canyon exploring with Michele Angileri

Fosso di Acquaro

At the end of Salto valley, a few kilometers from town of Rieti, there is an unusual canyoning place. The peculiar feature is pudding-rock in huge compact layers, giving landscape peculiar shapes and colors. Moreover pudding is also tender for water, so every little stream can dig a canyon. That's why we find a very high concentration of canyons here!

The name "Acquaro" means "water-bringer", but usually its flow-rate is equal to zero (I always asked myself for the reasons for giving such names to streams ...). When descending the Acquaro you might realize flow-rate is not the most important thing: white corridors, potholes and rappels can give you all the ingredients that make a beautiful canyoning day. But if you are so lucky to find some flow then you will probably change your mind: with some flow the nice Acquaro canyon becomes splendid!

I remember ...

I remember we started exploring much higher than the beginning of canyon (of course we didn't know neither where canyon's startpoint nor if there was any canyon in Acquaro valley). We found water flowing, and soon a 25 meters waterfall in bad rock. We rappelled it putting our rope around a backward tree. At the bottom valley opened amidst woods, and soon there was a confluence to the main Acquaro valley. Short after water was falling 7-8 meters down in a pool under a stone-arch: beautiful and unexpected!
After the arch (avoidable on left side) we went on in an open valley inside woods, doing some rappel, till the beginning of real Acquaro canyon ...

Photographs in this website show ultralight ropes (6 mm ropes made of high tenacity fibers). Read multimedia book Ultralight ropes canyoning technique to learn how to use them.

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