Aparados da Serra National Park
Parque Nacional de Aparados da Serra
Interesting facts
- When created in 1959 the park covered 13,000 hectares; a 1972 presidential decree cut it to its present 10,250 hectares.
- Besides Itaimbezinho, the park takes in the Fortaleza, Malacara and Índios Coroados canyons.
- In 1992 the adjoining Serra Geral National Park was created, adding about 17,300 hectares of protected canyon country next door.
- The hard basalt erodes extraordinarily slowly, at an estimated 6 metres per million years on the plateau and up to 50 metres on the escarpment.
- The lava flows belong to the Serra Geral Group, which geologists split into four formations: Torres, Vale do Sol, Palmas and Esmeralda.
- These lavas poured out during the break-up of Gondwana, when South America and Africa were pulling apart to open the Atlantic.
- At least 143 bird, 48 mammal and 39 amphibian species have been recorded in the park despite its modest size.
- Since 2022 the park has been part of the Caminhos dos Cânions do Sul UNESCO Global Geopark, which spans about 2,830 square kilometres across two states.
- The state holds title to only about two-thirds of the park's land, a long-standing obstacle to its protection.
Why it is worth it
Aparados da Serra National Park protects the edge of the great southern Brazilian plateau at the point where it simply stops. Along the border of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina, the uplands of rolling grassland and araucaria pine end in an escarpment that falls hundreds of metres to the coastal plain, and the rivers running off the plateau have cut deep, narrow canyons back into it — "aparados" refers to this cleanly trimmed edge. The park, created in 1959 and among the oldest in Brazil, is run by the federal conservation agency ICMBio.
Its centrepiece is the Itaimbezinho canyon: 5.8 km long, up to 600 m wide and as much as 720 m deep, with walls that drop almost vertically. They are built of stacked basalt flows — part of the Serra Geral volcanic formation of the Paraná–Etendeka igneous province, with layers of Botucatu sandstone between them — and the successive flows show as horizontal bands in the cliffs. Two waterfalls pour over the rim, the Véu de Noiva (Bride's Veil) and the Cachoeira das Andorinhas.
Up on the plateau the landscape is open grassland, broken by patches of araucaria forest and wet hollows; on the slopes and canyon floor the vegetation turns to dense Atlantic Forest. Maned wolves, cougars and the endangered red-spectacled amazon live on the uplands, while otters, ocelots and brown howler monkeys keep to the forested slopes. Short trails follow the rim: the Vértice trail, about 1.7 km there and back, leads to the viewpoint over the canyon head and its waterfalls, and the flat Cotovelo trail, about 6 km return, follows the edge to the canyon's elbow. The Rio do Boi trail, reached from the Santa Catarina side, goes into the canyon itself.
Getting there
The main entrance and visitor centre for Itaimbezinho are about 18 km from Cambará do Sul by unpaved road; Cambará do Sul is about 190 km from Porto Alegre. The lower side of the park is reached from Praia Grande in Santa Catarina. The nearest larger town is Torres on the coast, about 39 km away as the crow flies, and the nearest airport is Hugo Cantergiani Regional Airport in Caxias do Sul (CXJ), about 106 km away.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Aparados da Serra National Park is a national park located in the Serra Geral range of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina states in the south of Brazil, between 29º07'—29º15' S and 50º01'—50º10' W. It was created in 1959 as one of Brazil's first national parks, to protect the Itaimbezinho canyon. It extends over an area of 10,250 hectares and also includes the Fortaleza, Malacara, and Índios Coroado Canyons.
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