About Cascata da Baia do Raposo
Cascata da Baia do Raposo is an elusive waterfall that we certainly had to earn our sighting of it for.
For starters, it sat tucked in a rather hidden ravine facing the less developed north side of the island of Santa Maria, which was the southernmost of the Azorean Islands.
According to my topo map, the Ribeira do Engenho fell in multiple disjoint drops and probably had a height of about 100m in total.
The upper tiers of Cascata da Baia do Raposo was both tall and wispy, but its lower tiers had a shorter but more voluminous appearance.
Like with other waterfalls on Ilha Santa Maria, the flow of its creek is fickle due to Ilha Santa Maria being one of the driest islands of the Azores.
Of course, that was how we experienced it on our late June 2024 visit so your experience could be better or worse depending on your timing.
Speaking of which, I suspect that for the best waterflow, you’ll want to time your visit for the Spring, but that does come with a caveat.
Indeed, the trail could be more muddy and more slippery in its lower parts while the creek crossing at the rocky beach of Baia do Raposo could be more swollen.
We’ll get into these details in the trail description below, but realize that what kind of experience you get with the Cascata da Baia do Raposo heavily depends on timing and luck.
How We Experienced Cascata da Baia do Raposo
We started off our hike near the hamlet of Feteiras de Baixo, where there was apparently some informal parking space near a turnoff leading deeper towards the Ilha a Pé Raposo and the Baia do Raposo itself.
I don’t know if you’re supposed to walk the stretch from Feteiras de Baixo to the actual trailhead for Baia do Raposo, but we actually drove the very narrow single-lane road closer to the ranch at Ilha a Pé Raposo (see directions below).
From there, we then followed a signed path (following Trail 103 as well as signs pointing the way to Baia do Raposo), which weaved around some private ranches before starting to hug sea cliffs.
Along the way, we kept right at the trail forks (as the paths going left continued a circular island hiking route going above the waterfall and beyond).
Eventually after about 350m from the start of the trail near Ilha a Pé Raposo, we reached another trail fork.
Here, there was a steep path going directly down to the left as well as a gentler path to the right eventually getting to the same spot further below.
I believe the path on the left is best taken on the way back up because going down steep and unstable terrain like this is much more difficult and more prone to trail erosion (as well as a bad slip-and-tumble).
According to my GPS logs, the steep 100m shortcut only took off about 125m of distance so it’s probably not worth it going down (though perfectly reasonable coming back up).
Continuing down the steeply descending switchbacking trail (realizing that all this elevation loss had to be gained back on the return hike), we’d eventually reach the rocky beach at Baia do Raposo after about 500m.
Along the way, I managed to get some teasing glimpses of the upper tiers of the Cascata da Baia do Raposo, which actually discouraged my wife and daughter from continuing due to its light-flowing nature.
But I also knew that to get the full experience with this waterfall, I had to get all the way to the waterfall’s base.
As the terrain became steeper towards the bottom, there was also a bit of mud making for rather precarious footing, and it made me glad that I was wearing legitimate Gore-tex hiking boots for that stretch.
Trekking poles might also help with some of the precarious footing, especially in that steep muddy stretch towards the last 100m or so.
Once at the bottom, I then had to find my way across the Ribeira do Engenho Creek before finding a hard-to-find faint trail that went among some of the retaining walls or grazing walls uphill off the right side of the creek.
Then, it was a matter of scrambling along these faint trails of use to finally get to an outcrop overlooking the plunge pool and the bottommost tier of the Cascata da Baia do Raposo.
I didn’t scrambling all the way down to the plunge pool (as that would require more sketchy scrambling to get down there).
However, the benefit of doing that would essentially be having a swimming hole pretty much all to yourself given the effort required to come all the way down here.
Overall, I wound up spending about 2 hours away from the car, but a good chunk of that time (maybe at least 30 minutes of it) was spent route-finding alongside the Ribeira do Engenho Creek.
Authorities
Cascata da Baia do Raposo is located on the island of Santa Maria of the Azores Autonomous Region of Portugal. It is managed by the Municipality of Vila do Porto. For information or inquiries about the area as well as current conditions, you can try visiting the official Azores tourism website.
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