Location: North 39.41247, West 031.20041 (GPS on the summit)
Difficulty: YDS class 2
Climbed: July 25. 2014
Information:
Here is a quick summary of my climbs in the Azores islands.
How to get there:
The easiest access from Santa Cruz das Flores is to drive the main Hwy. that crosses to the west part
of the island, then turn left on the smaller road that runs south on the east side of
Marcela. Locate the road fork and saddle at location N39.41850, W31.20741, elevation about 600 meter.
Continue left at this fork and drive quite high on the mountain. Find parking along the road.
Route description:
Go straight uphill and enter a rather large and fairly
flat summit plateau.
Locate the highest point. I visited two locations that seemed about equal in
elevation.
Comments:
I started out from our hotel in Santa Cruz with the objective to
climb Pico da Se, 722m, or Marcela at 776 meter. I first drove
up the main Hwy. that crosses the island, then turned right at the first
side-road. It had a sign that included Pico da Se. This road was a bit
flooded by all the recent rain and by the time I crossed a river near the top
of a waterfall,
the road could not be driven any further. This was 2 kilometer
from the main Hwy. (See this map link.)
I continued by foot. The road really ended here, some ditches filled with water continued.
Dense fog and no visibility, it soon became clear that there was no point even trying to
locate Pico da Se, much less attempt to climb it.
I returned to my car and drove to the main saddle
just south-east of Marcela.
Next, I made a serious attempt to climb Marcela.
However, I ran into complicated vegetation in
combination with very deep trenches. No easy way to proceed uphill in this area. Higher up,
the terrain/vegatation looked more friendly. I returned to my car while looking across
the saddle at the peak to south-east. It had a road
going quite high curving around on its
right side as viewed from Marcela. I decided to head over there.
This climb turned out to be straightforward. The moss was really soft and caused me to
use more energy than expected, but otherwise this little climb was uneventful.
