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

Fiumarella Nocequadrato

In Calabria the mountains of Sila are different from the rest of Appennino. They have sweet shapes and forms covered by pine forests. The higher parts (1300 meters above sea level) are almost flat, and here pieces of the forest were cut to make space to farms an to artificial lakes made for hydroelectric purpose.
In Sila things are wide ... Granite that makes the heart of massif is degraded on its surface. So in Sila flat you see no rock walls or peaks, only hills that are the perfect home for pine forests. Granite ground isn't permeable, so many streams and rivers are born in Sila flat, rich in water. When they reach flat's border they begin going down steep, and dig deep harsh valleys that isolate the villages and lengthen the distances.
At flat's edge varoius rocks appear aside granite: metamorphic ercynic rocks, limestone, sandstone, pudding, gypsum, draw a multiple surprising landscape.

Fiumarella Nocequadrato digs a small canyon while descending into Fiume Lese. Not deep nor tight, however rope is needed many times to go through. Descent is perfect in wet season (october to may), when water falls down the cascades, and there are pools to be crossed by swimming. A pleasant canyoning trail through granite rock surrounded by mediterranean bush.

Name Fiumarella Nocequadrato
Area Calabria, Sila
Nearest village Cerenzia (Crotone)
Elevation loss 230 m
Length 2 km
Highest cascade 20 m
Rock granite
Rating3
Shuttle Indispensable
Explored by Michele Angileri, Giuseppe Antonini, Paola Santinelli; august 22 2006

 

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I remember ...

My friends Pino and Paola love the mountains of southern Italy. They come here as soon as they can. They would like to know everything about these places, and Pino is writing a book on canyons of southern Italy (the first ever written on this topic). But they come here with a sharp list of things to do: here today, tomorrow we'll go there for a canyon, then we'll move to that place to give a look to a couple of valleys, then ...
Is not easy for me opening a hole inside their program list to put in an exploration together ... but I get! The word "exploration" can seduce two explorers like them.

So here we are again, waiting today's late-comer. We don't worry, because the day is long, we are fast, and the canyon looks easy. We might have trouble in getting the river bed, because we don't know the right way, but once there all goes well and fast, with Pino downclimbing the dry waterfalls, Paola climbing to have nothing but her feet wet, and me placing bolts to descend waterfalls and having more than feet wet (it's hot in august here!).

Canyon is nice, but it would be beautiful in winter, when cascades have water falling down ...
I will be back here in winter: yes I will.

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