canyon exploring with Michele Angileri

Fosso di Spina Santa

Monti Prenestini rise east of Rome like a bastion above Roma's flat. Though they are near the metropolis, they preserve a beautiful and wild natural environment, defended by a dense mediterranean bush. As years pass they become wilder, home of wild boars, because a lot of people has given up the works tied to mountain. So the ancient paths are being canceled by the bush.
The villages in Monti Prenestini are very nice, ancient, rich in historical evidences.

Some deep valleys going down Monti Prenestini are interesting to canyoneers.

The right days to go trhough Fosso di Spina Santa are in wet seasons. That's when its nice cascades have water falling down into deep nice pools.

I remember ...

The discover and exploration of the Fossi of Monti Prenestini is due to a group of local climbers, who were searching beautiful places to climb. They went through the typical open canyons of Monti Prenestini starting from the bottom, moving upwards, avoiding pools and wet waterfalls by climbing or exiting the canyon and re-entering beyond the obstacle. This way to go through a canyon can be easily done in Monti Prenestini, because here most canyons are dry even in winter, and because they are open canyons having many possible escape paths.

Fosso di Spina Santa was probably viewed by this way, but Spina Santa is not dry! They had to bypass some parts of the canyon.

We were surely the first to go trough the whole 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.

Copyright © 2002- Michele Angileri. All rights reserved.