Tenerife Day 4: Montana De Guajara & Roque Del Conde

I woke up and had one of my MDS camping breakfasts again, working on the assumption I could have a hard day ahead and hopefully climb Mount Teide itself. The weather up at the volcano looked fine. You could see the very tip of it from the apartment by the coast, just above the hills and mountains. I drove up to the national park through some low cloud and poor weather, but it cleared as I reached the plateau as I got above the clouds. However, as I reached the plateau I was shocked to see ice and snow all around me, some piled at the sides of the road. The mountains all around were tipped with ice and then Teide came into view.

This is the shot I took on Teide on day 1.



These I took that morning; note the snow.



The rain storm I had been caught in at 2000M had been a snow and ice-storm just a few hundred metres in altitude above me. I stopped at a viewpoint at the side of the road and told me ranger that I was thinking of climbing Teide, but was it possible? She told me that the path was closed, as it was completely covered in snow and ice. There was no one there to physically hold me back if I wanted to make an attempt, but obviously I wouldn't be trying. I was asking the locals and getting advice. So, it would appear that I do learn, even if it is only marginally faster than a pigeon.

I got back in the car and drove around to the foot of the mountain, stopping along the way to take a few photos. Although the sky was mostly clear, there were 'whiteouts' in some places and much reduced visibility. This photo was taken at the start of the Teide ascent path. Teide's tip is visible to the centre left.



This photo was taken a couple of hundred metres further down the road, looking out towards Las Canadas mountain range, which is of course not visible at all! It gives you a good idea of the conditions around the peak though.



So, I then started to drive back towards Las Canadas, which eventually emerged into view as I cleared one of these whiteouts. I'm not sure what meteorological phenomena was it play in this shot, but it looks pretty eh?



I stopped by the hotel that I been at two days earlier, The Parador (the only hotel in the national park), and asked if my items had been returned. They had not, and had not been before I left the island. I assume they are gone for ever. I took this photo of the hotel, with the highest mountain in Las Canadas in the background; Montana De Guajara.



Seeing this gave me an idea. The peak was around 2700M, one thousand metres less than Teide so there was less snow (at least from the angle of the photo). My guidebook showed two routes to the summit; a short one, almost going straight up, and one twice as long skirting around the left side and making a less steep approach. The authors had marked the short path as 'potentially dangerous', and that was without snow and ice. So, I thought I would try the long route. I set off alone the dirt road, which had a barrier across to prevent any cars going through.
My route is shown in red. The green cross is where I parked, the blue cross is the start of the ascent, the red cross is where I turned.



The dirt road wound it's way up and down, and around the mountain for 2.5 miles until the start of the easier summit path at that blue cross. I took a couple of photo's on the way round. This one shows the mountain above me in full sunlight and quite sheer so little snow shows.



This one just a rock formation, but shows some ice and snow on the dirt road. A definite thaw was taking place, but all the places in shadow were still quite frozen.



I reached the summit path, the difficulty level was shown as high, but it didn't in any way look technical just lengthy and steep in places. I was the first person that day (it was around midday at this stage) to attempt the path. I could tell because it was just fresh snow on the path, making it especially difficult to follow in places. I had to back track a number of times and no doubt confused the daylights out of people who followed later. The path zigzagged back and forth up he slope. After half an hours climbing I was around half way up the slope heading towards the first ridge when this bank of cloud came tumbling over the cliffs ahead and started bearing down on me.



This spooked me, after my experience on day 2, and I pretty quickly turned on my heels and descended. I pass a couple of German walkers on their way up behind me and they seemed not be at all bothered by it. By the time I reached the plateau again the cloud had cleared a little. Still I started walking back towards the car and then took the detour loop you see at the bottom of that map. I was intending to follow a set walk, but I forked left instead of right at one point, following someone’s footsteps. I assumed they knew where they were going, I was wrong. The person wandered aimlessly around obviously lost. I used my GPS to loop back round and back to the fork in the road. I could have then taken the right branch but instead I saw the cloud was much clearer over the mountain above, and I was convinced that the cloud I had seen was more or less just evaporation and not any kind of rain cloud so I headed back and set off up the ascent path again.

After 30 minutes I passed the point where I had turned and soon after approached the first ridge, but in doing so headed into deeper snow.




Once over the ridge I got a great vista of the Canadas range, and looked out accross a huge expanse of substantial but fairly harmless looking cloud that filled the valley the other side of the ridge.



