After a soggy run and a festive dip in Llyn Padarn on Christmas morning we started driving (no trains on Christmas day!) to London in preparation to catch an early train on Boxing Day, our destination the southern Italian island of Sicily. Our exit from the apocoliptic rain was just in the nick of time, hours after we drove along the A55 N.Wales coast expressway the road was closed due to being submerged by floods in places!
December 2015 was the wettest month since records began in North Wales, a sploshing 1000mm fell from the skies, almost double the previous record! An
extraordinarily wet and warm month or the
effects of climate change? Who knows? Pondering this thought as I boarded the Eurostar I took solace that we had chosen the lowest carbon form of transport* to our destination to luxuriate in the simple pleasure of warm sun and dry rock.
The train journey is Sicily is rather exciting, it’s possible to ride the train directly from mainland Italy to Sicily, that’s right THE TRAIN RIDES THE FERRY! After being super excited about this transportation trivia It turns out I was not excited enough to wake up at 3am on the outward journey to experience it! However on the return journey we did very much enjoy a glorious ferry train ride sunset up on the top deck.
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| Looking out at Mount Vesuvius wondering around Naples in between sleeper train connections (the hardship of train travel!) |
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| Train on a boat! |
When researching climbing possibilities in Sicily the first thing I realised was that Sicily is actually rather large; It would take over 8hrs to drive from one end of the island to the other! My research concluded that there’s good climbing to be had (in various states of development) all over the island, however the location with the highest concentration of high quality well developed climbing is in San Vito Lo Copo, a spit of land in the NW corner of the island. In the summer months San Vito is a top Sicily beach destination, however off season during the winter months when the temperatures are perfect from climbing (15 - 21 deg C during our visit) the area is a fantastic base for rock climbing. Our guidebook Sicily-Rock No5 by Gabro-Verlag showed a total of 980 routes (and some big multi pitch) between 4a-9a all within a walk or less than 20min drive from San Vito. We got the train to Palermo then hired a (tiny!) car for the 2hr drive to San Vito, even though many crags can be accessed on foot many of the best crags require a car and sometimes some off road driving commitment!
Most of the crag development of San Vito has happened in the last 10 years. Before visiting I had heard some horror stories of the wrong type of bolts being using and quickly rusting, however I’m happy to report the couple of crags effected (e.g. Lost Word) have been rebolted. For up to date info I highly recommend the
YMCA Climbing Shop / Cafe/ Bar, THE meeting point for climbers and mountain bikers in San Vito with great coffee, beer and free WiFi. Most of the climbing around San Vito is single pitch on top quality rock and tufas however there are several long multi pitch routes with much potential for development. Maybe understandably given the recently development nature of the climbing around San Vito the grades can be very variable between the crags.
Here are a few photo highlights from the trip:
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| San Vito Lo Copo |
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| Amy enjoying Via della Zanzare 6a+ on Capo Salinella in the golden hour, one of the crags only a short walk from the town |
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| Everyday scenes in Castellammare del Golfo |
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| Crown of Aragon - one of the best crags around, shame we only managed one day's climbing here |
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| The incredible Lost World crag, involved approach, adventurous, softly graded and totally amazing |
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| Me Gustas Tu a very soft amazing tufa 8a in the Lost Word |
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| Big sea day at Capo Salinella, bad climbing conditions but exciting waves! |
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| Schattenlinie 8a in on Salinella, much better than it looks, steep tufa adventure |
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| The long and pumpy Long sleep 6b+ on Never Sleeping Wall |
Here are routes we climbed from my UKC logbook, I tried to leave useful comments on some of them :-)
| Parole al Vento | 6c *** | AltLd O/S | Jon Leighton, Amy | | 10/Jan | Pizzo Monaco |
| Let There be Rock | 6b+ * | Lead O/S | Amy | | 09/Jan | Rocca Firriatio |
| Il Pandoro | 7a+ ** | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 09/Jan | Rocca Firriatio |
