canyon exploring with Michele Angileri

Torrente Cerasia

The finest connoisseurs of Calabria have heard of the Cerasia Waterfall, and the most passionate hikers have seen it live. It is located in the Colognati valley, an impervious area far from the main communication routes. To get there you need an off-road vehicle, a walk, a bit of climbing on the slippery rocks of the stream ... but that's not enough: to see the waterfall you also need to go there at the right time, when the stream has water flowing. In rainy periods or at snowmelt the water jet can be very abundant and spectacular.
But Cerasia stream has more than the big waterfall: one of the most interesting canyoning routes of Sila range develops upstream.

I remember ...

The opportunity to finally see the Cerasia waterfall came as I went to the Colognati valley to carry out a reconnaissance of Sant'Onofrio waterfalls. It was a rainy period and all the streams in the area have plenty of water. I went up the Cerasia creek to waterfall's foot. The cascade turned out to be much more spectacular than I expected. Since that was a valley rather than a gorge, I tried to get to waterfall's edge and I managed it with no particular problems by going up the orographic right side. After looking out from waterfall's edge, I continued up along the stream but I stopped very soon: that seemed to me a typical Silan valley, with no canyoning interest apart from that big waterfall.

Years later Saverio Talerico began to systematically go through all the streams in the area, and thus he realized that in Cerasia valley there was not only the big fall ...

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