La Palma, Volcano Route, Ruta de Los Volcanes

Absolutely spectacular and very, very black ashes on Cráter del Duraznero, formed in 1949

The Volcano Route, Ruta de los Volcanes, on beautiful La Palma, is one of the most famous hiking routes of the Canary Islands, the other equally famous one being the ascent of Teide. The latter can be done in various ways (1, 2) though, whereas the Volcano Route is singular, running along the crest of the island north to south. The path forks a little sometimes, but the signs always and unambiguously point to the main path.

I was planning to do it for a while, and decided to go now-now, while the weather is not too hot. Let it be said right away that it is very beautiful, very worth going, but needs reasonable physical form and some preparation.

Spectacular Caldera de Taburiente, the morning clouds are still floating inside

South of Gran Canaria, Andén del Zurrado in Barranco de Arguineguin ravine, circular route

If this pic gives you vertigo, don’t go

Well, I would like to start by expanding on the caption above. The main point of this hike, at least for me, was to see and walk a spectacular “Andén del Zurrado”, andén* being a pass or a path in a precipitous place, in this case with a strong emphasis on precipitous. There is no real danger, of which later, but if you have a fear of heights, it can get really tricky for you.

OK, warning done, back to the walk. A pic of Andén del Zurrado came up in Facebook and we started planning the walk immediately. The main problem of this walk is logistics, not the difficulty, once you are sure that everybody in your group can handle heights.

So, first problem, the transport. There is no public transport that come close to the start of the walk, at least I can’t find any. The nearest stop of Global is about 7 km out, so not a viable option.