| Roof Rabbit | 8a ** | Lead RP | Jon Leighton | | 09/Jan | Rocca Firriatio |
| Per I Nostri Amici | 6b+ | Lead O/S | Amy | | 08/Jan | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| The Hole | 6c | Lead O/S | Amy | | 08/Jan | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Chr.is.to | 7c+ | Lead O/S | Amy | | 08/Jan | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Schattenlinie | 8a | Lead RP | Amy | | 08/Jan | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Stabilo Dave | 8a | Lead dog | Jon Leighton | | 05/Jan | Lost World |
| Me Gustas Tu | 8a | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 05/Jan | Lost World |
| Zoichn Reissen Oidnschmein | 7b+ | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 05/Jan | Lost World |
| No Name | 7a+ | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 05/Jan | Lost World |
| Walk the Line | 7b+ | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 03/Jan | Crown of Aragon |
| Mega Dave | 7c+ | Lead dnf | Jon Leighton | | 03/Jan | Crown of Aragon |
| All Cats are Black at Night | 7b | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 03/Jan | Crown of Aragon |
| Truffatore | 7b+ | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 03/Jan | Crown of Aragon |
| Sgamone | 7a+ *** | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 03/Jan | Crown of Aragon |
| Chiappotte | 6c *** | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 03/Jan | Crown of Aragon |
| Buon Natale | 6c | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 03/Jan | Crown of Aragon |
| Coast to Coast | 7a+ | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 02/Jan | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Banana Biologica | 7a+ | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 02/Jan | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Mal Di Shiena | 7c | Lead β | Jon Leighton | | 02/Jan | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Chr.is.to | 7c+ | Lead RP | Jon Leighton | | 02/Jan | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Toyo 17 | 6c | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 02/Jan | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Red Necks | 6b | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 02/Jan | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| ...Comes True | 7c+ | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 31/Dec/15 | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Red Pillar | 6c | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 31/Dec/15 | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Walk the Line | 7b+ | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 31/Dec/15 | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Pipeline | 7c | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 31/Dec/15 | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Red Peroni | 7a | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 31/Dec/15 | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Fratello Caldo | 7a+ | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton, Amy | | 30/Dec/15 | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Swissmade | 6c+ | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton, Amy | | 30/Dec/15 | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Il Minotauro | 7b | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton, Amy | | 30/Dec/15 | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| The Wish | 7c+ | Lead β | Jon Leighton, Amy | | 30/Dec/15 | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Blutbad | 6c | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton, Amy | | 30/Dec/15 | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Tears of Freedom | 7a+ *** | Lead | Jon Leighton, Amy | | 29/Dec/15 | Never Sleeping Wall |
| Evil Lurks Behind Every Man's Heart | 8a *** | Lead dnf | Jon Leighton, Amy | | 29/Dec/15 | Never Sleeping Wall |
| Conscious Change | 6b+ | Lead | Jon Leighton, Amy | | 29/Dec/15 | Never Sleeping Wall |
| Long Sleep | 6b+ ** | Lead | Jon Leighton, Amy | | 29/Dec/15 | Never Sleeping Wall |
| Enoteca Randazzo | 7b ** | Lead | Jon Leighton, Amy | | 29/Dec/15 | Never Sleeping Wall |
| Birdwatching | 7a+ | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 28/Dec/15 | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
| Bianca | 6c | Lead O/S | Jon Leighton | | 28/Dec/15 | San Vito lo Capo Salinella |
* Travelling via train emits 80-90% less carbon then flying [
http://www.seat61.com/CO2flights.htm]. The international 'safe' level of emissions per person is around 2T/yr to contain global temperature changes at or below 2 deg C which will 'hopefully' keep runaway climate change and subsequent rise in sea levels at bay. Return flight from London to Málaga will emit 2/3T of carbon per person. 6.5T to Auckland Australia or 2T to New York. [
Only Planet, Ed Gillespie 2014]
