The end of the year is always full of good intentions and promises for the 1st of January — well, maybe it’s better to start that project on the 2nd, who knows, even, leave the promised diet until Kings Day… But for Luiz Aragão, one of the most restless hikers in this country, the first day of 2025 will be another in the countdown that will take him, on April 10th, to travel and demarcate something around 930 kilometers from the Transmantiqueira mountain range, a gourmet wall that leaves the Cantareira park, in São Paulo, and continues to Conceição de Ibitipoca, in Minas Gerais.
Aragão’s initiative, which this year covered, in 50 days between June and July, the 740 kilometers of the so-called Transespinhaço, from Ouro Branco, in Minas Gerais, to the border of Bahia, is within the greater objective of making something viable in Brazil minimally similar to what exists in the United States — the Triple Crown trails, which include the Appalachian (3,520 kilometers), the Pacific Crest (4,260 kilometers) and the Continental Divide National Scenic (5,150 kilometers).
“The idea is to encourage the creation of our three iconic long-distance trails,” Aragão told the blog. Long-distance trails, he explains, are those that are close to or over 1,000 kilometers, preferably in one direction and without a circular route. So far, in addition to Transespinhaço and Transmantiqueira, it remains to be defined which could become the third route of the Brazilian “crown”.
There are certainly many candidates, given the exuberant nature of the national territory. But it’s not enough to be a trail, nor just to have beautiful landscapes. The basic rule of a long-distance trail is to be viable, continuous, have water supply points and basic necessities, and shelter, camp or landing areas provided in places within distances of the average adult’s walk per day. To achieve this, the consolidation of a wide network of volunteers and partners along the route is essential. But they need to know the trail exists to begin with. And, perhaps, what it means to have a trail passing by your front door.
A retired Army colonel with many thousands of kilometers walked under his belt, Aragão has already covered practically the entire route of the Transmantiqueira, but never from end to end with the specific intention of identifying and demarcating these support and landing points. And, if he made this year’s journey alone, by 2025 he hopes to have company along most of the journey.
“A person can do it for a day, a week, just one part”, he says, hoping to count on the support of volunteers who live in areas close to the official trail route, and who can help both in identifying possibilities and in contacts with the newly sworn-in mayors and secretaries of the approximately 40 municipalities covered by the tracklog (record of the geographic coordinates that must be traversed by the user, defined by GPS) and with owners of land and buildings that sprout up in this region so valued, especially around the trendy Campos do Jordão.
“We have already identified, for example, that at a certain point along the original trail a spa was built, it is private property and the owner doesn’t want anything to do with anyone passing by,” he says. “If this continues, we will have to create a new route for this area, going around the property”, he explains.
It is difficult to imagine that the Transmantiqueira will soon attract the thousands of hikers who annually follow more established paths, not only the North American ones, but also Santiago de Compostela, in Spain, and the return to Mont Blanc, which surrounds the Alpine mountain passing through France. , Italy and Switzerland, or the Inca Trail of Peru. But it would be a good start, in addition to encouraging sport in a country whose natural beauty is so varied, to convince landowners along its route that this could be an additional attraction for both their business and that of dozens of small and medium enterprises.
“If the property owner knows that a trail will run there, but that the pillars of environmental conservation, reforestation, protection of springs, planting of native species, all demarcated, will be observed, if he knows that this will happen there up, on his mountain, with the trail passing without disturbing his privacy, and he is well informed about the rules for this, I think he will want to adhere, it’s just a matter of having the appropriate approach”, assesses Aragão, with the child’s excitement waiting for Santa Claus to come.
Instead of a letter to the good old man in Lapland, Aragão set up a communication scheme on social media that is counting down weekly until the day of the start. To find out more about the project and follow its planning, with valuable tips for this and many other trails, just access the EXPED Group WhatsApp channel (https://chat.whatsapp.com/HsWJTfWkKG4A9IOQNvPHs2).
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