Opinion – É Logo Ali: Pablo Marçal, or the praise of irresponsibility

The purpose of this blog, which debuted on Friday (7), is to talk to the reader once a week. But there will always be exceptions – for better or for worse. In the case, today, for the bad.

No lover of trails, mountains and nature can miss the insanity of the group of 67 followers of a citizen named Pablo Marçal, who decided to climb Pico dos Marins, in Piquete (SP).

A self-styled coach and messianic influencer, with more than 2 million followers on Instagram, Marçal ignored all the safety rules and the warnings of expert guides in the region to take an inexperienced group of people full of goodwill (but no knowledge of mountaineering) to 2,420 meters above the sea. Worse: under heavy rains and with strong winds that tore the tents of the few who managed to reach the top.

Marçal’s motivational scenes and phrases for those who reached the top with him are enough to give the most layman of beginners goosebumps. With tents torn apart and the wind almost knocking down the remaining ones, you can see the flames of a stove fanned by the wind, threatening to burn the precarious walls in which the elect were huddled. The rags were left behind, says Marçal himself, who adds that Sherpas would be hired to collect what was left of the improvised and poorly rigged camp.

Sherpas are the guides who accompany every expedition to the Himalayan Mountains. There is no news of any contact Marçal with the brave Asian climbers and, sought by the report, the “coach” did not return the contacts until the closing of this text. In any case, the golden rule of mountaineering is never to leave rubbish behind. You take back everything you carried on the trail. Or you already hire whoever will follow to do the dirty work for you. Yes, there are those who make a living from it.

At another point in the video, amid biblical quotes and improvised prayers, Marçal insists that the will can do anything and that, tied together, with the skill that, he invokes, “the Lord gives us”, they can reach the top. , against all recommendations. With no visibility and a high risk of slipping on a trail that firefighters only recommend taking in dry seasons, a ready recipe for everyone to plummet downhill. The Lord certainly had a full day to protect so many unwary.

Of the original group, 32 people needed to be rescued by firefighters at dawn and 28 had the good sense to give up the endeavor in time. To these, as shown in the video that Marçal himself published on YouTube, he challenged “Don’t you trust God?”, while reason led a woman to respond that she trusted God, but had children at home to take care of. Wisely, it appears that she abandoned the enterprise.

The case mobilized the mountaineering community across the country, which circulated the manifesto below on social media, using the hashtag #pablomarcalrespeiteamontanha.

Mountaineering is much more than a sport, it is a philosophy that we take as a lifestyle because it represents values ​​and dedication.

Brazilian mountaineers are committed to defending the culture of the activity, protecting the environment and we are committed to carrying out actions to raise awareness of a safe, responsible practice with minimal impacts. Proposing reflection on how this will affect not only itself but also the global nature of which we are a part.

With this perception and astonished, we came to the public to repudiate the activity widely publicized on social media by Pablo Marçal at the event that brought together 67 people at risk on the Pico do Marins trail at an altitude of 2421m, one of the highest in the Serra da Mantiqueira.

Promoted by Coach, the event was held against the grain of the culture of mountaineering and good practices, leaving no room for what happened to be seen as normal and acceptable.

We want participants in outdoor activities to develop a holistic and collective view of the world. Everything is interconnected! Drawing a line of coherence between their attitudes, which aims to frequent these places and present a more positive behavior.

Thus reestablishing a new connection with the natural environment and treating it as what it is: our home.

We demand from Pablo an immediate retraction in the face of what happened, disclosed by himself, regarding the stimulus to risk situations to which he publicly promoted and immediately comply with the necessary security measures and limitation of the number of participants for possible future events.

Therefore, in addition to the safety of the participants, the preservation of the environment that shelters endemic species and with a high flow of visitors does not have enough time to recover, making it necessary to establish a less aggressive conduct.

#pablomarcalrespeiteamontanha

#mountaineering

#trekking

#trekkingbrasil

#ecotourism

#Adventure trip