Sugarloaf Mountain: Take the Cable Car, Lose the Will to Live

Rio de Janeiro has apparently never met a mountain it couldn’t turn into a massively overcrowded tourist attraction.

Sugarloaf Mountain rises 396 meters over Rio’s harbor, providing one of the best views of the city, Guanabara Bay, Copacabana, the Atlantic Ocean and the surrounding mountains.

Naturally, millions of people have reached the same conclusion.

So if you’re coming to Sugarloaf Mountain expecting some peaceful mountaintop experience where you quietly contemplate the majesty of Brazil while a gentle breeze blows through your hair, I have some unfortunate news.

Everyone else is coming too.

Lots of them.

And somehow every single one arrives approximately four minutes before you.

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Destination: SugarloaF Mountain

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I COULD HAVE WALKED. I CHOSE LIFE INSTEAD.

Technically, there are ways to hike your way toward the top of Sugarloaf.

Wonderful.

I’m sure that’s very rewarding for people who enjoy stairs, sweating through their underwear and turning perfectly good vacations into unsolicited cardio.

I looked upward at what appeared to be roughly 97 million fucking stairs, considered my options for approximately three seconds and chose modern engineering.

Cable car.

This wasn’t surrender.

This was efficiency.

I’ve done plenty of stupid climbing around the world when the payoff justified the suffering. Fagradalsfjall Volcano made me sweat approximately 73 percent of the water out of my body for a view of an erupting volcano that was absolutely worth it. Tumpak Sewu involved descending into what feels like Earth’s wet, slippery basement.

Sometimes suffering is part of the adventure.

Sugarloaf has a cable car.

I’m not an idiot.

Well, not that kind of idiot.

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UNFORTUNATELY, EVERYONE ELSE DISCOVERED THE CABLE CAR

Here’s the downside to making the intelligent decision.

Everyone else made it too.

The Sugarloaf cable car system carries you from Praia Vermelha to Morro da Urca and then onward to Sugarloaf itself.

Theoretically, this sounds fantastic.

You step into a glass cable car, gracefully float above Rio and arrive at the summit without requiring emergency hydration or reconstructive knee surgery.

In reality, there’s another important step.

You wait.

And wait.

And move approximately eleven feet.

Then wait some more.

The popularity of Sugarloaf is fucking overwhelming.

There were tour groups. Families. Couples. Children. Selfie sticks. People apparently conducting complete photoshoots while standing in places everyone else needed to walk through.

Basically, the entire United Nations of tourism had assembled to ride a cable car.

At some point you begin questioning whether walking those 97 million stairs might actually have been faster.

Then the doors finally open.

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OKAY, THE CABLE CAR IS PRETTY FUCKING COOL

This is where Sugarloaf starts apologizing.

Because once that cable car leaves the station and Rio begins dropping away underneath you, the previous hour of standing around suddenly becomes slightly less offensive.

The views are fan-fucking-tastic.

Rio is one of those cities that makes dramatically more sense from above.

At street level, it’s traffic, buildings, beaches, mountains and people all mashed together into one enormous tropical city.

Get a few hundred meters above it and suddenly everything clicks.

The coastline wraps around impossibly blue water. Mountains punch straight through the city. Beaches stretch around the bays. Buildings fill practically every available patch of flat land.

And across the city, perched on Corcovado Mountain, you can spot Christ the Redeemer doing what Jesus apparently does best in Rio: Watching millions of tourists make questionable decisions.

I visited Christ the Redeemer too, and that place has its own industrial-scale tourist population. Between Corcovado and Sugarloaf, Rio has basically perfected the art of putting spectacular viewpoints in places where everyone on Earth wants to stand simultaneously.

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WAIT. THIS IS THE TOP?

The weirdest thing about finally reaching Sugarloaf Mountain is discovering just how small the summit actually feels.

From below, Sugarloaf looks enormous.

It’s this gigantic granite monolith towering over Rio.

Then you arrive at the top and realize the actual tourist area is basically a very expensive observation deck attached to a mountain.

You can walk around the summit remarkably quickly.

I timed it scientifically using the highly respected international measurement known as “how long until I’ve basically seen everything?”

About four minutes.

Maybe five.

That’s assuming the other assholes up there actually let you pass.

Because while the mountain itself is 396 meters tall, the usable summit area isn’t some enormous alpine wilderness where you’re going hiking for hours.

You’re here for one thing.

The view.

And holy shit, what a view.

