Traversing

This weekend I went on a climb called Passagem dos Olhos (translated, would be Passage of the Eyes) a classic climb on one of my favorite mountains in Rio, Pedra da Gavea. The climb goes through a face in the mountain known as Head of the Emperor - well, because it looks like a pointy head I guess, with two big caves that look like eyes from a distance. In this climb, you go under the left eye and then finish up inside the right eye (a badass huge cave) then there is a cable sideways and downwards from there.

The climb is easy, beautiful, but very much in the air and traverses scare the crap out of me. Its so much easier to lead this climb than to second it. My friend and I lead different parts, but in many parts the climb sort of goes down, so although leading you actually feel kind of on top rope...

To get to the climb you hike 1.5 hours up the steep normal trail to get to the summit of Pedra da Gavea, then veer left once you see this face. Pretty easy to find, and it was the first time up there for both of us. We took some time in the shade trying to figure out if we waited, if the climb would get more in the shade or not... we ended up climbing at the worst time (11am) but the sun, when climbing, actually didnt feel as bad as in the trail (it was close to 90 and a gzillion humidity that day).

The summit of Pedra da Gavea is really look - its HUGE, super wide, like 4 soccer fields or something.