Marumbi group

 The Marumbi Group is considered to be the mountain with more difficult normal route of Parana state, south of Brazil. The name of the highest summit (Olimpo) of Marumbi received its name from the first man who climbed the mountain, Joaquim Olimpio Carmeliano Miranda. Marumbi Sierra is composed by the summits: Mount Olimpo (1.542 m.), Pico Boa Vista (1.491 m.), Pico do Gigante (1.487 m.), Ponta do Tigre (1.400 m.), Esfinge (1.378 m.), Torre dos Sinos (1.280 m.), Pico Abrolhos (1.200 m.), Pico Facãozinho (1.100 m.) and Morro do Rochedinho (625 m.).
Most of these peaks are separated by diabase dikes with azimuthal orientation. This applies to the separation between Abrolhos and Torre dos Sinos, called Desfiladeiro da Catedral and between Ponta do Tigres and the Esfinge, called Vale das Lágrimas. 
I’d say that could also be considered the one of the two most beautiful mountain group from the south of Brazil, it is really gorgeous, the other one been Paraná Peak group. Marumbi is also the beloved place for Waldemar Niclevicz, the most important brazilian climber, he owns a very nice house there.
That mountain group belongs to Marumbi Peak National Park, created in september 24th, 1990.

The view of the group (panorama and informational)

Getting There

    Bus: Leaving Curitiba towards Morretes by the Graciosa highway, go down in the village of Porto de Cima, after that follow the road of prainha until you reach Marumbi train station.
On foot: Leaving the Itupava trail of Quatro Barras, go down the Serra do Mar to the base of the IAP (Instituto Ambiental do Paraná) on the road of prainha until you reach Marumbi train station.
Car: Leaving Curitiba towards Morretes by the Graciosa highway, go down in the village of Porto de Cima, after that follow the road of prainha until you reach Marumbi train station, or Engenheiro Lange station. Park the car and walk from there.
Train: Leave from the railroad at Curitiba, take the train to Paranagua and get off at Marumbi station.

Don’t make a fool of yourself. They’re not high but the altitude difference and the heat (at summer time – sometime reaches 30°C) or the cold (at winter time – it can drop to –5°C) can get you tired in no time!!!

Starting point altitude: 485 meters (1.591 ft)
Mount Olimpo summit: 1.542 meters (5.059 ft)
Altitude gain: 1.057 meters (3.468 ft in 3 to 5 hours)

There’s several trails to different summits. Mostly some of them are forbidden, ask at the adm center for info before start walking. Everyone must register on the way up and on the way down check at the office. Normaly people go up at the direct frontal route to Mount Olimpo and go down after summit Pico do Gigante and Ponta do Tigre, thru the Vale das Lagrimas. The northwest route. The way up is very well marked (actually overmarked!) with iron steps, yellow and red tapes, ropes and eveything, impossible to get lost.

Red Tape

No red tapes so far expect this: DON'T forget to check in and out the mountain at the park administration center.
No fees what so ever.
Respect wildlife and the flora, take out your garbage!

History!

    On August 21, 1879, during the railway construction, Joaquim Miranda Carmeliano Olimpio, accompanied by Bento Manoel de Leon, Antonio Silva and Antonio Messiah, reached the highest point of the Marumbi, oficialy starting the mountaineering in Brazil. At the second ascent after one year, Joaquim returned to the summit accompanied by fourteen friends. Among them was Antonio Ribeiro de Macedo, who wrote detailed report on the climb and said, "Mi>to honor the name of the first explorer and by analogy to the hill that gives the Greek mythology as the place of gods, we will name this mountain Olimpo. ". That is considered to be the startin point of brazilian mountaineering, 1.879!

The original route followed by São João river valley to Pico Boa Vista and then to Olimpo. With the advent of the railroad, the trail already started from the Rochedinho to Facãozinho, Boa Vista and then Olimpo. The direct frontal trail was opened in 1.942, used today. These are the conquers of this trail: Rudolf Stamm, Ireneu Pedro Bonatto and Manfredo Kirchner.

The two main trails are Northwest and the Frontal, opened between 1938 and 1942, in the 1940s were installed chains, replaced in 1998/99 by iron steps. The current color coding and marking of trails with colored ribbons were used in 1979, maintained and improved to today.

Right by the park administration there's an old house used as museum, it's for free and you can see all that stuff in there.

Camping

Camping out there is great, but people can get really noisy. The train runs all night long but you can get used to the ground shaking hehehe

 At the Marumbi train station, right beside the railroad, there’s a camping spot good enough for about 30 tents. No fees at all. There’s bathrooms with hot water and even a museum! There’s a brazilian mountaineering club called CPM (just ask for that and everyone knows), there’s a small place at the Sierra that belongs to the club, R$ 20,00 to sleep, no reservation needed. Just drop by and have a glass of wine!

Legal Issues

To hike/ climb is a dangerous activity and requires proper equipment and clothing, the owner of this page cannot be blamed by injuries caused to anyone who read this page for its info about the mountain, and eventually got hurt by doing so with reckless behaviour or bad weather conditions.

Paulo Roberto Felipe Schmidt – AKA: PAROFES

External Links

My youtube channel: www.youtube.com/parofes - Now with 270+ videos online!

The biggest brazilian website about climbing and mountaineering, for which I'm a columnist:

Images

View Marumbi group Image Gallery - 17 Images