UKC

Hi,

Myself and a few friends are planning a climbing holiday to Tenerife and looking for some advice on how to approach it if anyone has been before.

We've been climbing together for about a year (roughly now at 6a/6b grade), but all indoors on Top Rope, none of us have climbed outdoors before, nor currently know how to lead climbing.

We're trying to work out if there's any accessible top rope climbing in Tenerife or if we should book into a lead climbing course ahead of travelling out.

We are planning to do a half day guided session with a local climbing school on the first day to introduce us to the area.

Any help anyone can provide would be great

Thanks

Top roping options are generally pretty limited on sport crags as it doesn't tend to be easy to get up to anchors other than by climbing. A lot of sport climbs finish in the middle of nowhere. You will get a lot more out of a trip abroad if you can lead climb and lower off safely. So yes I would say book a course first - you run the risk of  frustration and getting very little done otherwise.

As said, its generally problematic to get to sport anchors from above. Even if you can get above them, you'll normally need to abseil off something natural to get over the edge.

Why not just learn to lead in the UK before you go? You can even teach yourself...

The majority of the sport routes in Tenerife are in deep gorges or up on the mountain side of Teide so making it all but impossible to set up top ropes without leading up first. There may be some crags but very few I think.

There are however lots of climbs I the 6a range so as others have said learn to lead and strip a route (threading the anchors etc) before heading out and you will have a much better time.

I would put the climbing in Tenerife as more of a beach holiday destination with the option of a few sport routes rather than purely a sport climbing destination. Though saying that climbing up on the mountain is like climbing on Mars!

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