Dedo de Deus ascent

My first sighting of the Dedo de Deus was the day I arrived in Brazil, sitting on the airport bus waiting for it to leave the airport. Way off in the distance I could see high ground with some pointy looking ground (known locally as the organ pipes) on the right. I suspected that the finger was over there and later found out I was right. It was to be my last climb in Brazil and the one I was most excited about. I had saved doing it until the end of my week and was well psyched for it. My guide/partner for the day was George, a friend of Nilton. He picked me up from my hostel at just after 6 and we headed out of town on a beautiful sunny morning passing all the workers driving in. Once past the airport I was in new territory. It felt good to be out of town and seeing a bit of rural Brazil. After a couple of hours we pulled into a roadside car park right in front of the Finger. It looked very impressive. It’s basically a 100m (?) finger of granite sitting on top of a steep tree clad hill. It was also much closer than I was expecting. After sorting out the gear we left the car at 8 and walked back down the road towards the Finger for 300m or so. The beginning of the trail is not easy to find, luckily I was with someone who knew where we had to go. The trail is pretty wild and steep. There is no gentle warm up section, you get stuck into the gradient from the word go. Remembering the heat on Sugar Loaf I decided to take it very easy, taking small but purposeful steps. The vegetation round the trail was rather thick, we ducked under vines and slopping bamboo, pushed branches aside, pulled ourselves up on tree roots and clambered up the odd block of wet granite. The pace was good and after 50mins we came to the end of what was the easy section. In front of us lay some large granite slabs, with vegetation growing out of the cracks. On the right side of the slab bordering the forest was a fixed rope. We got harnessed up and George headed up the fixed rope trailing our rope. He offered me a belay, which I didn’t really think was necessary but took it anyway. Pulling up the fixed rope was not as easy as it first looked. The rock was wet and a bit slimy. At the top we were in the sun. George led off again, carrying the rope. I followed him up more slabs, pulling up on fixed steel cables. It made a refreshing change from slogging it up through the forest. At the end of the sunny slabs we went back into the undergrowth. The trail got even steeper and more overgrown. As well as plodding up we now had to contend with short steep sections of wet slimy granite, again with fixed ropes to aid you. I usually make a point of shunning fixed ropes but on these short walls I made full use of them. It was hard slippery work. At 10am on the dot we came out of the undergrowth and found ourselves at the base of the rock pitches. Around us were small trees and several hundred metres down below on the right was the forest. I picked a spot in the shade, sat down and got my rock boots on, had a good swig of water and plastered on another heavy application of sun cream. The break came at a good time and 10mins later when I stood up, I felt well refreshed. Out came the rope again and George shot up a short easy pitch. This continued with us swapping the lead. Each short pitch, up to 10m was done without any pro as we only had quickdraws. The rock was good and the holds were generally plentiful. Small trees also masked any exposure. On one of the pitches we had to pass up through a hole in a roof. As eased up to it I thought I wouldn’t fit through, or worse still would get my belly stuck in it. I passed through with out incident and on we went. After arriving at the back of a cavernous crack we were faced with the first pitch of what I’d call real climbing. The route traversed out to the right before going up 20m of smooth granite. George took off his small pack and said we’d haul the bags up. I failed to see how we were going to do this, only having one rope. He set off on the traverse, whilst I sat on a horizontal tree in the shade. He disappeared out of view and into the sun. Before I followed I put his small pack inside mine, had a hearty dip in my chalk bag and set off. Climbing away from the cave the exposure set in. The rock curved down and away to my right with the forest canopy way off down below. I climbed up to where there was a horizontal crack leading the way around the rock and then diagonally up. It was a good crack, what made the climbing difficult was that there was a bulging rock above the crack. Wearing a largish pack made it difficult to use the crack as there wasn’t enough space for me and the pack. After a lot of grunt work I made it up the ramp towards George. Instead of joining him I turned left into a long deep (20m) chimney crack. Once I got my breath back we headed to the back of the chimney before bridging and grunting up the cool, dark chimney. It was technically easy but hard work. Two shorter chimney pitches followed plus a short pitch out in the sun. The last section was done with the aid of a ladder and then we were on top of the Dedo de Deus. It had taken us 2.5 hrs to climb the rock. The climbing had been technically very easy, with only one interesting pitch, but the latter chimney pitches were strenuous. As we wandered up onto the actual summit I spotted two blokes about to start their descent so rushed over to say hello. Luckily one of them, Nigel, was Irish so we could converse freely. He too had enjoyed the route and summit and was just about to begin an awesome looking abseil. After he disappeared from view we plodded back up to the summit, took some shots, signed the summit log and had a well earnt break. Looking up at the finger from the road below, the summit looks small and bare. It’s actually about the size of a tennis court with some long grass and small trees, plus bare rock. Way off in the distance we could see the coast and Rio. In the other direction was the town of Teresopolis. After 30mins or so we set off back to the ladder to commence the interesting descent. Only having one rope we were restricted to how far we could drop down. We had a couple of 20-25 abseils before encountering a problem. On one of the ledges we had decided to drop down and round onto a wet sloping ledge before committing to the main drop, as we weren’t sure the rope would reach the next ledge. Once on the wet cavernous ledge we tried to pull the rope down but without any luck. Climbing back up to retrieve it was nigh on impossible due to the slimy rock. Hanging on a bolt, I stared out at the mist covered hills in front of us, with thoughts of an overnight stay until someone came along. We eventually decided to both pull hard on the rope and managed to pull it down without damaging it. Somewhat relieved, we hastily continued. The pitch we had descended above was where the first ascentionist had taken a fatal fall, some years after his first ascent. The descent route (Texeira) looked a lot more interesting than our ascent route (East route). After the abseils we hiked down some wet, steep, grassy slopes with short rocky sections. We then veered left and headed back into the steep undergrowth. It was just as unpleasant descending as it had been ascending. You had to move slowly and carefully. The steep slimy rock pitches had to be down climbed holding onto fixed ropes and steel cables. It got quite tiring and a pair of gloves wouldn’t have been a bad idea. Eventually we came to the end of the undergrowth, arriving at the top of the exposed slabs. We descended with a couple of abseils and some downclimbing on the steel cables. At the bottom we took a short break, taking off harnesses and repacking. For me the hard part was over and I felt some relief. The remainder of the trail was done at a slow and careful pace. Although there was plenty of daylight left, the light in the forest was fading and it was a little dark. I don’t think you would have had to be coming down much later before a headtorch would be useful/necessary. When we finally emerged onto the road at the bottom it was 4pm on the dot. It had taken us exactly 8 hours for the round trip. We headed up the road to where it curved round to the right, hopped over the wall and had a refreshing swim in a rock pool. As I slowly waded in I picked up what I thought was a syringe but was in fact a rusty commando knife! The swim was super refreshing and the water beautifully cool. The day had been another cracker and before jumping into the car I had one long good look up at the finger, wondering when, if ever, I'd get to see it again.