Cerro Autana
Interesting facts
- A Venezuelan pilot, Jaime Marull, is reported to have flown an ultralight aircraft straight through the mountain's cave, a stunt apparently never repeated.
- A new mineral, sveite, was first described from the main cave and named after the Venezuelan Speleological Society, whose members collected the first samples.
- The frog Stefania breweri is known only from the summit of Autana, and only from a single specimen collected in 1971.
- The first ascent in 1974 followed the 600-metre North Ridge over three days, after which the climbers spent four more days mapping the caves before abseiling down.
- The great cave has a second opening on the far wall, so narrow that it cannot be made out from the foot of the mountain.
- In 1985 a team of skydivers made tandem parachute jumps onto the summit and turned the feat into a documentary film.
- The first Europeans in the region were Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland in 1800; Richard Spruce and Alfred Russel Wallace collected plants here in the 1850s.
- The flat summit is mostly open, savanna-like vegetation, with patches of stunted forest only 2.5 to 10 metres tall along its edges, while bromeliads cling to the walls.
- According to Piaroa legend, the god Wahari's nephew took the form of a paca, a large rodent, and gnawed through the trunk of the world tree until it fell.
- According to the same legend, the payara fish that bored through the mountain finally leapt free into the Umaj-Ajé River, giving the great cave its name, the Payara Inlet.
Why it is worth it
Cerro Autana looks like the stump of a colossal tree left standing in the rainforest — and that is exactly what the Piaroa people who live around it say it is. Rising sheer from the lowland jungle of Venezuela's Amazonas state, near the Colombian border, this sandstone tower tops out at roughly 1,200 metres, with vertical walls on every side. It is one of the most striking silhouettes among the tepuis, the sandstone table mountains of northern South America, and it stands alone above the green canopy and the rivers that wind through it.
In Piaroa tradition Autana is the remnant of the sacred tree of the fruits of the world. The story tells of a god and his nephew who cut the tree down to take all its fruit at once; the fallen branches shaped the surrounding landscape, and what remained became the mountain. The caves inside it are explained too — made, it is said, by a trapped payara fish striking the stump. The mountain is held sacred, and in 1978 Venezuela declared it a natural monument covering about 91 square kilometres.
The legend points at the mountain's real wonder: Autana is pierced from side to side by a cave. High on the tower a vast chamber with a domed ceiling opens through both cliff faces; the western opening is described as some 400 metres wide and more than 100 metres high. That such a cave exists at all is remarkable — it is formed in quartzite and sandstone rather than the limestone where caves usually develop, and it ranks among the largest known caves inside a tepui. Charles Brewer-Carías and David Nott were set down by helicopter to explore it in 1970, and the first climb of the mountain followed in 1974.
Most visitors never touch the rock. The experience of Autana is the approach by river through Piaroa country, past beaches and rock formations, and then the first sight of the tower rising out of the forest.
Getting there
Puerto Ayacucho, the capital of Amazonas state on the Orinoco, is the starting point, about 90 km from the mountain in a straight line; it has a domestic airport, Cacique Aramare (PYH), with flights to Caracas. The nearest airport by distance is Obando Cesar Gaviria Trujillo Airport (PDA) at Puerto Inírida in Colombia, about 120 km away. Organised trips drive from Puerto Ayacucho to the river port of Samariapo and continue by covered dugout boat up the Orinoco, the Sipapo and the Autana rivers — about five hours on the water.
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From the encyclopaedia
Cerro Autana is a geological formation located at the western portion of the Guiana Shield in the Estado Amazonas, Venezuela near the Colombian border. It is characterized by a narrow base, a flat top, and almost vertical walls. Its top is at approximately 1,220 metres (4,000 ft). It belongs to the formations known as tepuis which are characteristic flat-top mountains of the Guiana Shield. Cerro Autana (Wahari-Kuawai) plays the role of the "tree of life" in the oral history and lore of the Piaroa Indians who inhabit the region.
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