The path skirted the valley and wound round towards the back of the mountain, positioning you to make a final summit approach from behind. In some places the snow had melted whilst in others it was still shaded and quite substantial.




I had set myself a time limit of stopping at 3pm and returning to ensure I made it back in daylight. I passed yet more German walkers who had also heard the warning about the ascent/descent on the other side of the mountain and were wisely returning the same route that I was using. They had decided to call it a day too. I weighed up my options and decided that I would walk until 2pm instead to be on the safe side (I was playing very cautious after my nightmare experience). I was up at 2500m at this stage and didn't want to get caught out up here. I turned sharp right and headed up the summit path. There were lots of snow drifts but mostly easy to skirt around. The climb was quite tiring even though I was down to under 10kg backpack weight now, but I pressed on until the stroke of 2pm. I judged that I still had at least another 30 minutes of climbing, maybe more, to summit and so stuck to my plan and turned heel to return. I was at around 2600M at this stage. I took a self portrait looking back the way I had come from.



I decided I would run all the way back where safe to do so. I found that my shoes offered quite a lot of grip in the snow surprisingly, and bounded down much quicker than I had anticipated. I ran back around to the top of the first ridge where I happened upon yet more German walkers, a younger couple this time. I got them to take a photo of me, with the volcano Teide as the backdrop.



This was a little lower at around 2500M. They spoke good English and asked if I was running. I said I walked up, but was running back down. "Respect!" the guy said. That made me quite happy. I said goodbye and trotted off back down the slope and headed down. I made much faster progress than I thought, descended in no time, ran back along the dirt road and was back at the car by 3pm! So, I had 3 hours of daylight left and still plenty of energy to waste. I headed down towards the coast on the Vilaflor road. I would usually avoid this road because it is winding and slow, opting for the faster road through Guia Des Isora. However, this was means to an end. I stopped near Vilaflor at the start of an official walk called the Pasaje Lunar (Moon Walk). I was told in the town that it would take anything between 4 and 8 hours to complete, so this was out for today but I put it on my list of things to do.

I headed further down towards the coast and stopped in Arona. There is a huge mountain that dominates the skyline on the Las Americas coast. It's called Roque Del Conde (Condor Rock), but known locally as Table Mountain.



I stopped off at a small car park and the sign on the board said 3.5km each way, 2 hours each way. By this time it was 4:30pm and the sun sets just after 6pm. There was a 450M net gain in altitude from 700 to 1150M, but the route actually drops into a ravine after the first kilometre before climbing back out, so probably more like 500M in total ascent. The approx route is shown below.



I had summit fever, and having missed the Guajara’s summit through self-caution, I felt I wanted to try for this one. Of course there was no way I would make it with a heavy backpack, so I took two small bottles of water and left my backpack in the car. I could now run properly at speed. The path after the ravine was the remains of a donkey trail used to farm agricultural terraces all over the slope. I took this shot of an old threshing circle just before main ascent.



The path was very rough and very steep in places, but with careful footwork, run-able. I ran up the mountain at a good pace, walking now and again for short times for recovery. I was against the clock and had given myself 45 minutes each way, meaning I should just make it back for 6pm. I pushed myself hard, scrambling on all fours in places and forced to walk in others where the path was just too tricky to run. I took a good shot of the path looking back, so you can see the kind of footwork required.



This shot was not in fact the summit, just a path past a large rock on the way, but it illustrates the angle of ascent. The donkey trail had vanished by now, and it was just a matter of scrambling and climbing to reach the summit.



Shortly before the summit I passed two people on the way down, German again. No surprise there! However these looked like random tourists. One had his shirt off, and the other looked like his dad. They said it was maybe 10 minutes to summit. I had just about enough minutes to spare I thought, if I was quick. I dashed past and ran or scrambled up the remaining area and hit the summit. Yay!

I literally took this one photo for proof and dashed straight back down. It had taken me 43 minutes exactly.



The descent was probably trickier than the ascent and I was certainly more tired after expending all my effort to reach the summit in time. The Germans were surprised to see me so soon "that was quick" one chirped. I left them to stroll down. There was no way they were making it before sunset. I ran down without incident, but took a few walking breaks meaning that the descent took me 38 minutes. Not a bad day’s work. After that summit I was tired and hungry and felt I had worked hard. I had another great meal that evening with my sister and went to bed, still with a vague hope of making an ascent on Teide before the week was out.