cookieless, no-ads, no threats canyon exploring with
Michele Angileri

Vallone di Caprarizza

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The castle and the village of Brindisi Montagna overlook the Basento valley from the top of a fascinating and majestic cliff of conglomerate, silent witnesses of an ancient and complex history.

On the side of the cliff, Caprarizza creek dug over the millennia a canyon with special features, with a long sequence of slides and pools in rocky and solar environment.

Name	Vallone di Caprarizza
Area	Basilicata
Nearest village	Brindisi Montagna
Elevation loss	190 m
Length	1300 m
Highest cascade	17 m
Rock	Conglomerate
Rating	2
Shuttle	Possible
Explored by	Michele Angileri, Paolo Bracale, Giorgio Ecker, Patricia Mallia, Carla Minisci, Enrica Paoloni, Saverio Talerico; june 30 2018

I remember ...

Although canyoning has been practiced in Italy for about thirty years and has spread widely in the last 15, I have to say that people still do not understand what it is. And for "people" I also mean the practitioners: even those who are assiduous, even the most experienced have difficulty in distinguishing a canyoning route or understanding what "canyon exploring" is.

Canyoning: an outdoor activity consisting in walking along streams where the progression can not take place on the banks but necessarily in the bed. This may involve the need to get wet (and therefore wear a wet suit), climb on slippery boulders (and therefore wear suitable shoes), move at the foot of rocky walls (and therefore wear a helmet), overcome waterfalls (and therefore use ropes and harnesses ).
It's not hard to understand, is it? however, even today there are experienced canyoneers who say, for example, that at Raganello gorge (where one gets wet, climbs on slippery boulders in a gorge between high and landsliding walls and descends little falls preferably using rope and harness) people don't do canyoning ...

Canyon exploring: to go along a creek without walkable banks, never descended before by anyone, obtaining a description of the route and difficulties (number and height of the falls, number of pools, downclimbings, special difficulties such as syphons or landslides or caves, ...).
Here too an easy concept, but even here there are experts who call "exploration" or, worse, "descent", going next to a stream like Caprarizza and say that it is "uninteresting for canyoning" ... It's like calling "speleological exploration" to arrive at the entrance of an unknown cave and say "it is not interesting".

I can not predict if and when these simple concepts will be universally clear. But I can foresee that in the meantime I will continue to do canyoning, to explore new canyoning routes, to write about them.

Photos and video by Michele Angileri and Giorgio Ecker