In this first issue: four gatherings to close the year, with the Northeast opening in October, São Paulo entering the most restricted period of the year for fire use, and a way to take part in a national movement without leaving your own region. Before all that, a word on why this bulletin now exists.
Why this bulletin was born
A fixed place for information that today gets lost in screenshots, stories and chat that scrolls away. What this bulletin commits to, and what it will never be.
Every issue starts with a simple question: what happened in Brazilian bushcraft in the last fifteen days that changes something for those who practice? This first one deserves an earlier question, which is why do this at all.
Our field's information exists, and it is good. The problem is where it lives. A national gathering date circulates as a screenshot of a screenshot until nobody knows which version is right. Fire rules change in the middle of the dry season and most people find out late, or never. Dense content, the kind that takes years in the woods to exist, becomes a story and expires in twenty four hours. WhatsApp groups, where our conversation actually happens, are a terrible archive: what passed sinks and disappears.
This is not guesswork. Before starting, we spent time looking at Brazilian bushcraft from the outside: school by school, gathering by gathering, group by group, from Gaspar to Belém. What showed up was a large, generous and active field that communicates almost entirely through video and through links that scroll away. There are dozens of channels and only two magazines in the whole country, both low frequency. Little is missing, and what is missing is simple: a place where information stays.
Do Alto is the attempt to give that a fixed place. Every fifteen days: what is marked on the Brazilian bushcraft calendar, what the season is asking attention for, and one practice to train until the next issue. In writing, with a date, in a file you can keep, reread and pass along.
Three commitments hold this up, and they are worth more than any promise of content. First, sources: every statement here was checked before becoming a line, and the sources are listed at the end of each issue. Dates and places are copied from whoever organizes, not from hearsay. Second, if a fortnight has no real news, the bulletin does not invent one: it delivers the practice and says the round was a quiet one. Third, whoever supports the bulletin does not run the agenda: the brands that walk with us appear because they have history with this movement, and what goes into each issue remains our call.
And there is one thing this bulletin will not be: an arena for controversy. The field already has people doing that. Here the measure is practice, safety and the meeting between groups.
This bulletin is made at Pico Alto, but it is not about Pico Alto. It serves whoever practices, from any group. That is why the agenda is open: if your group set a gathering, if your school opened a class, if there is a workshop or a community effort in your region, send it and it goes in. No cost and nothing expected in return. A calendar everyone can see does more for Brazilian bushcraft than any isolated group can do alone.
Four dates to close the year
October brings a gathering in the Northeast. November brings three, in three regions. Date, place, price and who will be at each one.
The second half of the Brazilian bushcraft year is set, and it turned out well served: four gatherings in four regions, each with its own size and character, all four open to whoever wants to show up.
In October, from the 16th to the 18th, comes EMCG, the Woodsmen's Gathering in Campina Grande, at Granja Terraço do Mocó, in Massaranduba, state of Paraíba. Tickets cost one hundred reais, the theme is bushcraft as a way of life, with a tribute to Nessmuk.
November concentrates three. On the 15th and 16th, Bushcraft Weekend in São Paulo, with primitive fire, blade handling, knots, shelters and a Morakniv knife included. From the 20th to the 22nd, the 11th ENGB in Rio de Janeiro, at Camping Clube Brasil. And, on a date still to be confirmed, Guilda Bushcraft, in the Cerrado, announced as the largest gathering in the Central-West.
Adding Moidu, which already happened in Rio Grande do Sul in May, and BushDay in April, the year closes with six solid gatherings spread from north to south. Not bad for a field many people still think is small.
And there is a reunion set for next year: Hupur Bushcraft, run by Humberto Costa, returns in 2027 with more structure and in a place prepared to host everyone as it deserves. Whoever has been there knows Hupur is less an event and more family in the woods, and we will be there.
11th ENGB, November 20 to 22, in Rio
Three days, more than six talks, tickets on sale and the first name already confirmed on stage.
The National Gathering of Bushcraft and Outdoor Activity Groups announced at the end of July the date and place of its 11th edition: November 20 to 22, 2026, at Camping Clube Brasil, Recreio dos Bandeirantes unit, in Rio de Janeiro. The venue has decades of tested structure, which changes the logistics for those coming from far away.
It is three days of immersion, with more than six talks, workshops and solemn moments, logistics handled by the organizers. This edition marks the gathering's eleventh year. Tickets are already on sale on the official site.
