Tenerife Training: Climbing Mount Teide

I decided before I got to Tenerife that I wanted to climb mount Teide. Mount Teide is the highest mountain in the whole of Spain and the third highest volcano on earth, at over 3700 Metres, oxygen around 40% less than at sea level at the summit. The basin from where you begin your ascent is already at almost 2300 Metres, and you are not allowed to climb the last 163 metres without a permit. So, that leaves just over 1200 Metres to play with. As I was preparing my Father decided that he wanted to join me. I did try to put him off with scare stories of altitude sickness, and being harder that climbing Ben Nevis in Scotland, and that it was only suitable for fit experienced hill walkers. Here is a 3D image grabbed from Google Earth.



However, he was not deterred and came along. It's a 60km drive gaining 2000 Metres to the basin. I had packed for both of us, knowing full well my father would not be prepared! I carried more weight than I ever had before. I didn't have my scales but it felt around 7kg; this included 3kg of water, so over time the weight did reduce. We called at the cable car station to enquire about using it to come down. However, to our dismay the last car back was at 4:50pm. This gave us only a 4 hour window to each the summit, which basically meant that at the pace we would be moving, no chance. It also reported the summit temperature being -3 (-22 wind chill) at the top. Considerably colder than we had anticipated or were dressed for. So, we settled for getting as far as we could in 3 hours, then we would turn about and descend. The start of the route begins at the road, by the signs for Montagne Blanca. The first 2.75 miles is on an easy wide path, than gains about 400m, very steadily. The landscape is awesome and looks very lunar-like as these shots show. That's my father in the frame incidentally.





Shortly before the easy paths ends, we hit snow drifts on one side of the mountain, as my father demonstrates.



By fortune, it was easy to navigate these as we continued on. I'd forgotten to say the wind was biting cold at times and neither of us had any windproof clothes with us in Tenerife. At no point did we really feel cold as we had a few layers of clothes on. This video was taken during the first hour as we headed along the nice steady ascent to the foot of the mountain proper.



Very abruptly at around 2.75 miles the nice path ends and suddenly turns incredibly steep. It had taken us just over at hour to cover that distance, but already we would tell our progress would get much slower. This shit illustrates that. The dark coloured earth is where it starts to get steep. We were heading to a point at the very centre of the picture.


I had let my father lead and set the pace for the day, as he doesn't have my fitness, although he did surprise me. I had visions of calling in mountain rescue for him before we started! He'd done very well up until the steep section, and then had to pause fairly often as we ascended the steep tight winding path. He was flagging a little until I revived him with some electrolyte and Enduroylye (electrolyte capsules). His muscle cramps disappeared quickly, and he stuck to drinking my electrolytes instead of the plain water. I also gave him my trekking poles to use for the remainder of the day. Progress improved immediately, as he took to using the poles like a seasoned professional. The following shots are good indicators of the terrain. You can also see the only item my father thought to pack for an expedition of this kind! In the shots looking down, we had climbed from the lowest point visible, off to the top right corner of the shot.





You get an idea of the terrain and views from the 3 mile mark video I took.



Our pace dropped from the 2.7mph to just over 1mph for the last 1/2 mile of steep climbing. We set ourselves a goal of reaching a pole that we could see before our return. It took us about 1 hour and 45 minutes of the steep climbing to reach what turned out to the mountain refuge at 3270 Metres, taking total walking time so far to 2 hours 50 minutes.

Here is some video I took from that viewpoint.



I left my father to take 5, and I continued climbing for the next 10 minutes. I really just wanted to see if I could get a photo of the summit and see how far away it was. However, almost immediately I hit snow, although I did clamber up for those 10 minutes before calling a halt. I took the next photo and video from that location. You get an idea of the steepness, although after that ridge the tough climbing is basically over and it's a steadier climb to the cable car station.





I took this shot just before I descended back down to my father at the Mountain refuge.



My father had only jeans and light gym shoes with no grip. We didn't have any suitable clothing for climbing those last 200 metres of altitude, and approximately 1 hour of traverse time, so we ate a little lunch and descended. As you can imagine, the descent was considerably faster. Using the poles my father descended very quickly, and we made it to the foot of the steep section in about 45 minutes, then took a further 40 minutes to reach the car. A descent like that is certainly hard on the knees, and I had an ibuprofen to keep any inflammation down, as I had give the poles to my father of course. Although the first section is less steep, you get an idea that there was still some effort required, especially given the conditions, from this photo.



I had sore knees for a little while afterwards, but all in all I felt good. We covered just over 8 miles in total. I had carried quite a lot of weight and felt fine. My New Balance 1000MDS shoes really performed well. Tons of grip and I didn't feel a rock or sharp stone through the soles all day. Lot of the early terrain looks similar to that of Morocco, so I know I have the right shoes for the job already.

I took a day off after that, before I did my next route. That is a story in itself. Lets just say it involves 19 miles, more metres of ascent and descent, and one of the most scary experiences of my life! I'll write it up tomorrow with photos and video.

Cliff-hanger or what?

Update: I made another Teide summit attempt in December 2007. read about it here.

...and another in 2009, read about it here.