Mount Pico
Montanha do Pico
Interesting facts
- Measured from the surrounding abyssal seafloor, the volcano rises nearly 5,000 m, with almost half of its bulk hidden beneath the Atlantic.
- The nearest higher summit is Roque de los Muchachos on La Palma in the Canary Islands, about 1,450 km away.
- Its topographic prominence equals its full 2,351 m height, which makes it one of Europe's ultra-prominent peaks.
- A rare plant, Silene vulgaris cratericola, grows only on this mountain and only above about 2,200 m.
- All of Pico's historical eruptions broke out from vents on its flanks rather than from the summit crater.
- Vents at Piquinho continuously release water vapour at 50 to 75 °C, and a carbon dioxide-rich spring rises at Silveira near the mountain's southern base.
- On 29 September 2009 a plume from the summit fumarole was seen across the island and from Faial, though monitors found no abnormal volcanic gas.
- The volcano sits on a narrow tectonic trench, whose western end it completely buried within the last 10,000 years.
- The summit observatory studies how air pollution from North America and Europe affects the atmosphere over the North Atlantic.
Why it is worth it
Rising straight out of the Atlantic to 2,351 metres, Mount Pico is the highest point of Portugal and stands more than twice as tall as any other summit in the Azores. Its near-perfect cone fills the skyline of the island that shares its name and dominates the views from the neighbouring island of Faial across a narrow channel.
Pico is a young stratovolcano, built up within the last 230,000 years, and part of its slopes are younger still. At the top lies Pico Alto, a crater about 500 metres across and 30 metres deep, from which a small secondary cone, Piquinho or Pico Pequeno, climbs another 70 metres to form the true summit. The volcano is dormant rather than extinct: in historical times flank eruptions sent lava flows down to the sea in 1562–1564, 1718 and from July to December 1720, and gas still escapes near the summit. Since 1972 the upper mountain has been protected as a nature reserve covering about 13.4 km², and an atmospheric observatory has operated at 2,225 metres since 1998.
The island around the mountain, the second largest in the Azores, takes its character from the volcano. Its dark lava soils earned it the nickname "Black Island", and on the western coast generations of growers built a dense grid of dry-stone walls, known as currais, to shelter vines from wind and salt; this vineyard landscape was inscribed by UNESCO in 2004. Until 1986 Pico was also a centre of open-boat sperm-whale hunting, and its former whale factory has become a museum. The ascent of the mountain is a steep scramble over volcanic rock, rewarded at the top by views across the central group of the archipelago.
Getting there
The mountain stands in the centre-west of Pico Island in the Azores. The nearest town is Madalena, the island's main port, about 13 km from the summit in a straight line; ferries link Madalena with Horta on Faial, roughly 7 km across the channel. The nearest airport is Pico Airport (PIX), about 10 km away.
Plan your visit
We have no confirmed visit data yet. Once it is confirmed, this block also carries the date it was checked.
Nearby places
- Pico Island Vineyards 13.3 km · vineyard-landscape
- Fajã dos Cubres 21.3 km · lagoon
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Mount Pico is a currently dormant stratovolcano located on Pico Island, in the mid-Atlantic archipelago of the Azores. It is the highest mountain in Portugal, at 2,351 metres (7,713 ft) above sea level, and is one of the highest Atlantic mountains; it is more than twice the elevation of any other peak in the Azores. It has been a designated nature reserve since 1972.
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