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BASICALLY A 360-DEGREE PHOTOGRAPHY PLATFORM

Sugarloaf isn’t really an attraction where you do much.

You look at Rio.

Then you move fifteen feet.

And look at Rio from a slightly different angle.

Then you take 37 photographs.

Move another fifteen feet.

Take 48 more.

Repeat until your memory card files a workers’ compensation claim.

But that’s exactly why Sugarloaf is worth visiting.

From the top, you’ve got a nearly 360-degree vantage point across one of the most photogenic cities on Earth.

Copacabana spreads along the coastline.

Guanabara Bay stretches out below.

Downtown Rio fills the distance.

Mountains rise behind neighborhoods that somehow squeezed themselves into every available valley.

Planes descend toward Santos Dumont Airport looking like they’re about to land directly in the ocean.

And Christ the Redeemer sits across the city on Corcovado, providing yet another reminder that Rio’s city planners apparently decided flat land was boring.

As a photographer, this is the entire reason I came.

I wasn’t here for coconut water.

I wasn’t here to discover the spiritual significance of granite.

I wanted the fucking view.

Sugarloaf delivered.

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RIO LOOKS RIDICULOUS FROM UP HERE

There’s something almost unfair about Rio’s geography.

Most cities get a river.

Maybe a nice coastline.

Perhaps some mountains nearby if they’re lucky.

Rio apparently checked ALL OF THE ABOVE on the geographic character-creation screen.

Mountains erupt directly out of the city.

The Atlantic wraps around enormous beaches.

Tiny islands scatter across the water.

Dense neighborhoods climb hillsides.

And the whole thing looks like somebody designed a city specifically to sell postcards.

It’s the same reason Christ the Redeemer is worth fighting through its own army of selfie-stick zombies.

You’re technically visiting an attraction.

But the attraction isn’t really the statue or the mountain.

It’s Rio.

You’re just paying for somewhere tall enough to properly look at it.

I’ve visited plenty of famous places where the destination itself takes about 43 seconds to understand. The Chocolate Hills is essentially a just a viewing platform where you take a picture of a bunch of little brown round montain thingies and then go find something more interesting.

Sugarloaf could easily fall into that category.

Except the view saves it.

Spectacularly.

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GREAT. NOW HOW THE FUCK DO WE GET DOWN?

Eventually you’ve photographed Rio from every conceivable angle.

You’ve completed your four-minute ceremonial lap around the summit.

You’ve stared toward Copacabana.

You’ve photographed Christ the Redeemer.

You’ve zoomed in on boats.

You’ve zoomed out on mountains.

You’ve taken the same panorama six times because maybe this one is slightly better.

You’re done.

Time to leave.

So you casually walk toward the cable car station and discover something wonderful.

A 90-minute line.

Because apparently everyone who rode the cable car up Sugarloaf eventually wants to ride it back down.

Who could have predicted this logistical nightmare?

Now you’re trapped on top of a mountain with several hundred of your newest enemies.

So you stand there.

And stand there.

Move six feet.

Stand there.

Check your phone.

Stand there.

Look at the cable car.

Stand there.

Take another photograph you absolutely don’t need.

Stand there.

Eventually your brain begins exploring alternative transportation methods.

Could I walk down?

Probably.

Do I want to?

Absolutely fucking not.

Could I somehow fashion my shirt into a makeshift parachute?

Technically fabric is involved in both shirts and parachutes.

That’s promising.

Could I casually freefall toward Copacabana and dramatically land on the beach?

Physics probably has some objections.

After another twenty minutes in line, however, physics starts sounding unnecessarily negative.

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THE MOST BEAUTIFUL PLACE I’VE EVER BEEN TRAPPED

That’s the Sugarloaf Mountain experience.

The views are incredible.

The cable car is cool.

The photography is spectacular.

The summit takes approximately four minutes to explore.

And you’ll potentially spend more time waiting to leave the mountain than actually enjoying the mountain.

Would I still go?

Absolutely.

Because some tourist attractions are popular because somebody successfully marketed the shit out of something mediocre.

Sugarloaf Mountain is popular because the view really is that fucking good.

There’s no secret temple hiding at the summit.

No sprawling hiking complex.

No mysterious attraction around the corner.

You’re riding a cable car up a giant granite rock so you can stand on top and look at Rio.

That’s it.

And sometimes that’s enough.

Just bring your camera.

Bring some patience.

And maybe wear a really, really large shirt.

You know.

Just in case the cable car line gets any longer.