canyon exploring with Michele Angileri

Torrente Saracena (Valle della Canna)

In the northern part of calabrian Tyrrhenian coast, between the small plains at the mouths of rivers Lao and Noce, there are mountains rising high from the sea of Scalea and Praia a Mare. Here most streams are dry because the karst nature of the soil, but their beds are often rugged and beautiful, engraved in the rock or enclosed in narrows.
It 's the case of Torrente Saracena, which offers canyoneer a long, tiring and satisfying canyoning route which requires a lot of rappels and many many downclimbings.

I remember ...

When I explored this canyon it seemed easy to me and my partners: certainly it was easier than we expected given the difference in height and steepness. But when 8 years later I wanted to repeat it alone, with no partners, I derived a much different impression ...
I realized I really did not remember almost nothing of the canyon. In those 8 years, moreover, the stream had never been descended, and the hangers on the few anchors that we had put were all rusted and I had to replace them. The descent proved to be almost as challenging as the exploration, and I used almost all the bolts that I had with me.
In addition, unlike the exploratory descent, this time there were also a couple of pools and I had to wear my wetsuit (which I had prudently put in my backpack).

Moral: do not underestimate the Saracena 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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