ENGB is not an event with an instructor on stage and an audience seated. It is a gathering of groups. Each group arrives with what it knows how to do, sets up its own corner, and learning happens in the circulation between tents. Whoever has been tells the same story: what stays is not the workshop, it is the conversation that started in the coffee line and ended at two in the morning with someone drawing a knot on the ground.
The first confirmed speaker is Giuliano Toniolo, the Mestre do Mato. He founded the Mestre do Mato School in 2008, which became a national reference in survival and bushcraft training, and he pioneered bushcraft on Brazilian YouTube. He has also written two books: a practical survival guide for Brazil's hostile natural environments, and another that dives into the origins of classic bushcraft, inspired by the first half of the twentieth century.
EMCG: the Northeast has a gathering in October
Three days in Paraíba, for one hundred reais, with Toniolo among the guests. And almost nobody in the Southeast knows about it.
The Woodsmen's Gathering in Campina Grande runs from October 16 to 18, at Granja Terraço do Mocó, in Massaranduba, state of Paraíba. Tickets are one hundred reais, and this edition's theme is bushcraft as a way of life, with a tribute to Nessmuk.
The workshop lineup includes Evilásio Cavalcante, Rodrigo Capitão, Fábio Góes, Ed Silva and the organizer himself, Arthur Jorge, with a special appearance by Giuliano Toniolo. Support comes from the Catarinense Bushcraft School, which gives a good measure of how this field stitches itself together from one end of the country to the other.
Arthur Jorge is one of the woodsmen we recognize here as a reference. He runs a channel with almost three thousand subscribers dedicated to bushcraft in the Northeast, with series on caatinga plants, and he wrote the book Bushcraft na Caatinga, a guide to using the biome's resources in practice.
This month's warning: fire in a restricted period
São Paulo is under a fire-use ban until November 30. What that changes in practice for anyone camping.
São Paulo has been under a fire-use ban since July 1st, and it runs until November 30, by state law. Civil Defense keeps the red phase for forest fires from June to October, when humidity drops and any carelessness becomes an incident.
On our side this does not change a single line of what we already practice, but good practice is worth restating out loud, especially in the dry season. Fire always raised, in the pot, never on the ground. Clear area around it. Water within arm's reach, not ten steps away. And nobody walks away until the embers are cold to the touch.
In a conservation unit, the rule belongs to the managing body, not to each person's common sense. Before lighting anything, including a stove, check what that area allows.
This fortnight's practice: the knot you actually use
With fire asking for restraint, cordage takes its place. Show us your knot.
While fire asks for restraint, cordage asks for nothing. This fortnight is about knots, the technique that pays off most at camp and the one most easily forgotten when it is not practiced.
Show the knot you actually use, not the prettiest one in the book. The one you tie in the dark, with cold hands, to rig a tarp, string a line, secure a load or hang a pot. A photo or short video, with the name you give it and where you use it.
Send it in our group, or post it on your own profile tagging @picoaltobushcraft with #praticadoalto. We gather everything and bring it back here as a panel, crediting whoever sent it.
Where Pico Alto comes from
Who makes this bulletin, where it came from and what holds the whole thing together.
Since this is the first bulletin, it is worth saying out loud what we are, because that explains everything that follows. Pico Alto Bushcraft is a community of people who chose to go back into the woods with intention. Not as escape, as reunion. We gather to walk, light fires, work wood with our hands, cook over flame, watch the sunrise in silence and talk like people who have time.
It is bushcraft, the art of living well in a natural environment with little. But before that, it is a way of being in the world. We live in a time that pushes everyone toward hurry, screens and consumption. Here it is the opposite: slowness is welcome, knowing how to do is worth more than being able to buy, and the bond between people is what remains when the weekend ends.
Our official base is in Morungaba, São Paulo, and there is a second base in Atibaia, in the Pedra Grande area, where the gatherings start. It was there, on Pedra Grande, that the first gathering happened, in 2025, and it is from there that the movement grew.
What holds it up are principles that are not up for negotiation. Presence above all, phones quiet and hurry left in the city. Working with your hands, because whoever makes things by hand understands with the body. Community, not audience: nobody comes to watch, everyone contributes what they know. Integrity, straight talk, no gossip. Respect for the place, no trace and no overload. And simplicity: less gear, less programming, more free time and more woods.
There is a second half that is uncommon in a bushcraft group, and it sets the tone of our gatherings: contemplation. Waking to the dawn soundscape, contemplative photography, silence as part of the programme. Hands in the earth and an attentive eye, in the same experience.