hours return through mud, river crossings and private plantation land, with no marked trail to follow.
Leave the wall to expedition teams — snakes live on the rock, and the free routes up it start at 8b, at the edge of what big-wall climbers can do.
This is a malaria zone — São Tomé and Príncipe carries year-round transmission, so start prophylaxis before you travel and cover up at dusk, which is exactly when the forest walk ends.

Things to do

1
Trek to where the forest stops dead
A guided walk through the Obô rainforest — mud, roots, stream crossings, palms closing overhead — brings you out at the tower's foot. The last few metres are the point: the green simply ends, and a bare vertical wall goes up out of sight.
2
Climb a wall that grows plants in its holds
The angle is not what makes this wall hard: its rock, a fine-grained volcanic stone called phonolite, is coated in moss and a slippery film of algae. Small plants grow inside the very cracks a climber grips, and the weather can turn while you are hanging on the face. Only expedition-grade teams get up; everyone else stands at the bottom and looks up.
3
Line up both dog peaks from the sea
From a boat off the south coast, Cão Grande and its slimmer sibling Cão Pequeno stack up behind the forested slopes. It is the one view that holds both towers at once, with the green wall of Obô rising behind them.
4
Pull off the EN-2 at Dona Augusta
Where the southern road towards Porto Alegre breaks out of the forest, stop at the Dona Augusta pull-off and frame the spire standing over the oil palms. Come in the first hours after sunrise: the cloud cap thickens as the day warms, and the tower is usually gone by late morning.