While UKClimbing Logbook Crag Finder has served me well for locating climbing opportunities on a number of occasions, it is still a limited service (as are many online climbing resources, ClimbinBaška and SLOUPPI the very welcome exceptions to the rule). So I hope what you find below will be of some use to anyone who decides to go on vacation or a business trip to Tenerife, but also do some climbing when the opportunity presents itself.

When researching what to do on the island on the off days, I managed to discover there’s also a lot of climbing potential so we decided to take some gear with us. Might as well make the most of the opportunity. But however minimal the gear might be, it is still never lightweight, so we rationalized to include the following:

• 60m rope + bag
• 10 quick-draws
• 1 ATC
• 2 dyneema slings
• 3 carabiners
• 2 harnesses (used by 4 people)
• 3 pairs of shoes (again, used by all 4)
• chalk bag
• some tape

That in itself will fill a decent sized backpack and make the Ryanair gate agents happy to charge for extra weight so we divvied up and it worked. But that rope was still a pain to stuff…

Without any doubt UKClimbing is my favorite crag finder whenever venturing into the unknown. I love the geolocation based service but crag descriptions leave a lot to imagination. However, in some places just knowing the location might be good enough if you combine it with another location based service… Google Street View! It has helped me in Corsica and it worked in Tenerife. Well, at least partially. Park at a switchback 2.2km out of Cruz de Tea suddenly sounds much better if you can preview the description in Street View… when you have that much information available. If not then the only way is to find some road that gets you nearby the marked location and go from there. You can always ask… (not that it helped much as the grandpas we met couldn’t understand us and I barely understood them) :)

I was never hung up on route topos, grades, beta etc. so the location and the approximate number of routes available is really the only information I want to have. I climb whatever looks nice from below and that’s good enough. At least on vacation or a first visit. Obviously access notes and the aforementioned information is always welcome but not crucial for my choice. It’s fun to explore! :)

UKClimbing and Rockfax mention several times that the place to get climbing information is Tenerife Outdoor in Granadilla (and now also in La Laguna). As it turned out their opening times didn’t coincide with out timeline so we only managed to visit them on one of our final days on the island. But the visit was nevertheless very helpful as they let us take some photos of the guidebook and we were able to find and climb some previously unknown crags.

The best surprise was that the lovely La Martella canyon, one we somehow managed to find just by following parking information, isn’t mentioned in any of the guidebooks. The guys at TO will be more than happy to provide the unpublished topo of this secret gem.

Without venturing too much into guidebook publishing territory I thought I’d assemble some basic information for the areas visited (and some that we didn’t). It has to be said though that it’s probably best if you purchase or borrow a guidebook. It will save you some time and potential problems. But as we were just as happy to explore the canyons for several hours and finding just about nothing climbable with minimal gear it wasn’t a problem for us. It just added an element of surprise and pleasure of exploration. So for those like us, here’s a map to get you started:

And to end this, a slideshow…

Hardest route done?
Plezanje pika kom in Šoder graben, supposed to be 6a+, I’d give it 6c at least.
Second place goes to an attempt at first pitch of Schanigarten (VII) in Kugelstein that I mistakenly though it was the first pitch of Ameisenriss (IV). You would think I’d soon figure out something was wrong :) I did, but I still wanted to go all the way. Had to give up 2m from the anchor after a swinging fall.

Longest?
Steber in Vipava, IV+/III, 160m

Most enjoyable?
Impossible to say. I’m somehow partial to easygoing multi pitch routes but there were quite a few nice 6a/b overhangs in Trenta, Martianez and Vistamar that I liked.

A map:

View Climbing 2011 in a larger map

And a slideshow

They (whoever they may be) say most things don’t go according to plan. That’s why I never really had one grand master plan and that’s just how I like it. But still, I did not expect that one consequence of leaving to work on Ikaria island would be a honeymoon on another Mediterranean island 3 years later. Nassim Nicholas Taleb would call it a black swan event…

Ikaria and Corsica share many things (if not the popularity) and it would be hard to decide which one is better. One thing is undisputed though… Corsica has some pretty terrible tasting honey and that alone knocks off many points on my scale. We went shopping and got 4 different honeys and so far 2 have proven to be almost inedibly bitter. 1 was OK (miel de miellat) and 1 is yet unopened. Since then I found both of the horrible ones online but I won’t single out the producers. I have too much respect and admiration for beekeepers and their products. I presume it’s the maquis flowers in the specific area where bees were collecting since the taste is horrible. I know some honeys have a very strong, distinctive taste, some are quite bitter, but these two are in their own league. All I will share is that one is a spring, the other an autumn honey (miel de maquis de printemps and miel de maquis d’automne) with no specific source plant identified. It definitely wasn’t sage, lavender or rosemary (which can result in some awesome honey).

One common “problem” of Mediterranean spring time, so familiar from Ikaria, that I hoped we’d manage to avoid this time around, was rain. And lots of it. Simply put we were there 2 weeks too early. Our last days were the first days of summer. Which ruled out many ideas of running around in the mountains. We were only allowed a few brief glimpses at the alpine, snow covered playground. It would have been fine if we had a decent alternative for grey days such as surfing or kayaking.

Just as well I guess… after an ankle injury on day 4 or 5 I couldn’t rock climb worth a damn, but I also couldn’t scuba dive any more. At least I squeezed in two dives at Calvi & Porto before the injury. Both sides of Scandola nature reserve proved marine reserves can do wonders for neighboring areas with marine life spreading out and benefiting everyone. It was the first time I saw groupers and they were everywhere. The topography was nice as well, add a decent wreck or two and it would have been perfect.

We did pull off a few climbs though. We spent two days in Foret de Bonifatu close to Calvi, climbing on bolted granite (or some similar rock) routes of secteur Figarella which is conveniently located an easy 10min walk and a jump across the river from the spacious parking lot.

As we were already a bit late we did first two pitches on Passe à l’ombre (4+, 5), then decided we have some more time so we went for the first three pitches of Les Oignons Grognons (5+, 4, 5+). At this point we really did run out of light so we crossed on a ledge back towards Passe à l’ombre believing we were on the exit ledge (see topo). You can buy Falaises de Corse topo guide, but the updates are online for free. Anyway, it turned out we were just below the correct ledge and eventually couldn’t go forward any more. We then abseiled one pitch on a bolt of Passe à l’ombre leaving a carabiner behind.

We liked the rock and the general area so we decided to come back the next day after diving and clean the route. But we were late again so we left the last 6a pitch for some other time and came down on the real exit ledge after 5 pitches (4+, 5, 6a+/A0, 6a, 3). At first we were a bit concerned about the grades but after practically walking up the first two pitches it was clear the grades are a bit inflated compared to what we’re used to. At least if you’re comfortable trusting your shoes have enough grip. There’s hardly anything to hold but you don’t really need it as long as you do the correct footwork. The 6a+/A0 pitch had one crux move where pulling on the quickdraw was the only solution we could come up with but was otherwise very easy. As was the next 6a. So all in all I’d say that particular sector could easily drop one grade.

Corsica is a great destination, if you time it right and have some alternatives, as the weather can change dramatically around different parts of the island. But that’s just what makes it so interesting.