canyon exploring with Michele Angileri

Riu Sa Pirighedda

The splendid Codula di Luna is among the main valleys of that part of Sardinia known as Supramonte. It is a wide limestone area. Rock is ancient, extraordinarily compact and white. There are so many pits and caverns, which drain all the water to the underground, leaving no flowing stream on the surface. Many deep rocky valleys and canyons cut the Supramonte, but water flows in them only in case of very heavy showers. The only settlements in this wide area are some isolated folds, far from the roads and now mostly abandoned. Supramonte is a harsh but majestically beautiful land.

The main faults of Supramonte are oriented north-south (as in whole southeastern Sardinia). So main valleys, as Codula di Luna, develop parallelly to coastline. Codula di Luna flows in the widest among Supramonte's faults, so wide that granite rocks surface. Waters can flow on granite rock, without being captured to the underground. So the first part of Codula di Luna and its tributaries have some permanent flow. Last part of Codula di Luna develops in limestone instead, and so it usually have no water flow. Its dry bed meanders at the bottom of a majestic canyon, till it reaches the sea. Its mouth is the famous splendid beach ofCala Luna.

In Sardinia man gave different names to different parts of the same stream or valley. The name for first part of Codula di Luna is Riu Sa Pirighedda. The stream flows quiet on granite terrain, meandering amidst rocks and lush mediterranean forest. Gotta hike a long to reach the only waterfall of this canyon, the one known as Pischina Oseli.

I remember ...

Riu Sa Pirighedda was the last stream still to be explored in Codula di Luna. A look from above (from the road to Teletottes) shows a tight meandering valley, as happens in granite canyons. However, topographic map was telling there was too few difference between starting and ending points' heights. I was in doubt ...

But this is canyon exploring: you don't know what is inside till you go through! There was no available information about Sa Pirighedda and (you know) few things attract me like an unknown canyon ... My friends were interested in this canyon, too, and so exploring could be done.

Now we know what awaits canyoneers in first part of Codula di Luna: a long hike with some pools and one only nice cascade!

Photos and video by Michele Angileri and Guido Biavati

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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