3 Peaks - Canary Islands !!

[MOUNTAIN MAN]

I had been looking at this for the past 2 or 3 years after they introduced "cheap flights" to Tenerife. A team of 4 of us finally completed this little venture last week. The idea was to do a sea to summit - coast to coast route across the 3 islands of Gomera, La Palma and Tenerife. We completed it over 6 days covering 120 miles with 35000' asent using a mountain marathon type approach and bivvying out 2 nights. The islands are all volcanic with Mt Teide at 12000'+ the best known summit, although La Palma rising to 8000' is reputed to be the steepest in the world and actually provides the most interesting route - along the GR131.

I just wanted to see if there is enough interest out there to:

A. Make it worthwhile to do a brief article for Fellrunner - October?
B. Launch it as a challenge-cum-holiday to be done at any time - with certificates on offer for a donation/sponsorship to a charity, probably Wateraid as water is big influence in tackling the routes. Realistically few might be in a position to donate the time and expense for something like this but you never know!


Any comments would be appreciated!

[gyppo]

Great effort folks. 3 peaks though- fantastic.

Last time I was out in Tenerife I was planning to run North coast to South going over Teide but unfortunately (or fortunately) was struck down with some sort of lurgy for 6 of the 7 days I was out there so had only recced some of the lower descent to the south- it seems the lower slopes are more difficult to find an off road route.

I'd be very interested to see your choice of route, so a fellrunner article would be fantastic. Tenerife is very accessible so a single island challenge would be good (although 3 islands better).

Again well done. Hope to hear more details in the future.

[Bladerunner]

Mountain Man, if you've got the time and inclination definitely do an article for Fellrunner. Thats exactly the sort of piece I, and I'm sure many others, like to read. It'll be a great read in its own right but it also gives people ideas for holidays of their own. Cheers

[alwaysinjured]

Definitely publish, and see if you can get interest for a challenge too!

La palma is a fabulous volcano, the views are astounding: it is a lovely trail that goes round the top - I went from the col where the road crosses over mid island north of the cumbrae up to the telescopes.

Re the "cheap" issue though, the inter island flights were expensive when I did this. So an indication of how to island hop cheap would be useful too

[MOUNTAIN MAN]

Thanks for the feedback - I'll try and do a short piece for the October issue. In case I don't I hope the following is useful.

The quickest way to get round the 3 islands are the Fred Olsen express ferries from Los Cristionos. 45 min to Gomera and 2 hours to La Palma. Not cheap but the early morning and evening departures were ideal.

Getting a good traverse of Tenerife is difficult - we went from Puerto Cruz to Los Cristionos area but below 6000' it was mostly tarmac and dirt roads. There may be better routes but as none of us had been on the Canaries before we had to rely on routes suggested by guidebooks.

[daz h]

I had been looking at this for the past 2 or 3 years after they introduced "cheap flights" to Tenerife. A team of 4 of us finally completed this little venture last week. The idea was to do a sea to summit - coast to coast route across the 3 islands of Gomera, La Palma and Tenerife. We completed it over 6 days covering 120 miles with 35000' asent using a mountain marathon type approach and bivvying out 2 nights. The islands are all volcanic with Mt Teide at 12000'+ the best known summit, although La Palma rising to 8000' is reputed to be the steepest in the world and actually provides the most interesting route - along the GR131.

I just wanted to see if there is enough interest out there to:

A. Make it worthwhile to do a brief article for Fellrunner - October?
B. Launch it as a challenge-cum-holiday to be done at any time - with certificates on offer for a donation/sponsorship to a charity, probably Wateraid as water is big influence in tackling the routes. Realistically few might be in a position to donate the time and expense for something like this but you never know!


Any comments would be appreciated!

yes please do an article, teide is a fantastic mountain
did you still need a special pass to summit it , i did it in the early nineties with my dad and we had to go to the capital to get a special pass, otherwise you were stopped short of the summit

[MOUNTAIN MAN]

You still need a permit between about 9 and 4 but that was no problem as we arrived well after that - it took some 13 hours from sea-level! Initially we were planning to stay at the hut but found out it was closed when we enquired about the permit so we bivvyed further down - the sunrise next morning was one of the highlights of the trip!