My Final Hike - Summit of Roque de Los Almendros in Tenerife

Watch Video onYoutube

Hiking in Tenerife video - Montaña Colorada

As I start the countdown to the resumption of my LEJOG walk next month, I have been out hiking in the hills of my home island of Tenerife to keep my fitness levels up in preparation for the hike. This recent walk started just below the 7,000ft asl mark from the Las Lajas recreation and camping area, on the road to the Teide National Park. The route initially followed a marked trail to the town of Adeje as it headed for Montaña Colorada. The next landmark on the route was the ruins of the Casa de Teresme, where I paused for a break as the cloud slowly began building up. I then crossed a number of barrancos (ravines) and in the first of these, I passed the Galeria El Rosario (water mine) before climbing steeply out and heading towards Alto de Chimoche. After crossing the Barranco del Agua and Barranco del Rey, I descended via Guayero to Ifonche before finishing in the town of Arona. The whole walk was 13.5 miles/21.7 kilometres and took 7.25 hours, passing through some quiet, spectacular countryside, although some of the far reaching views to the coast were spoilt by the haze.

Tenerife - A Walker's Paradise

Tenerife?, 'Why would you want to live there' asked my inquisitor incredulously. I smiled inwardly as I thought of the myriad reasons for living in my adopted island and replied simply, 'because the walking is fantastic'.  'Really, but I love green hills and forests' continued the female walker who was now warming to her subject, 'and the seasons', she added. 'So do I' I replied, 'I get all of those things and much more as well as a brilliant climate to enjoy it all in'. My inquisitor looked unsure and moved off to find another walker to quiz who wore sensible leather walking boots and lived somewhere, well, more 'normal'. 

This encounter actually took place while walking the Coast to Coast walk in the UK with my wife in 2017 but this type of reaction is not untypical when talking with many walkers who have swallowed the common misconception that Tenerife and the other Canary Islands are simply a place to go when you want some winter sun or to lie by a pool or beach all day. 

This idea is largely a British one however, the Germans and Scanadinavians have been hiking in the Canaries for decades but it has taken the British a lot longer to catch on. Tenerife is the largest of the islands, which are Spanish and therefore part of the EU. I first arrived here on a typical sun and sangria holiday in the mid-nineties and was instantly fascinated by the weird and wonderful landscapes. 

My first sight of the Las Cañadas National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, home to Mt. Teide, Spain's highest mountain and the third largest volcano on the planet, was nothing short of a revelation. My eyes popped as I tried to drink in the awesome otherwordliness of the place. 'I'm coming back next year to climb that', I said to my wife, and climb it I did. On a windy day, I climbed steeply through the harsh, volcanic terrain, puffing and blowing my way to the top in the ever thinning air as the sulphurous fumes assailed my nostrils. Eventually, I sat alone on the summit, like the king of the world, looking far, far below to the coast and into the twisted, contorted caldera that housed Spain's highest peak and decided I wanted to live in this awesome place. 

Since then, and having lived on the island for eleven years, I have explored all over the island and come to love the kaleidoscopic variety of terrain on offer to the walker. I doubt there can be anywhere else on the planet where so much is packed into such a small place. From the aforementioned Teide, the Las Cañadas National Park, at 17 kilometres in diameter, is one of the worlds largest calderas and is an awesome high altitude volcanic desert surrounded my stark, jagged mountains, the remains of a much larger volcano that collapsed leaving behind the giant caldera.

The rest of the island is a smorgasbord of walking terrains, from ancient laurel cloud forests of the beautiful Anaga and Teno ranges, to the Corona Forestal pine forests, dry semi-desert terrains, volcanic coastline, awesome ravines and pretty villages.  If you are familiar with the various micro-climates on the island, it is also possible most of the time, to select the weather you would like to walk in. Because of this, I hardly ever walk in heavy rain. 

I have encountered similar opinions to my inquisitor's many times, often accompanied by a 'sniffy', 'it's just Blackpool with sun, isn't it', type comment. Often, when I explain that there is nowhere in Tenerife as gauche as Blackpool and that it only takes minutes to escape the resorts and get into the real island, the reaction is usually a negative one. Once misconceptions are entrenched, it's difficult to change people minds. I've learnt to take this with a pinch of salt however. After all, a foreign visitor to the UK, having only visited Blackpool would go home with a similar opinion unaware that the Lake District lay just a few miles inland. It's just a shame that so many visitors to this fantastic island never venture beyond the confines of their 'Blackpool with sun' misconceptions. 

Climbing Montaña Blanca in Tenerife

A video of a recent walk to the summit of Montaña Blanca on the lower slopes of Teide, Spain´s highest mountain in the Las Cañadas National Park

 

Climbing Roque del Conde, Tenerife - the wrong way

Climbing the prominent Roque del Conde, a 1,000 metre mountain close to my home in south Tenerife 12/9/2018. I have climbed this many times before using the usual route from the town of Arona but for this hike, I went 'off piste' and climbed it from the south via a rough, rocky and pathless ridge.