Pico da Neblina
— the highest mountain in Brazil, almost always under cloud.
Not only on a wall.
“The highest mountain in Brazil at 2,995 metres, on the Serra do Imeri ridge that marks the Venezuelan border in the far northwest of Amazonas state. The name means misty peak, and the summit lies under cloud most days of the year. The mountain stands inside Pico da Neblina National Park and on the Yanomami Indigenous Land. Access is by permit, in small groups, with Yanomami guides from the village of Maturaca.
Pico da Neblina, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Pico da Neblina rises to 2,995.30 metres on the Brazil-Venezuela border, the highest summit in Brazil. It stands on the Serra do Imeri, a remote section of the Guiana Highlands within Amazonas state, about 700 kilometres northwest of Manaus. The peak was identified as Brazil's highest only in 1965, after a Brazilian Army survey corrected earlier estimates that had given the title to Pico da Bandeira. It lies inside the 22,000-square-kilometre Pico da Neblina National Park, established in 1979, and within the Yanomami Indigenous Land formally demarcated in 1992.
The summit takes its name from the near-constant cloud that wraps the upper ridge; clear visibility from the top is rare, sometimes once in a week of waiting. The mountain stands inside a high cloud-forest belt rich in carnivorous bromeliads, mosses, and endemic frogs of the genus Pristimantis. Annual rainfall on the upper slopes exceeds 4,000 millimetres. The trail from the Yanomami village of Maturaca climbs through tropical rainforest, white-sand campina, and dense cloud-forest into the stunted vegetation that hugs the final granite buttress near the summit.
Visits reopened in 2019 after a long closure, on terms set by the Yanomami community of Maturaca. Groups of up to twelve climbers, accompanied by Yanomami guides and porters, depart from Sao Gabriel da Cachoeira on the upper Rio Negro. The full round trip takes about eight to ten days. A fee paid to the community supports schooling, healthcare, and the territorial defence of the Indigenous Land. The closed seasons are tied to the Yanomami ritual calendar, and the army post at the trailhead enforces the permit count.