canyon exploring with Michele Angileri

Vallone delle Croci

News
Canyons by area

Lazio
Abruzzo
Umbria
Marche
Tuscany
Molise
Campania
Basilicata
Calabria
Sardegna

Guidebook: I canyon del Lazio (italian language)
Ultralight ropes canyoning technique
Which canyoning?
Home

By the confluence into Arso creek, Vallone delle Croci has a short and steep gorge, featuring a sequence of waterfalls and beautiful, unusually large pools carved in granite, surrounded by Mediterranean bush.

Name	Vallone delle Croci
Area	Calabria, Sila
Nearest village	San Morello
Elevation loss	50 m
Length	350 m
Highest cascade	20 m
Rock	Granite
Rating	3
Shuttle	No
Explored by	Saverio Talerico; June 20th 2018

I remember ...

One day Saverio telephoned me to ask for information on the Arso gorge, especially on the access routes that can be used to descend the gorge without a shuttle vehicle. Since in my only descent of the Arso (9 years earlier) I had a shuttle, I had no useful information for him.
After the phone call, however, I wanted to try to identify on Google Earth a possible route of Arso gorge not needing a shuttle. I found that the Google images were much more detailed than they were 9 years ago ... so I could see a sequence of large pools and (clearly) waterfalls on a tributary of the Arso, not visible in the previous satellite images. That was a canyon, short but intense: I thought it was worth go exploring it with Saverio as soon as I went back in Calabria again.

The day after Saverio published on Facebook the photos of the exploratory descent of Vallone delle Croci: he too had noticed the big pools on Google Earth and, being in the area and in constant search for new routes, he went there almost immediately!